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Learning Outcomes Of Virtual Labs

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Learning Outcomes of Virtual Labs compared to Hands-On Labs With many schools experiencing budget issues or simply don’t have the room nor the ability to justify the extra expense of a science lab, many schools are looking online for virtual resources. The need to increase science literacy is almost a mandate from our dear president. This is a good thing, but the problem is people don’t want to spend money. NGSS demands more cognitive understanding of all sciences and engineering practices. Schools are looking to increase the level of science achievement of their students. Students generally found lab experiences valuable, and viewed lab experiences as beneficial to their learning. (Pyatt, 2012, p. 145) Definitions Technology and virtual …show more content…

A special version of an online class is called a “MOOC: massive open online courses that make university lectures available to tens of thousands of students at a time.” (Waldrop, 2013, para 1) These are free to any user, and as such, anybody can use them. In comparison, a hands-on lab is performed with physical manipulatives, with reusable or consumable items within a classroom setting. This includes any glassware, chemicals, animals, and measurement tools necessary. Hands-on labs refer to any activity that does not use a computer or other virtual environment to aid in performing the experiment or activity. Method A search of research articles was conducted through the resources and databases available through the Jerry Falwell Library online at Liberty University Online, physically located in Georgia. The most useful databases were Wiley, ProQuest, Springer, and ScienceDirect. The following key words were used to help narrow search results: virtual learning, virtual science labs, virtual labs high school, virtual lab comparison. The results gave several examples of peer-reviewed studies performed within middle school, high school, and basic college courses for the purpose of exploring the usefulness of virtual labs in biology, chemistry and physics classrooms. Since virtual labs are still a newer research topic within the last decade, there was no time frame limitations placed on

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