The main objective of the DigiPhysLab -project is to support physics departments around Europe in implementing high-quality digital laboratory work for distance learning. Laboratory work is an important part of physics education because it develop s students' critical thinking skills, problem solving skills, understanding of and proficiency with data analysis, teamwork and collaborative skills. There have been major concerns about students’ actual learning during the laboratories, becuase instead of creating active laboratory experiences for students many laboratory tasks involve cookbook-style experiments and students practicing low-level skills. Also, as the COVID-19 pandemic struck Europe, physics departments had to close down their campuses and transform student laboratory tasks to online, distance learning mode. Faculty had to come up with ways of enabling students to conduct some laboratory work.These changes were made usually ad hoc and consisted of e.g. providing the students with readymade datasets or watching videos recorded by faculty about collecting data. Using second hand data cannot replace the actual experiments and students consider their increase in experimental expertise with second hand data to be lower than with data they have collected on their own. Therefore, there is a need for new digital tasks for the laboratory courses and can be carried out from home and represent authentic laboratory work. The solution to this issue is to take advantage of the possibilities offered to us by modern digital technology. By using e.g. smartphones as experimental tools, laboratory experiments can be brought closer to authentic science.The built-in sensors enable students to collect their own data, to study phenomena in their everyday lives, and to perform data analysis with sufficient accuracy for teaching purposes. Other possibilities of digital technology include e.g. the possibility to use different computer simulations to collect data from home. The DigiPhysLab -project has the following practical objectives: -The production of a framework that outlines the different types and possibilities of digital laboratory tasks for distance learning can have. This framework is produced via a literature review of research on laboratory work and by studying the different laboratory works developed by the participating organizations during the COVID-19 period. The framework will showcase how digital technologies can be used to transform other traditional laboratory tasks to be conducted via distance learning and -The production and evaluation of 15 digital physics laboratory tasks for distance learning. These tasks will cover different physics topics (mechanics, optics etc.) and will provide examples of high-quality physics laboratory tasks that can be implemented by different physics departments. These tasks provide higher levels of authenticity and student activation than traditional cookbook style laboratory tasks which makes them suitable not just for times of pandemics and forced distance learning but also during normal times. Three organizations will participate into the DigiPhysLab-project: University of Jyväskylä, Finland (coordinator), University of Göttingen, Germany and University of Zagreb, Croatia. All the the participating organizations have been active developers of physics education at the university level. They have also been developing ways to use digital technology to its fullest to support physics education. The impact of the project will be the implementation of the produced tasks in the curricula of different educational organizations or usage of the framework to produce their own digital laboratory tasks for distance learning. The students who complete these tasks will have better technological and pedagogical competences and they will posess skills that are wanted by their future employers. the project will also support the development of the digital pedagogical competence of the faculty at physics departments around Europe.
Our objective was to support physics instructors around the world in implementing high-quality, experimental skills -focused lab tasks that are suitable for both in-campus and distance learning and that use the possibilites of modern digital technologies. This was to be achieved through three outputs: a set of 15 high-quality, experimental skills -focused lab tasks, a research-based framework for instructors who want to design new lab tasks and an evaluation instrument that can be used to evaluate individual lab tasks.
The DigiPhysLab -project stemmed from the disturbances to teaching caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. As campuses closed down, lecture-based teaching was moved to online format without major changes. But laboratory work, which is an essential part of physics education at the university-level, could not be moved online so easily. Many lab tasks relied on equipment only available on campuses. Ad hoc solutions such as using videorecordings of data collection etc. were used to retain some form of authenticity even when learning from home. The use of mobile phones etc. to conduct lab work was not new, but the COVID-19 pandemic really highlighted the need to collect and develop physics lab tasks that would use modern digital equipment and be suitable for distance learning. On top of the pandemic, recent reforms to physics lab work have called for a shift in focus. Instead of developing content knowledge (i.e. reinforcement of the lecture content), labs should focus on developing experimental skills such as experimental design and data analysis. There was a need for lab tasks that clearly focused on developing these experimental skills.