GSI Guidebook

Laboratory Safety

Portions adapted from Black, Gach, and Kotzian (1996) and edited by Jon Lillemoen, Laboratory Safety Coordinator (2012)

As an instructor, you have the responsibility to ensure a safe learning environment for you and your students. Laboratories present many more potential hazards than the conventional classroom, and it makes sense from everyone's standpoint to prepare for situations you will hopefully never have to handle.  The classroom situation is often unpredictable and you are expected to provide basic written safety precautions to your students.

Within the University of Michigan, the Department of Occupational Safety and Environmental Health, Laboratory Safety Section (734-647-1143) offers safety resources for University employees, including GSIs.  Laboratory safety guidelines are available that detail University policy on laboratory rules and maintenance, hazardous waste management, electrical safety, chemical spill procedures, and emergency and first-aid procedures (www.oseh.umich.edu).  OSEH also provides training in laboratory safety and right-to-know issues. OSEH's online training courses Chemical Laborotory Safety Training (BLS025w) and Bloodborn Pathogens Training (BLS101w) are a great start (http://www.oseh.umich.edu/training/mylinc.shtml). Read more »

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Strategies for Effective Teaching in the Laboratory Class

Adapted from Allen, O’Connell, Percha, Erickson,

Nord, Harper, Bialek & Nam (2009)

As a GSI you are transitioning from a student to an instructor, from someone whose responsibility was to learn in the lab class to someone who now helps others learn in the lab class. You will need to develop your own teaching style, your own way of interacting with students, and your own set of actions that determine the learning atmosphere of the classroom.  Use these do’s and don’ts to help you think about what you can do to be a successful new instructor:

Read more »
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The First Day of Class

Adapted from Black, Gach, and Kotzian (1996)

It is essential that you put in careful thought and planning for the first lab class. This is the time to set the tone for the rest of the term. It is a time for you to get acquainted with the students and for the students to get acquainted with you and each other. For instance, you may want to know students' majors, math background, computer expertise, and similar courses taken previously, including in high school. If both lecture and lab are not connected as one course, you will want to know which students are taking the lecture course concurrently. You could have students put this information on an index card.

If you plan to have the students work in groups it is important to form the groups and have some way for them to get acquainted with each other (see the web page Strategies for Developing Students’ Group Work Skills, http://www.crlt.umich.edu/gsis/P7_9 for more on using groups). The first day's experiment may be simple but require group members to work together so they begin to get to know each other as collaborators and resources in a learning context. Read more »

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Preparing to Run a Laboratory Class

Adapted from Allen et al. (2009) and Black et al. (1996)

This article describes what to do in advance to prepare for each lab class so that you can run the lab section effectively. These suggestions are meant to be applicable to laboratory classes in most disciplines. When in doubt about how to best support your laboratory class, check with your departments Graduate Student Mentor (GSM) or laboratory supervisor for more specific and detailed information.

Preparing for the Laboratory Class

Use this strategy list to think about your preparation for teaching in the laboratory class. It is a good idea to check with experience GSIs on these issues for each lab. Read more »

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Strategies for Effective Lesson Planning

Stiliana Milkova
Center for Research on Learning and Teaching

A lesson plan is the instructor’s road map of what students need to learn and how it will be done effectively during the class time. Before you plan your lesson, you will first need to identify the learning objectives for the class meeting.  Then, you can design appropriate learning activities and develop strategies to obtain feedback on student learning. A successful lesson plan addresses and integrates these three key components:

  • Objectives for student learning
  • Teaching/learning activities
  • Strategies to check student understanding

Specifying concrete objectives for student learning will help you determine the kinds of teaching and learning activities you will use in class, while those activities will define how you will check whether the learning objectives have been accomplished (see Fig. 1).

LessonPlan

Steps for Preparing a Lesson Plan

Below are six steps to guide you when you create your first lesson plans. Each step is accompanied by a set of questions meant to prompt reflection and aid you in designing your teaching and learning activities. Read more »

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