Abstract:

Laboratory classes are a fundamental part of the subject of Physics. During lab sessions, students have the chance to develop practical skills, explore methods used by scientists and mature their scientific reasoning. During the last few years, difficulties in following experimental protocols have emerged as significant reduction in the success rate of lab courses. To get the most of the lab classes and keep better track of the students’ progress, we implemented Google Keep checklists shared with the scholars. Selected students were enlisted in the first year of the Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Engineering and in Computational Mathematics at University Jaume I. Checklists consisted in bullet point summaries of the laboratory procedure expected to be followed during the session and the corresponding duties after it. In order to verify if this method had any benefit, students were divided into two groups, one was taught to use Google Keep while the other was set as a control group. The obtained results demonstrate that the use of checklists as a complementary teaching method is a good strategy to obtain a better understanding of the theoretical concepts explained during the class. Furthermore, it helps to develop experimental and data analysis skills and to practice collaborative problem solving, what has a positive impact on the success rate of the course.

Keywords:

Checklists, Google keep, Innovation, technology, laboratory.