Experiments

N. L. YAKOVLEV

Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, NUS

phyny@nus.edu.sg

Yakovlev, N. (2024). Opportunities from engaging students in hands-on learning [Poster presentation]. In Higher Education Conference in Singapore (HECS) 2024, 3 December, National University of Singapore. https://blog.nus.edu.sg/hecs/hecs2024-nlyakolev/

SUB-THEME

Opportunities from Engaging Communities

KEYWORDS

Experiments, hand-on learning, creativity

EXTENDED ABSTRACT

When a student comes to a professor to do a project (which can be within an FYP, or UROPS, or SRP, or SMP, or similar)¹, the professor asks: “Why did you choose my project?” The students would say: “I am fascinated with your science and would like to learn more.” Some professors would then give papers to the student saying: “Read this, so that you understand what you will do.” Other professors would suggest: “Try to do these experiments, so that you use your data to understand what you will read.” Which approach is more productive and—speaking about students—more instructive?

As an example, let us consider student “T”, who came to me in 2022 to do his final year project (FYP) entitled “Fundamentals of precision ellipsometry”. Ellipsometry is an analytical technique that uses polarised light to measure properties of ultra-thin films on reflective substrate. Precision ellipsometry (PREL) uses polarisation modulator, which makes it even more sensitive down to sub-nanometre range (Yakovlev, 2019). His aim was to quantify parameters, which are responsible for this high sensitivity.

At first, he did experiments on PREL made by me, then made his own modulator as a copy of mine. And when he experimented with his own modulator, he was excited to see its high sensitivity and asked me, why is it such. This is when I gave him a book with all the necessary formulae, and he readily did the relevant calculations. Imagine, if he had seen that math at the start of his project, he would consider it boring from the beginning.

Another example from the project of student “T” is measurement of the effect of refractive index of liquids used. Though it was possible to measure it in a standard device, I suggested that he use the available fluidic system similar to that described in Lau (2017). This engaged his creativity, and after several attempts, he came up with the design as in Figure 1. And again, he readily did relevant calculations using concepts from the physics curriculum.

Figure 1: Schematic of refractive index measurement (left) and the scale made by the student, placed on laboratory wall and showing the position of refracted laser beam.

Over last two decades, I supervised more than a hundred students doing experimental science. Within a broad area, where each student expressed interest, I let him/her start from trying various experiments. Then it becomes evident what is the student good at and what ignites his/her passion, so that this would be developed into a specific project. Feedback from the students and numerous awards that they obtain at student competitions show the advantages of this approach.

In guiding student projects, it is also a beneficial approach to supervise a team of students. For the professor, it certainly saves time, because introduction to the topic takes the same time as to one student, but two students can obtain twice more results. As for the students, they can practically help each other and those who understand first can explain to those who did not get the point. This process of explaining to others makes the knowledge more logical and it leaves a stronger impression in their memory. Every year, I take several teams of students from various colleges and observe how they exchange practical skills and conceptual ideas. They also learn to share equipment, working space and the supervisor’s time. By the end of the year, that all creates a team and eventually a community of future scientists.

In conclusion, the approach to “let the students do something, so that they understand what they read” appears to be engaging from the beginning of their laboratory practice and motivating them to learn through the course of their project.

ENDNOTE

The abbreviations stand for the following: Final-year project (FYP); Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme in Science (UROPS); Science Research Programme (SRP)

REFERENCES

Lau H.H., Murney R. et al. (2017). Protein-tannic acid multilayer films: A multifunctional material for microencapsulation of food-derived bioactives. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 505, 332-https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcis.2017.06.001

Yakovlev N. L., Kwek H. C., Dabrowski K. M. (2019). Kinetics of small molecule adsorption studied using precision ellipsometry. Surface and Interface Analysis, 51(7), 697-702. https://doi.org/10.1002/sia.6637