Labs: Stop Verifying and Start Investigating with Natasha Holmes

Natasha Holmes, Assistant Professor at Cornell University, studies teaching and learning in physics and other STEM courses, especially the efficacy of hands-on laboratory courses. She asks: How do we know what labs are achieving? And, what teaching methods improve outcomes? Today, she’ll share what we should stop trying to do in lab and what we might try instead.

Show notes at: www.physicsalive.com/lab

Selected articles authored and co-authored by Natasha Holmes

• 2021 – Best practice for instructional labs


• 2019 – Operationalizing the AAPT learning goals for lab


• 2018 – Intro Physics Labs: We Can Do Better


• 2018 – Value added or misattributed?


• 2013 – Teaching Assistant professional development by and for TAs

Links to other articles and resources mentioned in the episode

• Natasha’s PhysPort materials: Thinking Critically in Physics Labs


• Article on LED’s by Eugenia Etkina and Gorazd Planinsic (1st in series of 4)


• AAPT Recommendations for the Undergraduate Physics Laboratory Curriculum