Blended Learning in First Year Engineering Labs

In 2000, Queen’s Engineering adopted a new model for laboratory instruction to its common first year program. This involved moving from the traditional weekly physics and chemistry labs to a 12 week course on "Experimentation" - in which students learned how to design their own simple physics and chemistry experiments. Offered in a 12 week term, this course, called APSC100 Module 2, began with two shorter "tutorial labs" to introduce the key elements of experimental design then moved through a 6-week lab rotation where students practiced doing well-designed experiments, and finally culminated in a two week "Experimental Design Project". The authors dedicated the summer of 2017 to restructuring this course. Much of the core content was retained, however significant changes were made to pace, method of content delivery, and deliverables. Changes include:  An improvement in student preparation for the lab, through the introduction of on-line pre-lab content and quizzes, to be completed by students the night before their lab.  The elimination of post-lab homework.  A slower pace of introduction of early content – the original "2 tutorial lab" format was expanded to 4 tutorial labs  The introduction of "electronic lab templates". Templates include the lab instructions as well as blank boxes in which to include diagrams, Excel tables and figures, regression analysis, explanatory text and answers to questions.  A new Arduino-based altimeter lab introduces students to large variable data sets. This paper will review the changes to the course, and report on the outcome of these changes following two years of offering the course in the new format.