Virtual Labs to Support Living Environment REgents

This was initially intended as a resource for students attending Saturday school, to enable them to independently accumulate lab minutes during the Saturday Regents Prep Academy.  The state labs were the first set created, to make the learning experience meaningful, but also to support students’ preparation for the required Regent exam.  The target group remained the same, but I expanded from just Saturday students to students in class during the day. On revision days, students who still had not completed the 1200 minutes (20 hours) required by state law to sit for the Living Regent could work independently to complete state labs.

How did you measure success? 

Students who had been struggling to complete lab minutes because of attendance, who were able to meet the lab requirements. By this measure, this intervention on its own was not effective.  Our (Maker) students did not attend Saturday Academy on a regular basis to complete lab make-up.  Even with outreach phone calls to inform parents of this opportunity (and to explain the lab requirement for Science regents), only 1 Maker student attended Saturday school for labs.  This student was able to take the Regent (and wouldn’t have without the Saturday time). Three additional students used class time to independently work on labs. Two of these students were able to complete the lab requirement.  

Secondarily, I wanted to look at the Regents data-  did the focus on State labs (which were included on the exam) support students in being more successful on the exam.  The number of students was small, and only 1 of the 3 students passed with a score of 69.  

Teacher reflection: 

This was not a stand-alone intervention to address the problem of student attendance impacted students’ eligibility to take the Living Environment Regent because they were struggling to complete the 1200 minute (20 hour) state lab requirement.  In addition to the in-class lab time (1800-1900 in class lab minutes, depending on the section), there was WIN lab make-up and after school support. Of the 38 students struggling at the start of the semester, 13 were able to successfully complete the lab requirement, while 22 students were ineligible to sit for the regent.  In comparison, last year there were 11  students who were similarly ineligible.  

The materials did not address the structural issues of students’ attendance- I had been asked to add labs to Saturday academy to further support students.  The students who were not attending school during the week for the most part also did not attend Saturday academy.  

Next time, I would possibly use a playlist structure, to be able to reinforce directions, and have support materials clearly linked, as well as either an order of assignments or a choice board. Additionally,  add resources (videos, texts, notes, vocabulary) for students to deepen student learning, enable students to work independently in a self paced structure, and better prepare students for the exam.

The state labs will change, but I do think developing similar materials for next year would be beneficial.  I’m hoping to record myself completing the new required labs and creating similar slides, to be used in review and potentially lab makeup/WIN. Additionally, there is the potential to record students completing the lab during class, or using class data in the development of resources 

Student reflection:   

One student who came to Saturday school took her time and worked through the diffusion lab.  She had been worried she was working too slowly, but when I let her know that the assignments were designed to be self-paced, she continued to work for the entire session (2 hours, 45 min).