🚀 go-pugleaf

Regarding lab breakage:

  One of my great discoveries occurred when a couple of AP students
barged ahead in connecting the 6V filament on an electron beam tube to a
12V supply, even though the instructions and drawings were clear. The
$500 tube died immediately, of course. But the great discovery was this:
HOME OWNERS INSURANCE COVERED IT!

   Most breakage I ignore. Kids who blow fuses on ammeters (because they
connected them wrong) owe me $1, but I doubt that I could enforce that if
anyone challenged it.


Re: Kids messing with equipment:

  Kids do not mess with my stuff, or they have their hands cut off. I
have not cleared this rule with the administration, but I haven't had to
cut off too many hands.


Re: Giving 0s in lab

    I have not given kids a 0, but I have certainly removed certain kids
from the lab. One trick that I used with physical science students was to
remove them (send them to the principal not for discipline, but for
supervision) with an assignment from the book on defining words or
something terrible. They would usually agree that lab (and being with
their friends) was more fun, and they would shape up quickly. The only
grade punishment I have given is once or twice giving students Fs on a
lab for shooting their dart guns at a student not in our class (or at me!)


Re: Setting up equipment.

  I have had classrooms both ways--with kids sitting at lab tables even
during lectures and with lecture and lab sections separate (much better.)
But I have not had real problems with kids messing with the equipment
because I don't set the equipment out for a lab. I put all the equipment
on a setup table, and when lab starts they get their stuff and take it to
their lab table. They then put it up when they are through. I think a
major part of the lab experience is figuring out how parts go together,
which wire goes where, which way to turn the screw so that it tightens,
and all that. If I make it very clear where equipment is to be put, it is
usually in good shape for the next class.


Richard L. Taylor
J. J. Pearce H. S.
Richardson, TX  75080