meaning of speech laboratory

The Benefits Students Can Get from Speech Laboratories

There are several components necessary to master a language. It is not just about being able to read and understand certain words. It also entails mastery of the spoken language. There are language learners who learn how to read and write fast. However, if they are asked to talk, they could barely pronounce the words right. This is true especially in learning the English language. This is the reason why speech laboratories are essential.

Laboratories in schools might only be associated with science subjects. This serves as their workplace to experiment on specific subjects. However, this is also necessary for language learning. This provides an avenue for the students to improve the way they pronounce the words and be corrected by the teacher whenever necessary.

Types of Speech Laboratories

• Traditional/Conventional laboratory. This is the earliest form of language laboratory developed. It makes use of a recorder and cassette tapes to help language learners. The tape usually contains texts or stories read aloud by a native language speaker. There are also listening and speaking exercises that follow in each chapter.

• Modified Laboratory (Lingua Phone). This works just like the traditional laboratory, but headsets are already provided. They minimize the distraction caused when everyone listens directly to the same audio device. The use of the headset also removes unnecessary noise especially if everyone in the class pronounces the words at the same time for practice.

• Computer Assisted Language Laboratory. This is one of the most modern speech laboratories available today. The entire course module is already stored in the computer. There are also some courses that can be linked with the internet. With this strategy, students can enjoy more a variety of lessons for language learning. They can also practice different types of exercises to avoid boredom. Most of all, they can listen to different speakers when practicing the language. In fact, they can also learn grammar and other language skills with this modern laboratory.

Advantages of Using a Speech Laboratory

Being able to master a language, especially English, is important the moment students graduate from school. They need to speak the language for various purposes. This is why the presence of speech laboratories can be of great help. Here are some other advantages in using the speech lab:

• The lab is perfect for any type of language. For foreign language learning, it can also be used as long as the course materials are available. • It allows learners to pronounce certain words correctly. Small details like accent, stress and blending of words can also be corrected. • Not only primary students can learn from this laboratory. It is also designed for junior and senior executives who wish to improve their speaking proficiency. • Teachers and education specialists make use of the laboratory in creating technical materials and other important teaching materials. • English examination courses such as IELTS, which require speaking proficiency, can maximize the use of the laboratory to enhance students’ ability. • Kids and adults suffering from speech disorders can also use the laboratory to minimize the problems. • Since language learning in laboratories can be done privately and at their own pace, students who are shy or quite slow in learning the language, become more confident.

Though it costs a lot to build a speech laboratory, schools should still invest on it. At the end of the day, the advantages they can get from it outweigh the overall cost.

Bernadine Racoma

Bernadine Racoma is a senior content writer at Day Translations, a human translation services company. After her long stint as an international civil servant and traveling the world for 22 years, she has aggressively pursued her interest in writing and research. Like her poetry, she writes everything from the heart, and she treats each written piece a work of art. She loves dogs!

• Follow the Author

Alden M. Garcia

Thank you, this is a big help.

You’re welcome! 🙂

• Next Articles

Download our Free E-book and Learn about our Full Website Localization Process

Ready to Enhance Your Global Reach?

Need help with a large project, be the first to know when we have awesome discounts join our newsletter..

Plus, you’ll get exclusive tips, specific to your industry. We can't wait to connect!

As Featured In

Language Laboratory: Meaning and Benefits/Advantages

Contents in the Article

Meaning of language laboratory

A language laboratory is a dedicated space for foreign language learning where students access audio or audio-visual materials. They allow a teacher to listen to and manage student audio, which is delivered to individual students through headsets or in isolated ‘sound booths’. Language labs were common in schools and universities in the United States in the two decades following World War II They have now largely been replaced by self-access language learning centres, which may be called ‘language labs’.

Modern language labs are known by many names, digital language lab, multimedia language lab, language media center and multimedia learning center to name but a few. View the video and read the text below to learn more Modern language labs in general offer the following-

• Text, images, audio and video can easily be integrated; teachers can alter materials to fit their requirements.
• Learners can record their own voice and play back the recordings, interact with each other and the teacher, and store results.
• Teachers can intervene and control the learners’ computers via the teacher’s console, track of learners’ work, etc.
• Self-access for independent learning which includes access to resources outside class.

The purpose of a language lab is to involve students to actively participate in language learning exercises and get more practice than otherwise possible in a traditional classroom environment.

Advantages/ Benefits of Language laboratory

A language lab is practical-.

• Self-learning- The student progresses in a self-guided but structured and progressive training to achieve the goals and objective set by the school or educational body.
• Complimentary – Language labs allow students to reinforce material learned in class by putting them into practice through interactive activities.
• Monitoring and Evaluation- Teachers know the progress of each student and receive reports of strengths and weaknesses to better adapt the classroom activities.

Students learn much faster in the language lab-

The teacher takes on a more important role in the language lab-, use more resources and varied activities than in a traditional classroom-, language labs allow for diversity in the classroom-, labs foster communication in the classroom-, language labs are an intuitive tool for both the student and teacher-, language labs optimize computing resources-, important links.

• ECONOMIC IMPORTANCE OF SNAKES
• DIFFERENCES BETWEEN POISONOUS & NON-POISONOUS SNAKES
• National Parks & Wildlife Sanctuaries in India (with pictures)
• Snake Poisoning: Identification | Antivenin | Preventive Measures
• Four Effective Home Remedy for Cough-Cold and Congestion
• 10 Effective Home Remedies to Cure Dandruff permanently

Disclaimer: wandofknowledge.com is created only for the purpose of education and educational sector. For any queries, disclaimer is requested to kindly contact us. We assure you we will do our best. We do not support piracy. If in any way it violates the law or there is any problem, please mail us on [email protected]

About the author

Wand of Knowledge Team

Leave a comment x.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Language Lab: What it is and how it will improve your students' output

A language lab is an environment that enables all students to practice their listening and speaking skills concurrently. Students can work individually and/or collaborate with their classmates in pairs, small groups, and full-class settings. Teachers can listen, observe and interact with their students.

1. What is a language lab? 2. Anatomy of a modern language lab 3. Why use a language lab? 4. Example activities for language labs  5. Conclusion

1. What is a language lab?

Merriam-Webster offers this broad definition of the word laboratory :

A place providing opportunity for experimentation, observation, or practice in a field of study.

From a language laboratory perspective, the keyword in this definition is practice . The more a student practices, the more proficient and more fluent he or she becomes in the target language.

And while 20th-century language labs typically used a dedicated room or traditional classroom (e.g., place ), 21st-century digital language labs are more virtual in nature, employing technologies like WiFi, the cloud, tablets, smartphones, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

So, perhaps a good working definition of a modern language lab might be:

2. Anatomy of a modern language lab

Modern language labs – whether they are foreign language labs, world language labs, or second language labs (ESL labs) – typically include the following components:

TEACHER STATION – Teachers use a school-supplied computer-based workstation to manage language lab activities. The “computer” might be a simple laptop but it is often a desktop PC with a second monitor – used to display the language lab software console.

STUDENT STATIONS – Students can use any combination of school-supplied or personal: • Desktop or laptop computers • Tablets • Smartphones • Chromebooks

HEADSETS – Headsets help students focus on their own work by eliminating ambient room noises. Headsets also use noise-canceling directional microphones to ensure that students only record their own voices – and not those of neighboring students.

SERVER – A server is just a simple computer that hosts the language lab software and the database of multimedia assignments and student recordings and responses. The server can be hosted locally at the school or it can be entirely cloud-based.

NETWORK – Modern language lab software systems typically use the school’s data network to support communication and interaction among all participants. Networks can be wired or wireless (WiFi). Support for homework activities can also be extended across the Internet.

LANGUAGE LAB SOFTWARE – This is the software application that enables teachers and students to interact with one another. It includes a database of courses & classes and teacher & student participants, a library of multimedia lesson materials & assignments, and associated student responses & teacher feedback. This is the management system that integrates all of the component parts into a single learning platform.

3. Why use a language lab?

Additional benefits for teaching and learning include:

Benefits for teachers

a) Differentiation is made easy within the classroom You can split the class into multiple sections and assign self-access activities to some students, while you work with a small group that needs review or a further challenge. It’s also easy to assign different activities to different students so that everyone can work on what they need to improve.

b) Keep students on task You can record and listen in on conversations that students are having, as well as check their screens. While we would all like to believe that our students are there to learn the language, we also know how easily they can get distracted.

c) Simultaneous testing Most official tests, such as AP testing or language proficiency tests (TOEFL/IELTS/TOEIC) include speaking or listening components. With a language lab, your students can all take the test at the same time.

d) Engage and motivate your students Today’s students have grown up with the Internet, cell phones, and social media. Technology is comfortable and familiar to them and they are both engaged and motivated by using language learning technology.

Benefits for students

a) Motivation Any meaningful use of hands-on technology in a classroom motivates students to participate and learn.

b) Self-confidence Being able to practice pronunciation and receive instant feedback is one of the most valuable tools of a language lab. Students don’t need to be embarrassed anymore or worry about making mistakes in front of others.

c) Fluency The possibilities for conversation activities within a language lab are endless. And with each of those activities, students will practice meaningful and authentic conversations, hence work on their fluency on a daily basis.

d) Collaboration and partnering When working in groups or pairs, students can record their work and listen to it later. They are also able to get instant feedback from the teacher, who can listen to their conversations. For some students, being paired with another student over the computer/tablet/phone is less socially challenging and will motivate them to participate.

4. Example activities for language labs

Most language labs support a blend of self-access and live activities. Self-access activities are assigned to the class often for homework. Each student works individually from any Internet-enabled location at any time. Live activities require that the teacher and all students meet concurrently, typically in the same location – or at least connected to the same Local Area Network (LAN).

Self-Access Activities

Activity templates are provided for a broad range of reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities as well as quizzes and pronunciation.  These templates can be used for grammar and vocabulary, for assessment, and for self-evaluation.  Self-access activities are available 24/7 via an online resource known as the digital media library.

• Segmented audio recording
• Simultaneous audio recording
• Open video recording
• Simultaneous video recording
• Question and answer
• Multiple choice quizzes
• Fill-in-the-blanks quizzes

• Word Jumble
• Sentence Jumble
• Image match
• Category match
• Pronunciation – Listen and Speak

Pronunciation Activity

In the exercise shown below, students are given a set of phrases with which to work. By clicking on the Listen button, the student hears a model voice speak the selected phrase. By clicking on the Record button, the student can record himself speaking the same phrase.

The student’s recording is instantly forwarded to an Artificial Intelligence-enabled speech-recognition engine in the cloud. The student’s work is auto-graded by the software based on how well it matches the original.

This instant feedback is provided to the student when they are most receptive to receiving it and motivates them to immediately re-try the recording until they have achieved a good score.

Live Activities

Live activities include the following categories:

• Teacher or Model Student Presentation
• Pairing & Grouping (with recording)
• Live testing (with recording)
• Student monitoring
• Launch a self-access activity in class

Pairing Activity – Will you be free?

The teacher instructs all students to individually choose five of the following activities and put them anywhere on their schedule for next week:

• Go to sleep
• Take a shower
• Complete internship application
• Celebrate parents’ anniversary
• Attend a wedding
• Watch fireworks
• Watch the championship baseball game
• Volunteer with animals
• March in a parade
• Practice piano

Students are then given a scenario where they and their partner need to work on an essay, go to the movies, study for their final exam, and play soccer together next week. They must ask questions in the future tense to find out when their partner will be free.

If you are busy when your partner wants to meet, tell him/her what you’ll be doing at that time using the future conditional tense. When you find a time that’s free for both of you, add the activity to your schedule.

For example:

Partner 1: Will you be free on Thursday at 3:00 to work on our essay?

Partner 2: No, sorry, I’ll be marching in the parade. How about Monday at 9:00 a.m.?

Partner 1: I’ll be rock climbing. Will you be busy at 3:00 on Monday?

Partner 2: No, I’ll be free to work on our essay then.

5. Conclusion

Students are engaged and motivated when working in a familiar digital multimedia environment and therefore have a more positive learning experience.

The main benefit of a language lab is giving students more opportunities to practice their listening and speaking skills.  The language lab can increase practice time by a minimum of 10X.

A 21st-century language lab rarely has a dedicated room, as it builds on technologies like the Internet, WiFi, the cloud, tablets, smartphones, and BYOD (Bring Your Own Device).

Modern digital language labs provide a blend of self-access and live activities that enable students to practice individually, in pairs, in groups, and/or as an entire class.

The pronunciation activity uses AI-based speech recognition to auto-grade the student’s work.

Related Articles

Using technology to enhance student learning in language teaching

In today's digital age, technology is transforming the way students learn and teachers teach. With...

Foreign language learning in elementary schools

Do you have colleagues who have been using SmartClass or other technology in their foreign language...

Debate language for students

As language teachers, we are always trying to prepare our students for the real world and anything...

• Admissions Overview
• Undergraduate Admissions
• Graduate Degree Programs
• International Student Admissions
• Academics Overview
• Undergraduate Majors & Minors
• Graduate School
• Purdue Online Learning
• Tour Purdue’s Campus
• Research and Innovation Overview
• Research & Partnerships
• Corporate & Global Partnerships
• Purdue Research Foundation
• About Purdue
• Office of the President
• Commitment to Free Speech
• Student Life at Purdue
• Purdue Activity & Wellness
• Campus Inclusion
• Prospective Students
• Current Students
• Faculty and Staff
• Purdue Northwest
• Purdue Fort Wayne
• Purdue Global
• Purdue Online

Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Research

In Purdue’s Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences (SLHS), faculty and students collaborate to make discoveries that define cutting-edge clinical practice and advance basic scientific knowledge related to human communication.

Research Areas

Hearing science; hearing disorders.

Faculty who study hearing science and disorders in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences focus on a variety of topics, including computational modeling, hidden hearing loss, neurophysiology and electrophysiology, psychophysics and speech perception.

Language Science; Language Disorders and Disabilities

Researchers in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences study language science, disorders and disabilities to advance discovery across topics such as aphasia, autism spectrum disorder (ASD), language development, language disorders, linguistics and sign language.

Speech, Swallowing and Voice Science; Speech, Swallowing, Voice Disorders

To improve quality of life and help people communicate effectively, faculty in the Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences investigate dysphagia, fluency disorders, neurogenic problems, speech sound disorders, and voice disorders.

Center and Institutes/Laboratories

Accessible Precision Audiology Research Center (APARC)

Leveraging Purdue’s leadership in artificial intelligence, as well as the speech, language and hearing sciences, the goal of APARC is to develop better testing methods and improve hearing health and overall well-being for people living in central Indiana and beyond.

Michael Heinz

APARC website

Aphasia Brain Injury Communication and Cognition (ABC) Lab

The Aphasia Brain Injury Communication and Cognition (ABC) Lab studies the behavioral and neural factors that support the recovery of language and cognition in people who have aphasia and/or a traumatic brain injury. The lab conducts both basic and applied research studies with the goal of developing interventions for language comprehension and cognition.

Arianna LaCroix

Lab Website

Aphasia Research Laboratory

The Aphasia Research Laboratory focuses on how language processing is affected by aging and acquired neurological conditions (stroke, Parkinson’s disease) and identifies the factors that facilitate language recovery in individuals with aphasia. The findings provide insight into how language is stored and processed in the brain and aid in the development of intervention approaches for people with aphasia.

Attention and Neurodevelopmental Disorders (AtteND) Lab

The Attention and Neurodevelopmental Disorders Lab investigates attentional strengths and weaknesses in individuals who are at risk for or diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to identify new targets for intervention as well as improve current intervention strategies. This research provides insight into how attention affects the development of social and communicative abilities in typically developing children and children with ASD.

Brandon Keehn

Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory

When listening to speech in a noisy public place, most adults find it easier to understand the speaker if they can see the person’s face because facial movements can provide a great deal of information about speech content. However, this ability to use visual speech cues when the sound quality is poor is not present at birth and develops gradually in children. To better understand this, the Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory studies how and when children learn to use visual speech information and how their language development may be negatively affected if they fail to acquire this skill. We work with typically developing children and also with children who had delayed language acquisition.

Natalya Kaganovich

Auditory Electrophysiology Laboratory

The Auditory Electrophysiology Laboratory uses electrophysiological measures to understand the neural representation of complex sounds in normal and impaired ears at the brainstem and cortical levels and how these representations are shaped by experience. The long-term objective is to enhance the encoding of behaviorally relevant dimensions of sounds and determine their relative roles in the temporal structure of sound. We are also interested in evaluating the nature of the interplay between early sensory level processes and later cognitive levels of processing.

Ravi Krishnan

Auditory Neurophysiology and Modeling Lab

Research in the Auditory Neurophysiology and Modeling Laboratory involves the coordinated use of neurophysiology, psychoacoustics and computational modeling. This multidisciplinary approach provides a powerful framework to enhance our understanding of the effects of different types of sensorineural hearing loss on neural and perceptual responses to sound. This knowledge will be extremely valuable for developing diagnostic tests, evaluating the limitations of current hearing aids and suggesting novel strategies for hearing aids and cochlear implants.

Brain Research in Auditory Neuroscience (BRAiN) Lab

The BRAiN Lab investigates auditory perception and speech processing in adults with cochlear implants. The goal of this research is to better understand the individual differences in auditory perception that impact speech-recognition outcomes in cochlear implant recipients.

Maureen Shader

Child Language Research Laboratory

In the Child Language Research Laboratory, we study how children learn to produce and understand words and sentences. We are especially interested in discovering the reasons behind why children with language impairments experience difficulties — and finding ways to help these children overcome their language learning problems. Our studies also include children who are developing language without difficulty, so we can have a clear idea of the learning patterns associated with typical development.

Laurence B. Leonard

Child Phonology Laboratory

Research in the Child Phonology Laboratory investigates how monolingual and bilingual children learn to produce speech sounds with the goal of developing best practices for assessing and treating children with phonological disorders. In particular, we are interested in better understanding how the ability to perceive speech sounds affects the accurate production of speech.

Françoise Brosseau-Lapré

Cranial Sensorimotor Control and Neurodegeneration Lab – Schaser Research Group

The Schaser Research Group uses advanced imaging tools and an alpha-synuclein fibril seeding approach to study protein aggregation in a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease and Dementia with Lewy Bodies. We specialize in merging clinical issues, animal behavior, and exploration of pathology in the cranial sensorimotor system to characterize and treat voice, communication, and swallowing deficits related to neurodegeneration.

Allison Schaser

In the Purdue I-EaT Lab, we investigate the underlying mechanisms that control swallowing function and eating in adults and children with and without swallowing disorders (dysphagia). The primary studies involve patients with cerebral palsy, stroke and Parkinson’s disease. We aim to use this knowledge to develop and evaluate novel rehabilitative treatments that will be effective, accessible and adhered to by patients to improve their health and quality of life.

Georgia Malandraki

Language Learning and Meaning Acquisition (LLAMA) Lab

Because children have an exceptional ability to learn language, the LLAMA Lab explores the cognitive mechanisms that support this ability. Ongoing research topics include how children understand connections between word meanings, how general learning mechanisms and experience support speech comprehension and early markers of risk for poor language and reading outcomes.

Arielle Borovsky

Motor Speech Lab

The Motor Speech Lab covers a wide range of topics related to quality of life for older adults and individuals with Parkinson’s disease in an effort to treat the changes to speech and cognition that occur as a part of typical aging or as a result of aging-related diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease.

Psychoacoustics Lab

Research in the Psychoacoustics Lab focuses on behavioral measures of peripheral auditory processes in listeners with normal hearing and listeners with cochlear hearing impairment. We are particularly interested in studying dynamic adjustments in response to background noise and use models of auditory signal processing to connect behavior and physiology.

Elizabeth Strickland

Purdue Experimental Amplification Research (EAR) Lab

Research in the Experimental Amplification Research (EAR) Laboratory focuses on auditory processes that contribute to speech perception deficiencies in hearing-impaired listeners and hearing aid processing. Ongoing projects include work on frequency-lowering techniques, wide dynamic range compression and speech enhancement techniques.

Josh Alexander

Purdue Infant Speech Lab

The Purdue Infant Speech Lab explores how language comes to the child by focusing on whether measures of early speech perception, production and the input relate to later language in both typical development and in children at-risk for autism spectrum disorders.

Sign Language Research Lab

Research in the Sign Language Research Lab uses theoretical and experimental methods to investigate aspects of sign languages and their similarities and differences to spoken languages. Results from this research are applied to improving deaf education and the quality of life of members of the deaf community. Projects include experimental studies of sign language structure, perception and production. Our work incorporates online questionnaires, psycholinguistic methods, motion capture analysis and neurolinguistics, as well as collaboration with engineers toward automatic recognition of sign language.

Ronnie Wilbur

Speech Perception and Cognitive Effort (SPACE) Lab

The Speech Perception and Cognitive Effort Lab focuses on the contribution of cognitive mechanisms — such as working memory and selective attention — to understanding speech in difficult circumstances. For example, this could include a talker with an unfamiliar accent or the presence of competing sounds. We use behavioral and psychophysiological measures to assess speech understanding, cognitive effort and stress in younger and older adults (with and without hearing impairment) under a range of listening conditions. Results of this research provide insight into the cognitive foundations of spoken language understanding and contribute to improving methods for the assessment and treatment of hearing impairment in older listeners.

Alex Francis

Voice Lab — Sivasankar Research Group

The goal of the Sivasankar Research Group is to understand why some speakers experience voice disruptions related to prolonged speaking, aging, environmental exposures and disease. We utilize a multidisciplinary approach to understand the causes of voice problems in order to better prevent and treat this common communication disorder.

Preeti M. Sivasankar

Join Our Research Registry

SLHS researchers study how people of all ages hear, speak and understand language to advance our knowledge of how we communicate while also helping those who struggle in these areas.  

WHO CAN SIGN UP? Our studies include healthy adults and children of all ages as well as individuals with concerns or disorders affecting their ability to speak, hear, swallow or communicate. 

HOW DO I SIGN UP? Complete this linked questionnaire , where you will be asked to provide some basic information so we can contact you about eligible studies. By signing up for the registry, you are expressing your interest in learning more about research opportunities. When contacted, you can make a decision whether or not to participate. You can opt out at any time by emailing  [email protected]  or calling 765-494-4229.

Faculty by Research Area

Interdisciplinary training program in auditory neuroscience.

The Interdisciplinary Training Program in Auditory Neuroscience provides graduate student training and research experience to prepare students for independent research careers that can advance understanding of auditory system function using innovative tools and technologies. Graduates of this training program will develop creative solutions, devices and strategies to assist with and prevent hearing loss.

Communicative Disorders Training Program

The Communicative Disorders Training Program is designed to develop the research skills of clinicians and engage basic scientists in the study of communication disorders. Through this program, we can increase the proportion of PhD researchers who make substantive scientific contributions to knowledge of the causes, diagnosis and treatment of communication disorders.

• Copyright © 2024
• 480-596-0047

Table of Contents

What is a language lab: everything you need to know.

A language lab is a special type of environment equipped with audio and visual technology designed to help students learn a foreign language. It can include computers, microphones , headphones , video screens, and a variety of other equipment. 

Challenges in foreign language communication are solved with the help of a modern language lab, where students can turn their listening and conversation skills into something dynamic. 

Through individual or collaborative work between pairs, small groups, or entire classes, teachers have an extraordinary opportunity to observe student progress while engaging them directly through individualized instruction.

Language Lab Advantages

The language lab offers many advantages that can help students of all ages learn a new language more effectively. 

One of the main advantages is the ability to practice pronunciation and speaking in real-time. With a language lab, students can practice their pronunciation with native speakers and get feedback on their progress. This kind of personal interaction helps improve their fluency quickly and productively.

Another advantage of the language lab is the use of audio-visual materials. With these materials, students can better visualize the words they are learning, which helps them retain information more effectively than if they had to learn from a book or paper alone. The audio-visual materials also help to keep lessons engaging and entertaining, making it easier for students to stay motivated and focused.

Language labs offer students the opportunity to work collaboratively with each other. Working in groups allows students to discuss their progress and help each other learn more efficiently. This collaboration encourages critical thinking and problem-solving skills, which are invaluable for learning new languages.

Finally, language labs provide teachers with an effective way to monitor student progress. The teacher can easily track each student’s progress and give feedback on their performance. This helps ensure that all students are learning at the same pace and allows the teacher to customize lessons for individual students or groups if necessary.

The Components of Language Labs

Language labs are composed of a variety of components, including audio equipment , computers, software applications, and learning materials. The different components work together to enable language learners to practice a variety of skills in a simulated environment.

Audio equipment  

It is the most basic component of any language lab and it typically includes microphones , speakers, sound cards, amplifiers, and other devices. This audio equipment is used to capture, transmit and receive sounds for communication purposes. Complementing the audio equipment are computers, which are used to store and process information related to language learning.

Software applications 

They are also essential components of a language lab. These software applications provide learners with the tools and resources they need to develop language skills more effectively. Examples include grammar checkers, speech recognition tools, dictionaries, language learning games, and more.

Learning materials 

These components of language labs can include textbooks, workbooks, reading and listening materials, pronunciation guides, and digital flashcards. This type of material is typically used to supplement the audio instruction and software applications in the lab.

Experienced instructors

Finally, an instructor is necessary for a successful language lab experience. The instructor provides guidance and feedback to help learners maximize their language learning potential. The instructor also ensures that the language lab is running smoothly, provides assistance with technical issues, and helps keep students on track with their learning goals.

Modern Language Labs & Modern Teaching

Nowadays, teachers are utilizing modern language labs and other teaching strategies to engage students in their learning. By using technology-based practices, they can help create a more interactive environment for their students, making lessons more meaningful and enjoyable.

These practices include language lab activities, interactive activities such as online quizzes, and computer-based simulations. For example, in a language lab activity, students can practice their pronunciation or dialogues with one another using specialized software. This way, they learn more quickly and have fun while doing it.

Interactive activities like online quizzes are also becoming increasingly popular. 

Since they allow teachers to assess students’ understanding in real-time, and allow them to review their mistakes and adjust their learning strategies accordingly.

Key Takeaways 

Language learning is made easier with a conducive environment like the language lab. It facilitates numerous ways for students to hone their listening and speaking skills, be it through individual practice or by collaborating within pairs, small groups, and even full-class settings.

Suggested for You

The Silent Guide: Why Audio Touring Rocks

Boosting Conference Engagement With Hearing Assist

Untangling Legal Discussions With Interpreting Equipment

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get exclusive insights, offers, and new product updates delivered straight to your inbox.

• Taiden Products
• Williams Sound Products
• Bosch Products
• Listen Technologies Products
• Tour Guide (Portable) Systems
• Group Assistive Listening Systems
• Simultaneous Translation Equipment

Customer Service

• Privacy Policy
• Shipping and Return Policy
• Terms and Conditions

Here you will find information about Stanford's Laboratory of Speech Neuroscience, run by Prof. Laura Gwilliams

The Gwilliams Laboratory of Speech Neuroscience (GLySN Lab) is located in the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute of Stanford University. We bring together insight from Psychology, Neuroscience, Machine Learning, Linguistics and Medicine in order to understand the neural underpinnings of speech comprehension. Drawing upon different areas of expertise fosters rich and innovative reasoning, expands and advances analytical approaches, and promotes parsimonious explanations that satisfy multiple angles of constraint. We believe that breakthroughs in language research will be borne from the intentional coalition across these scientific disciplines.

How does the brain transform sound into meaning?

This is the big question that guides our research at the Laboratory of Speech Neuroscience. We believe that by identifying the neural  representations , operations , and  information flow , it will be possible to uncover the computational architecture that supports speech processing in the human brain.

Language is central to human life. Although using language feels like an automatic and effortless process, the brain needs to overcome significant computational challenges to successfully listen, understand, and verbally respond. Our lab aims to uncover the ‘neural algorithm’ that supports this complex linguistic behavior – that is, to identify what neural representations and cognitive operations the brain employs to achieve successful speaking and listening. Language is a central pillar of intelligence, and discovering its fundamental algorithmic underpinnings provides a window into the complexities of the human mind and its capacity for communication, reasoning, logic, and understanding.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

All scientific spaces, and all scientific topics, should be accessible to all. We still face a huge discrepancy in the individuals who have the resources and opportunities and representation to even consider academia as a viable career. Change needs to be intentional, and it needs to happen at every opportunity and career stage.

Get Involved

Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute 450 Jane Stanford Way Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305

email: laura-dot-gwilliams-at-stanford.edu  

The accessibility content below is required by University Communications for all large units at Stanford:

Web Accessibility

Stanford University is committed to providing an online environment that is accessible to everyone, including individuals with disabilities. 

Having trouble accessing any of this content due to a disability?  Learn more about accessibility at Stanford and report accessibility issues 

• Headphones for Schools
• Download Product Catalog
• Customer cases
• Become a reseller

Language Lab

Benefits and effectiveness of language labs in language teaching.

More about us

A question has frequently been posed on whether there is any evidence or research on the effectiveness and benefits of language labs in language teaching and learning. In this blog post we are going to have a deeper look on the benefits and effectiveness of modern language labs in language learning.

Before we continue further it seems important to define the meaning of language labs of today. A language laboratory is a dedicated space for foreign language teaching where students access audio or audio-visual materials in a real-time teacher-led teaching event such as a language class or exam. Modern language labs are usually computer classrooms or virtual environments where the computers run a special language lab software meant for language teaching such as Sanako Study or Sanako Connect for example.

Language labs are a part of the school’s information and communications technology (ICT) environment

Apparently, modern language labs are an inseparable component of the school ICT environment. After all, most of them require computers and a LAN network or access to the Internet. They promote the use of digital learning resources and integrate computer-specific features such as databases, chat, video/audio streaming or instant messaging.

All this is infused with audio communication which is mainly delivered via headsets, and teacher control capabilities (monitor, intercom, remote screen control, etc.) Thus, when we think of modern language labs, often referred to as multimedia language classrooms, language centres or suites, or digital language labs, we should not separate them from the ICT infrastructure in a school.

We need to look at language labs and their benefits through the prism of ICT, and when we ponder upon their effectiveness in language teaching and learning we have to consider both the benefits of a computer classroom setting as well as the benefits of the language lab communication facilities (pair, group discussion, intercom, telephone dialing, monitoring, etc.). 

In our opinion, modern language labs are at least as effective as ICT is effective in teaching in general. In fact, there has been some research on the effectiveness of ICT in language teaching and the results suggest that the schools that implement ICT in Foreign Language Learning (FLL) get better results in teaching than those that do not.

So, what are the specific benefits of language labs in language teaching?

To return to the question posed at the beginning of this paper, I am fond of an answer given by  Graham Davies  who wrote in the LinguaNet forum on the effectiveness of ICT: 

“ Did anyone ever ask how effective the book is in teaching foreign languages? Did anyone ever ask how effective the blackboard is in teaching foreign languages? Did anyone ever ask how effective the tape recorder is in teaching foreign languages? My personal view is that computers are just another aid and their effectiveness depend on how teachers use them, i.e. in the same way as the book, the blackboard and the tape recorder depend on how teachers use them.”

“The right question to ask is: How effective are teachers at using ICT in language teaching? No resource, however good, will deliver successful learning outcomes is used inappropriately. It is not what ICT can do, but what you can do with ICT .” 

In the case of modern language labs it can be translated to the following statement:  language labs are really  effective when used appropriately by language teachers.  And to use a wide range of language labs’ facilities in an appropriate manner, teachers must be prepared to invest their time in training, class preparation, and using new teaching methodologies methodologies. 

Even though Davies’ approach seems to be a correct one, one just cannot finish a debate with the sole opinion that the effectiveness of labs depends on how they are used by teachers.

What particular benefits have language teachers experienced when using language labs or language teaching software?

Below we have collected 13 different benefits of language labs, some of them “straight from the horse’s mouth” i.e. as told by language lab users and language teachers, with a hope that they will explain better the effectiveness of the language lab functionalities (communication and modes of learning) rather than the advantages of a PC lab.

The primary argument for the usefulness of modern language lab is, “ there’ s no other classroom setting in which 30-some students can speak  and converse at the same time without distracting others. “

In a normal class of 30 students, 29 are idle when one student is speaking. In a language lab every student can practise aloud simultaneously. Therefore, the language lab is an ideal setting for speaking and conversation practice.

Dr. Duncan Charters , Professor, Language Department in the LLTI forum expressed:

“ I regularly pair students up in the classroom for conversation  practice. But noticed that they are more excited about it when we do this in the language lab. “

1# Language lab creates a change into the normal class routine:  A change in the typical class pace and routine creates excitement and motivates students.

2# Language lab increases the options to focus on verbal tasks:  A lot of face-to-face communication is non-verbal. When practicing the target language in a lab situation, you can focus on the verbal task without other distractions.

3# Language lab helps students to focus on assignment:  Students tend to stay on task more. Rather than lapsing into a native language or kidding with their friends when the teacher isn’t right next to them. 

4# Helps teachers to deliver individualised teaching:  The teacher can monitor students at any time without their knowledge. They can intervene and correct without other students being aware of or disturbed. The teacher can spend more time with those in need without others noticing.

5# Language lab can be a less intimidating environment:  Students seem much less intimidated knowing that other people aren’t watching them or eavesdropping and hearing their mistakes. So they tend to speak more freely. Students, especially middle-high school, can be very conscious of how they look and sound to their group peers in a group. 

6# Increases students’ excitement and interest towards language learning:  It’s fun not knowing who your new partner is, so the practice of greeting questions happens naturally where it wouldn’t make sense in face-to-face classwork. It keeps the interest and anticipation high. 

7# Reduces the distraction in the class:  The constant “buzz” of everyone talking in a class situation makes it harder for students to focus on what their partner is saying and understand it. Especially when they are struggling to express themselves and respond to questions and statements. There’s little distraction with headsets, even less where there’s some isolation between student positions.

8# It is easy to contact and talk with everyone in the class:  By switching pairs, all students can talk to other students in the class without constantly moving themselves or their chairs around. They stay in touch with everyone in the class and can get information quickly from each one if doing a survey or checking on others’ reactions.

9# language lab increases the time spent on speaking practice:  The language lab setting gives all the students in the class possibilities to speak at the same time and yet be audibly isolated from one another. Speaking simultaneously, rather than one at a time, vastly increases the time of students’ speaking practice. In a normal 50-minute long classroom session with 16 students, speaking one at a time gives each student an average 2 to 3 minutes to perform. Whereas the simultaneous practice in the lab allows the students to speak for 30 to 40 minutes, if necessary, thus substantially increasing the time of practice and learning.

10# Creates equal opportunities for all to see and hear:  In the language lab environment, all students have equal opportunities to hear the materials they study at a volume level they set according to their individual needs and listening comfort. Similarly, no matter where they are seated in the lab, they can all view the video materials conveniently on their PC screens, rather than gaze at what’s happening on a screen in front of the room. This is especially distracting and inconvenient for the students sitting at the back of the classroom or short-sighted ones. 

11# Emphasis on individual learning:  Another very important benefit of the modern language lab is that it allows for the individualisation of learning processes. The students can listen to audio programmes or watch video clips at their pace. And as long as it takes for each of them to master the material under study. In addition, the manipulation of a learning resource, i.e. digital audio or video files like instant playback, or access to a given part of the material, is a very fast and less tedious activity. Indeed, a digital environment does speed up the learning process as progressing with the materials is much faster as compared to analogue technologies i.e. fast forward, rewind, recap – all done in a split of a second.

12# Increases the variety of tasks available for groups or pairs:  In addition, the individualisation process can also take place on a pair or group level. The students can be divided into several pairs (random pairing being especially popular). Or groups and work with different programmes and different tasks. While the teacher can focus his attention on the individual student’s performance without interrupting the work of the pair/group. The teacher can review each pair’s/group’s recorded discussion or interaction at a later stage.

13# Creates the comfort of privacy:  One cannot ignore a well-documented fact the language lab creates a comfortable feeling of privacy which helps many students, especially the shy ones, lose their inhibitions when talking in front of other students. The language lab setting with headsets encourages them to overcome shyness and speak without fear of embarrassment when they make mistakes.

If language teachers need capabilities of interconnectivity between students to set up and manage pair or group work, seamless integration of various features and the ability to control students’ work,  then the modern language lab is an effective and powerful system to do so.

Are you considering to purchase a language lab software for your school or university? Book a FREE demo  and learn more about Sanako’s suite of language lab software solutions.

Block "feature-request-pop-up" not found

Become a partner

• Solutions expand_more
• > The Role of Language Lab in Schools

The Role of Language Lab in Schools

Introduction

Language is the cornerstone of communication, and mastering it is essential for success in an interconnected world. In this digital age, where communication knows no boundaries, the role of language labs in schools has become increasingly crucial. A language laboratory, often referred to as a language lab, is a dedicated space equipped with audio-visual tools designed to facilitate language learning in an immersive and interactive environment. The best way to learn something is to experience it firsthand. The idea of having experiential education opportunities is one that has been emphasized countless times over the years and is now considered one of the most vital parts of the entire edifice of education. One of the main factors that promote the idea of experiential learning is the use of laboratories. Laboratories are special academic spaces in the form of rooms or even entire buildings where scientific experiments related to a researcher or simply students in their own area of interest can be conducted. This may be done with the intention of throwing light upon a particular subject or understanding the subject matter better. Therefore, there is no argument that laboratories are an essential element of an educational institution’s system - and this extends to all subjects. STEM subjects tend to have elaborate laboratory systems and related equipment in abundance with detailed lab manuals guiding students through what they have to do. However, there is also a lesser known yet very important laboratory that needs to be present in a school - a language laboratory, or language lab for short.

What is Language Lab

Language labs offer a myriad of benefits that traditional classroom settings often struggle to provide. These labs provide students with the opportunity to hone their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in a controlled and technologically enriched environment. The audio-visual aids allow students to hear and mimic native speakers, helping them develop accurate pronunciation and intonation. This immersive experience enhances their language acquisition journey.

Advantages of Having Language Laboratory

One of the key advantages of language labs is the individualized learning they offer. Students can progress at their own pace, replaying audio clips or practicing pronunciation until they feel confident. This personalized approach caters to various learning styles and abilities, ensuring that no student is left behind. Additionally, language labs can simulate real-world scenarios, such as business meetings or casual conversations, providing a practical edge to language learning.

Collaboration and communication are also fostered in language labs. Interactive exercises and group activities create an environment where students can engage in dialogues, debates, and role plays, encouraging meaningful interactions. This collaborative learning develops not only language skills but also interpersonal skills, boosting students' self-confidence.

Furthermore, language labs transcend the limitations of physical distance. With the integration of digital platforms, schools can offer remote language learning opportunities, enabling students to access language labs from anywhere. This flexibility accommodates diverse schedules and external commitments.

However, while language labs are undeniably advantageous, they are most effective when integrated thoughtfully into the curriculum. Educators should design activities that align with specific learning objectives, ensuring that the technology serves a purpose rather than being a mere novelty.

What is Language Lab?

A language lab is an educational space that is specifically designed for students to learn a language through audio, visual, or a mixture of both media. Even though it is extensively used to introduce students to or aid in the study of foreign languages, a language lab can also help students understand the application of the English language as well. It is in this respect that such labs are used in lower to middle-income countries where the students’ first language is not English. It is essentially a computer lab that is equipped with the necessary software required to teach students the particular language to be taught.

Components of a Language Lab

A language lab, as mentioned above, is typically modeled like a computer lab. The general layout of the room is such that it contains individual computer systems for each student, with each student provided with a computer system that is preloaded with the classes that need to be taken. Each student will also be given a headset with a microphone as well to improve the quality of the class and to give them a fully immersive experience. A language lab can be broadly classified into three major functional units as described below:

Cubicle or Hearing Booth

The hearing booth is the part of the language lab where the students are seated. Each student is generally provided with a soundproof compartment known as the cubicle. Each cubicle is connected to the instructor's booth which is known as the console. The cubicle is provided with all the necessary tools required for them to have a smooth and uninterrupted learning experience.

Console or Instructor’s Booth

The instructor’s booth, also known as the console, is (as the name suggests) the place where the instructor or teacher will be seated. It is from the console that the instructor or teacher provides them with the master tapes and monitors the equipment for two-way communication. Distribution switches will also be present in the console to direct the recorded programs for the learners. The console also contains monitoring switches that enable the instructor to listen to the learners, correct, advise and evaluate them; as well as intercom switches for active two-way communication between them and each individual learner.

The Control Room

The control room is where all the tapes and related course materials are stored. It may be stored in the form of a central server computer or in the form of hard drives, CDs, flash drives, and so on. All these are properly indexed and stored so that they are easily accessible at any time.

Benefits of Having a Language Lab in School

There are several benefits of conducting language lab classes in school, some of which are given below:

Better Focus on Lessons

In a traditional classroom, in the presence of all the students, the dynamics of the classroom are such that there is great scope for distraction. However, when it comes to a language lab, each individual student is given a system and a headset, which means that they can focus on the lesson effectively.

A Change in Environment

It is no secret that a change in the physical environment of a classroom can have a massive impact on the comprehensive ability of a student. Language labs are often in a different part of the school and hence physically changing their classroom and the mode of teaching (audio visual) can have a net positive impact on the way in which students comprehend their lessons.

Guide Students Individually

Not all students have the same learning ability, as different students prefer different learning styles. In a traditional classroom environment, the teacher may find it difficult to bring all the students up to speed on the lesson but in the case of a language lab lesson, the teacher or instructor is given the opportunity to guide each student individually, hence giving them the opportunity to teach them according to their preferred learning style.

Feels Less Intimidating to Students

Some students might feel insecure when learning a new language or even improving their English skills because they might feel like their peers might be judgemental towards them. This problem is easily overcome by language lab lessons because it provides students with privacy and a sense of privacy when learning, which makes them feel less intimidated and subsequently more confident.

Makes the Process of Learning Fun & Interesting

This is one of the most exciting parts of conducting language lab sessions in that the process of learning becomes interactive, as a result of which the entire learning process becomes fun and interesting. The students can follow the lessons through the audiovisual format and recite along with the class to bring in a sense of belonging in the classroom.

Suggested Read - Making Maths Fun & Interesting - Tips for Maths Teachers

So in short, language labs are quite useful in the sense that they allow students to engage with the class actively and hence feel more confident about their lessons. Learning languages, whether it is English or regional , is an essential part of a student’s academic life and it is essential that they have a holistic understanding and experience when learning as well.

In conclusion, the role of language labs in schools is indispensable in shaping competent and confident language speakers. These labs offer a dynamic and immersive learning environment that complements traditional teaching methods. By fostering individualized learning, encouraging collaboration, and leveraging technology, language labs empower students to embark on a journey of effective communication in an increasingly interconnected world. As education continues to evolve, the language lab stands as a testament to the power of innovation in enhancing learning outcomes.

Teachmint is one of the leading education infrastructure providers in the country. With our advanced learning management system , you can improve the teaching-learning experience. Our offerings like education erp , admission management system, fee management system, and others conveniently digitize educational institutions.

Learn more about Teachmint plans here.

• DOI: 10.5539/ELT.V10N2P86
• Corpus ID: 56399791

The Role of Language Laboratory in English Language Learning Settings.

• Abdelaziz Mohammed
• Published 11 January 2017
• Education, Linguistics
• English Language Teaching

Figures and Tables from this paper

8 Citations

The role of the language laboratory in learning english as a second language in a university context with reference to sri lanka, language laboratory to overcome the barrier of classroom english learning: does it exist and is it used in islamic schools of majene, the lack of the english lab and its effects on students’ listening skills: the case of the second-year students from english departments in kinshasa, evaluation of the effect of english language laboratory instruction on students’ performance in consonant sounds in colleges of education in nigeria, language laboratory: communication skills, importance of language laboratory in developing language skills, modernizing the language laboratory: physical place to online space, adequacy of laboratory facilities for effective implementation of competence-based curriculum in public secondary schools in arumeru district, tanzania, 24 references, the effectiveness of using english lab on english language students ` pronunciation at mu ` tah university from the students ' perspectives, technology in the service of foreign language learning: the case of the language laboratory, the purpose and legislative history of the foreign language titles in the national defense education act, 1958, the evolution of american educational technology, a primer of programmed instruction in foreign language teaching, studies in modern language teaching : report prepared for the modern foreign language study and the canadian committee on modern languages.

• Highly Influential

Immediate Repetitive Playback/ Record

Language laboratories, origins of the language laboratory, related papers.

Showing 1 through 3 of 0 Related Papers

Speech Outlining, Organization, and Delivery

• Speech Outlining and Organization

Speech Delivery

Speech outlining and organization.

The 5 Most Important Components

• For example: To inform my audience about the parks in Boston’s Emerald necklace. To persuade my audience that Boston is better than New York.
• Central Idea : Can you sum up your speech in one sentence? That’s your central idea/thesis.
• Main Points : Usually 2–4 that reflect the central idea. Sub-points and sub-sub points should support them. Continue to add sub-points as necessary and then transition into the next point.
• Transitions : Plan your transitions in advance and separate from the body. This helps the flow of your speech and keeps the audience engaged as they hear you moving from thought to thought.
• Informative:  topical, chronological, spatial, causal
• Persuasive:  Monroe’s Motivated Sequence, problem solution, problem-case-solution, comparative advantages

5 Types of Informative Speeches

• Process : How to do something
• Object : Tangible thing such as an item or structure, even people or animals
• Concept : The most abstract type, including theories and beliefs
• Events : Includes anything that happens, not restricted to typical holidays or commemorations
• People/Places : Either/or!

Informative Organization

4 Ways to Organize Informative Speeches:

• Changing the type and organizational pattern allows the material to be extended and adapted for different audiences.
• Chronological : In order of time or sequence
• Topical : By sub-topics of the larger topic
• Spatial : Show relationships, proximity, direction
• Causal : Show cause and effect

Types of Speech Persuasion

Three questions to ask:

• Example: To persuade my audience that recess helps students learn in the classroom.
• Example: To persuade my audience that eliminating recess is unfair to students and teachers.
• Example: To persuade my audience that eliminating recess is unfair to students and teachers.  

Persuasion Organization

Questions of Fact and Value are usually organized topically, but there are four patterns of organization to organize a speech on the Question of Policy:

• Problem/Solution : Two main points
• Problem-Cause-Solution : Three main points. Use when the audience needs to know the cause of the problem in order to be persuaded that your solution is the best.
• Comparative Advantages : Compare solutions to the problem and persuade the audience that yours is the best course of action.
• Monroe’s Motivated Sequence : A five-step process where each step builds on the one before it to move the audience to action - attention, need, satisfaction, visualization, action. Often more narrative oriented.

4 Steps to Speech Organization

Do you have a great idea for your speech, but aren’t sure how to execute it? Use this handy guide to organize your thoughts into something that’s presentation-ready.

• Attention-getter
• Credibility
• Topic reveal
• Preview of main points
• Full sentence transition if not included in preview
• Name and explain your main point
• Use supporting evidence to back up your main point
• Use sub-points to strengthen your argument as necessary
• End with a full sentence transition to link to your main point
• Rinse and repeat! You need between two and five points to support your speech, so use the guide above and apply it to your concepts 
• Tips : When it comes to sub-points, use as many as necessary to best support your argument. You may need more or less depending on the subject. Remember the rule of three!
• The conclusion should be 5% of your total presentation
• Summarize the main points of your speech
• End with a memorable closing!

Speech Delivery Basics

See the speech delivery basics as outlined below:

• Pitch : the highs and lows of your voice
• Rate : how fast or slow you speak
• Loudness : volume, projection & emphasis
• Quality : improve upon your natural voice
• Check that you are pronouncing unfamiliar words correctly. If a word is still challenging after you practice it, replace it with a word you are more comfortable with. 
• Speak clearly and enunciate your words.
• Stance : Your posture affects your credibility. Stand or sit straight with shoulders back, your back straight and feet apart on the floor and a hips-width apart. Make sure your tailbone is tucked and your stomach is in. This stance gives you confidence and breath control. Don’t slouch!
• Gestures : Practice your speech out loud to see what your hands do while you talk. If you don’t like to talk with your hands, hold notecards, a presentation clicker, or interact with visuals. Be natural!
• Countenance : Use your facial expressions to communicate and elicit the response you want from your audience. Your expressions must match your tone!
• Eye Contact : Scan the room, stop briefly to make direct eye contact with audience members when needed. Look at your audience, not above them!
• Appearance : Dress appropriately for the audience and occasion. Plan ahead and look sharp!
• Paralanguage : Paralanguage is the way you deliver your words, also known as tone. For more info, see vocal variety above. Remember the four factors of voice!

Using Imagery In Your Speech

Use concrete words people can picture. Show, don’t tell!

• “A Republic whose history, like the path of just, is as the shinning light that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” — William Jennings Bryan
• “With this faith, we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.” — Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• “And I can pledge our nation to a goal: when we see that wounded traveler on the road to Jericho, we will not pass to the other side” — George W. Bush
• “Once again, the heart of America is heavy. The spirit of America weeps for a tragedy that denies the very meaning of our land.” — Lyndon Baines Johnson

Using Rhythm in Your Speech

• “And that government of the people, by the people, for the people , shall not perish from this earth. —Abraham Lincoln
• “ We are a people in a quandary about the present. We are a people in search of our future. We are a people in search of a national community.” —Barbara Jordan
• “And our nation itself is testimony to the love our veterans have had for it and for us. All of which America stands is safe today because brave men and women have been the f irst to f ace the f ire at f reedom’s f ront. —Ronald Reagan
• “As he said many times, in many parts of the nation, to those he touched and those who sought to touch him : ‘ Some men see things as they are and say why, I dream things that never were and say why not .’”. —Edward M. Kennedy  

4 Types of Speech Transitions

• “Now that we’ve established that a problem exists, let’s discuss solutions.”
• “In order to better understand the problem, let’s explore the two main areas of the problem: emotional and financial.”
• “Now that we understand how the problem is affecting us both financially and emotionally, we can turn to some solutions.”
• “First, let’s discuss the financial situation.”

Use these words to build transitions!

• Contrast and examples : Although, including, except, if, yet, as long as, for example, unless, in the cast of, these include, such as, for instance
• Specificity and emphasis : In particular, especially, firstly, secondly, lastly, otherwise, unlike, within, apart from, despite, because, so
• Elaboration : Therefore, consequently, in other words, on the contrary, alternatively, as long as, comparing, obviously clearly, as well as, moreover, too
• Conclusion : In addition, furthermore, already, afterwards, next time, inside, to finish, as a result, to sum up, in conclusion, now that, finally

How to Beat Speech Anxiety

• It’s okay to make mistakes! Learning to accept errors in your presentation will alleviate stress.
• Being an expert on your subject will increase confidence and calm your nerves.
• Push out negativity and imagine doing a great job on your speech. Visualize your success!
• Performing light exercise before your presentation can relieve stress. 
• Try rhythmic breathing for stress relief. Breathe in for 4 seconds, hold your breath for 7 and exhale for 8 seconds. 
• Eat several hours before your speech. Don’t skip a meal or eat right before you present. 
• Dress appropriately and comfortably for your speech. Looking your best will improve your confidence.
• Using good posture will help you look and feel more confident. 
• Prepare the non-verbal aspects of your presentation. Practicing the physical elements of your speech will help you feel more confident on presentation day. 
• Try stretching exercises before your speech to loosen tension and help you relax.
• For Current Students
• For Parents
• For Faculty
• For the Media

Our lab was founded in Winter 2015 by Professors Lorenzo García-Amaya and Nicholas Henriksen , two faculty members in the Department of Romance Languages & Literatures at the University of Michigan. We also collaborate with colleagues in the Departments of Linguistics , Psychology , and the Institute for Social Research .

Our research focuses on multiple areas of linguistic analysis, including sociophonetics, second language acquisition, sound change, psycholinguistics, and study abroad , among others. We have collected speech data from multiple varieties throughout the Spanish-speaking world, including north-central (Castilian) Spanish, Andalusian Spanish , Buenos Aires Spanish, Patagonian Spanish , Peruvian Spanish, and Chicago US Spanish. We often collaborate with multiple teams of undergraduate research assistants, through opportunities such as UROP , work-study , independent studies , and honors theses . Our graduate student collaborators come from multiple units within Michigan's College of the Literature, Sciences, and the Arts . Our publications appear in journals in phonetic sciences, laboratory phonology, language acquisition, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, in addition to multiple public (non-academic) venues.

Collaboratory publishes in Inside Higher Ed !

The Africa-to-Patagonia Collaboratory team published an article entitled Collaboration transcending crisis in Insider Higher Ed. The article offers a critical view into the meaning of collaboration in the undergraduate experience, and is a deep reflection into the power of undergraduate engagement and harnessing collective wisdom. The ideas presented in the article derive from years of intense collaboration on the project " From Africa to Patagonia: Voices of Displacement ", funded by Michigan's Humanities Collaboratory. The four student authors who spearheaded the essay are Ian K. Cook (Spanish, 2018), Ella Deaton (Spanish, 2017), Ellie Johandes (Spanish, expected 2021), and Kelly Kendro (Spanish & Italian, 2019). The remaining authors are their research mentors: Nick Henriksen, Paulina Alberto, Andries Coetzee, Lorenzo García-Amaya, Victoria Langland, Ana Silva, and Ryan Szpiech.

Lorenzo García-Amaya wins the Golden Apple Award!

Congratulations to Lorenzo García-Amaya, who is the 2020 winner of Michigan's Golden Apple Award, the highest student-selected award for faculty who show a strong commitment to undergraduate teaching. Lorenzo was in the middle of the Speech Production Lab’s first virtual meeting on March 19, 2020, when Kyle Riebock and Emily McCann, the co-presidents of the Golden Apple committee, appeared on screen and presented the award to him. You can read more about the award here , and watch the video presentation here . You can also view his 2020 Golden Apple Award Lecture that took place October 16th here .

Nine SPL members publish about their seminar on Andalusian Spanish!

Nine SPL members published the article entitled " Socially Distant Yet Intellectually Close ", which reflects on their experiences after having taken Spanish 487 with Nick Henriksen Spring 2020. The course was an interdisciplinary sociolinguistics seminar entitled "Do you speak Andalusian?", and their essay synthesizes some strategies for reimagining pedagogy in a remote-teaching context. The authors are now collaborating on a continuation of their research and hope to publish their findings in a top journal in Linguistics. Many congrats to the nine Spanish majors who authored this collaborative essay: Zoe Phillips, Amber Galvano, Ellie Maly, Jessica Czapla, Natalie Dakki, Sarah Khansa, Vidhya Premkumar, Stepan Topouzian, & Tommy Wiaduck.

Featured project

From africa to patagonia: voices of displacement.

Humanities Collaboratory, Hatcher Graduate Library 913 S University Ave, Ann Arbor, MI 48109

Get in touch

Email our principal investigators for inquiries.

Lorenzo García-Amaya

Nicholas Henriksen

@um.speech.lab Follow us on Instagram

Black Lives Matter

The SPL fully supports the Black Lives Matter movement and absolutely rejects racism, inequality of opportunity, hatred, and cruelty. We are firm in our commitment to anti-racist beliefs and standing up against injustice. We encourage everyone to register to vote, educate yourself, call your representatives, sign petitions, donate, or help in whatever ways you can. Here are some good places to start: https://blacklivesmatters.carrd.co/ and https://www.naacp.org/about-us/ . The University of Michigan's Museum of Art (UMMA) has also compiled an impressive list of resources to bring awareness to anti-racist issues, which can be accessed here: https://umma.umich.edu/blm .

• Utility Menu

Department of Linguistics

Meaning & modality lab.

Welcome to the Meaning and Modality (M&M) Laboratory at Harvard Linguistics! We are interested in understanding the uniquely human capacity for language, especially the ability to convey abstract, infinite, specific meanings across the multiple modalities for natural language, including but not limited to speech and sign. Our work spans the subfields of formal semantics, pragmatics, syntax, language acquisition, logic and psycholinguistics in an effort to understand the relationship between linguistic meaning, language mode, language development, and human cognition.

• Harvard Graduate Students in Linguistics (HGSL)
• Department Writing Fellow
• Meaning & Modality Lab
• Journal of East Asian Linguistics
• Useful Links

• More from M-W
• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

Definition of laboratory

Examples of laboratory in a sentence.

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'laboratory.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

Medieval Latin laboratorium , from Latin laborare to labor, from labor

1592, in the meaning defined at sense 1a

Phrases Containing laboratory

• lab / laboratory rat
• laboratory test
• language laboratory

Dictionary Entries Near laboratory

laboratorial

laboratory school

Cite this Entry

“Laboratory.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/laboratory. Accessed 12 Sep. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of laboratory, medical definition, medical definition of laboratory, more from merriam-webster on laboratory.

Nglish: Translation of laboratory for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of laboratory for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about laboratory

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

Plural and possessive names: a guide, 31 useful rhetorical devices, more commonly misspelled words, absent letters that are heard anyway, how to use accents and diacritical marks, popular in wordplay, 8 words for lesser-known musical instruments, it's a scorcher words for the summer heat, 7 shakespearean insults to make life more interesting, 10 words from taylor swift songs (merriam's version), 9 superb owl words, games & quizzes.

• Utility Menu

Meaning & Modality Linguistics Laboratory

Director kathryn davidson.

• Linguistics@Harvard

Welcome to the lab!

Welcome to the Meaning and Modality (M&M) Laboratory at Harvard Linguistics! We are interested in understanding the incredible human capacity for language, especially the ability to convey abstract, infinite, specific meanings across the multiple modalities for natural language, including both speech and sign. Our work spans the subfields of formal semantics, pragmatics, syntax, language acquisition, logic and psycholinguistics in an effort to understand the relationship between linguistic meaning, language mode, language development, and human cognition, with special focus on cross-linguistic experimental semantic studies.

(Lab meeting, October 2023)

Latest News

Ankana, hayley, yagmur, and kate give talks at elm.

Dr. Yuhan Zhang!

Hande at Chicago Linguistic Society

Our 5th year graduate student  Hande Sevgi   presented a talk on "Two-handed classifiers in sign languages: an investigation in Turkish Sign Language" at the Chicago Linguistic Society April 26-28. Here is Hande with fellow Harvard Linguists (Tanya Bondarenko and Jacob Kodner) at the beautiful U Chicago campus!

Kate awarded the Everett Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award by GSAS!

If you've ever had the chance to work with Kate, you'd know she's a truly exceptional mentor. And now, it's official. Kate has won the 2024 Everett I. Mendelsohn Excellence in Mentoring Award!

What is this award? Well, this award is a big deal because it's all about recognizing outstanding mentors like Kate. Every year, students nominate faculty members who go above and beyond to support them. There were 77, yes SEVENTY-SEVEN, faculty members who got nominated this year, and our wonderful Kate was among the seven winners. Congratulations!

Kate, your win isn't just about a fancy title—it's about the countless lives you've positively impacted. Thank you for being such an incredible mentor! Thank you for your academic and emotional support! We're lucky to have you.

(We will have more photos :D)

Lab members attend the LSA in NYC

M&M at Sinn & Bedeutung

This year Sinn & Bedeutung (SuB 28) at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB) from September 5-8, 2023, with several lab members and alums participating. Natasha Thalluri  and  Kathryn Davidson  presented their paper "Degrees and depiction - Gradability in sign languages", Anatasia Tsilia  and  Kathryn Davidson  presented their paper "Effects of iconicity and monocity on licensing complement anaphora", and  Yağmur Sağ presented their paper "Cardinality and (in)definiteness. Our former graduate student and lab member Dorothy Ahn presented their work "Deriving (anti-)uniquness in definite expressions" as an invited speaker.

Iconicity workshop at the LSA Summer Institute at UMass

Commencement 2023

Harvard at SALT

This year Semantics And Linguistic Theory (SALT) was held at Yale, with several lab members and alums participating. Ankana Saha, Yağmur Sağ & Kathryn Davidson presented a poster "Focus on demonstratives: Experiments in English & Turkish", Gennaro Chierchia gave an invited talk, and (alums) Becky Jarvis presented on "Movement & interpretation of quantifiers in internally-headed relative clauses" and Johanna Alstott presented a poster on "Ordinal Numbers: Not Superlatives, but Modifiers of Superlatives", and Ankana , Yağmur and Dasha Bikina  all presented posters at the workshop on "(In)definiteness and genericity across language". Pictured are the Harvard semantics crew, present and past, at SALT.

Mikaela to Penn, Richard to Yale

Meaning & Modality Laboratory Harvard University 2 Arrow Street, 4th floor Cambridge, MA 02138

September 2024

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Meaning of laboratory in English

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

• Anti-vivisectionists last night freed a number of animals from a laboratory.
• We have very high safety standards in this laboratory.
• She was taken on as a laboratory assistant .
• a laboratory technician
• Eventually you'll get/ become used to the smells of the laboratory.
• antechamber
• drawing room
• dressing room
• efficiency room
• master bedroom
• meat locker
• multi-chambered
• observation lounge
• utility room
• waiting room

laboratory | American Dictionary

Laboratory | business english, examples of laboratory, collocations with laboratory.

These are words often used in combination with laboratory .

Click on a collocation to see more examples of it.

Translations of laboratory

Get a quick, free translation!

Word of the Day

Something that is imaginary is created by and exists only in the mind.

Treasure troves and endless supplies (Words and phrases meaning ‘source’)

Learn more with +Plus

• Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
• Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
• Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
• Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
• English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
• English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
• English–Dutch Dutch–English
• English–French French–English
• English–German German–English
• English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
• English–Italian Italian–English
• English–Japanese Japanese–English
• English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
• English–Polish Polish–English
• English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
• English–Spanish Spanish–English
• English–Swedish Swedish–English
• Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
• English    Noun
• American    Noun
• Business    Noun
• Collocations
• Translations
• All translations

To add laboratory to a word list please sign up or log in.

Add laboratory to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

| | | | | | | My Wordlists Legacy activities       Wordsmyth     Standard   Lookup History laboratories a place designed for scientific investigation and experimentation. : a place designed for scientific investigation and experimentation.', '', '');"> a place where new drugs and other chemical produces are created and tested. a place for students of science or technology to experiment, make observations, and practice scientific techniques, or a place equipped with special technology for various types of students to use as an aid to learning. a period of time during which students are assigned to use a laboratory for study, practice, or experimentation as part of an academic course. Subscriber feature See   , , , , , Subscribe for ad-free Wordsmyth and more What is the speech laboratory? A speech laboratory is often found at universities. They are often used to research topics on speech. A speech laboratory is a specialized facility equipped with technology for assessing and improving speech and language skills. It is commonly used for speech therapy, accent modification, and research on speech production and perception. Speech laboratories often include tools like audio-visual equipment, recording devices, and software for analyzing speech patterns. Add your answer: What is the plural of speech? The plural of the word speech is speeches. What are direct speech and indirect speech? Direct speech is when a person's exact words are quoted, often using quotation marks. Indirect speech is when the meaning of a person's words is reported without quoting them directly. In indirect speech, the sentence structure is usually different from the original statement. Exercises on direct and indirect speech? Change the following direct speech into indirect speech: Direct speech: "I am going to the store," said Mary. Indirect speech: Mary said that she was going to the store. Change the following direct speech into indirect speech: Direct speech: "I will help you with your homework," Tom promised. Indirect speech: Tom promised to help me with my homework. Change the following direct speech into indirect speech: Direct speech: "I have finished my work," John stated. Indirect speech: John stated that he had finished his work. Change the following direct speech into indirect speech: Direct speech: "We are going to travel next month," they told us. Indirect speech: They informed us that they were going to travel the following month. What is a sentence for speech? She delivered a powerful speech that moved the audience to tears. What is speech in Tagalog? The word for "speech" in Tagalog is "talumpati." Top Categories Share full article Advertisement Supported by Grieving Ohio Father Tells Trump and Vance to Stop Talking About His Son Nathan Clark says the candidates are exploiting his son’s death in a crash caused by an immigrant outside the small city of Springfield. “This needs to stop now.” Ohio Dad Asks Trump Ticket to Stop Using Son’s Death for ‘Political Gain’ Aiden clark was killed when an immigrant’s minivan crashed into a school bus he was travelling in last year.. I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would ever say something so blunt. But if that guy killed my 11-year-old son, the incessant group of hate-spewing people would leave us alone. They make it seem as though our wonderful Aiden appreciates your hate. Using Aiden as a political tool is, to say the least, reprehensible for any political purpose. And speaking of morally bankrupt politicians, Bernie Moreno, Chip Roy, JD Vance and Donald Trump, they have spoken my son’s name and used his death for political gain. This needs to stop now. They can vomit all the hate they want about illegal immigrants, the border crisis and even untrue claims about fluffy pets being ravaged and eaten by community members. However, they are not allowed, nor have they ever been allowed to mention, Aiden Clark from Springfield, Ohio. By Miriam Jordan Barely an hour before the presidential debate the father of an 11-year-old Ohio boy killed when an immigrant’s minivan crashed into a school bus lashed out at Donald J. Trump and his running mate, JD Vance. Speaking during public comment at a regular meeting of the Springfield City Commission, the father, Nathan Clark, called them “morally bankrupt” politicians spreading hate at the expense of his son, Aiden. Mr. Clark said, “This needs to stop now.” The death of Aiden Clark, who was thrown from the bus after the minivan driver, who is Haitian, veered into oncoming traffic just over a year ago, shook residents of Springfield, a blue-collar town between Dayton and Columbus. And it touched off a wave of angry rhetoric over the thousands of immigrants from Haiti who have settled in the area since the pandemic. But it was not until Mr. Vance took note in July that the city was thrust into the contentious national immigration debate. Since then, Mr. Vance has been highlighting the influx of Haitians to Springfield as a detrimental consequence of the Biden administration’s border policies. The immigrants are in the country legally with authorization to work, and they have moved to the Springfield area to fill jobs in manufacturing and other industries. We are having trouble retrieving the article content. Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber?  Log in . Want all of The Times?  Subscribe . Speech Laboratory • The Speech Laboratory of each department is full air-conditioned and has fifty student cubicles and one (1) teacher’s control pane. It is equipped with two (2) deck cassette player, VCD player, Video Camera, and TV Monitor. • Each cubicle is also provided with textbook ready for students to use during speech communication drills. This provides the students the necessary training in strengthening their listening and speaking skills to make them become effective in oral communication. • For the college, the laboratory is located at the ground floor of the college building. • For the high school, it is found at the third floor and the grade school is located at the ground floor. Privacy Overview Grade Viewer Institutional Calendar of Activities Library Management System Open Access Research Output Archive and Directory System Alumni Registration Form America's Lab Report: Investigations in High School Science (2006) Chapter: 1 introduction, history, and definition of laboratories, 1 introduction, history, and definition of laboratories. Science laboratories have been part of high school education for two centuries, yet a clear articulation of their role in student learning of science remains elusive. This report evaluates the evidence about the role of laboratories in helping students attain science learning goals and discusses factors that currently limit science learning in high school laboratories. In this chap- ter, the committee presents its charge, reviews the history of science laboratories in U.S. high schools, defines laboratories, and outlines the organization of the report. CHARGE TO THE COMMITTEE In the National Science Foundation (NSF) Authorization Act of 2002 (P.L. 107-368, authorizing funding for fiscal years 2003-2007), Congress called on NSF to launch a secondary school systemic initiative. The initiative was to “promote scientific and technological literacy” and to “meet the mathematics and science needs of students at risk of not achieving State student academic achievement standards.” Congress directed NSF to provide grants for such activities as “laboratory improvement and provision of instrumentation as part of a comprehensive program to enhance the quality of mathematics, science, engineering, and technology instruction” (P.L. 107-368, Section 8-E). In response, NSF turned to the National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies. NSF requested that the NRC nominate a committee to review the status of and future directions for the role of high school science laboratories in promoting the teaching and learning of science for all students. This committee will guide the conduct of a study and author a consensus report that will provide guidance on the question of the role and purpose of high school science laboratories with an emphasis on future directions…. Among the questions that may guide these activities are: What is the current state of science laboratories and what do we know about how they are used in high schools? What examples or alternatives are there to traditional approaches to labs and what is the evidence base as to their effectiveness? If labs in high school never existed (i.e., if they were to be planned and designed de novo), what would that experience look like now, given modern advances in the natural and learning sciences? In what ways can the integration of technologies into the curriculum augment and extend a new vision of high school science labs? What is known about high school science labs based on principles of design? How do the structures and policies of high schools (course scheduling, curricular design, textbook adoption, and resource deployment) influence the organization of science labs? What kinds of changes might be needed in the infrastructure of high schools to enhance the effectiveness of science labs? What are the costs (e.g., financial, personnel, space, scheduling) associated with different models of high school science labs? How might a new vision of laboratory experiences for high school students influence those costs? In what way does the growing interdisciplinary nature of the work of scientists help to shape discussions of laboratories as contexts in high school for science learning? How do high school lab experiences align with both middle school and postsecondary education? How is the role of teaching labs changing in the nation’s colleges and universities? Would a redesign of high school science labs enhance or limit articulation between high school and college-level science education? The NRC convened the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision to address this charge. SCOPE OF THE STUDY The committee carried out its charge through an iterative process of gathering information, deliberating on it, identifying gaps and questions, gathering further information to fill these gaps, and holding further discussions. In the search for relevant information, the committee held three public fact-finding meetings, reviewed published reports and unpublished research, searched the Internet, and commissioned experts to prepare and present papers. At a fourth, private meeting, the committee intensely analyzed and discussed its findings and conclusions over the course of three days. Although the committee considered information from a variety of sources, its final report gives most weight to research published in peer-reviewed journals and books. At an early stage in its deliberations, the committee chose to focus primarily on “the role of high school laboratories in promoting the teaching and learning of science for all students.” The committee soon became frustrated by the limited research evidence on the role of laboratories in learning. To address one of many problems in the research evidence—a lack of agreement about what constitutes a laboratory and about the purposes of laboratory education—the committee commissioned a paper to analyze the alternative definitions and goals of laboratories. The committee developed a concept map outlining the main themes of the study (see Figure 1-1 ) and organized the three fact-finding meetings to gather information on each of these themes. For example, reflecting the committee’s focus on student learning (“how students learn science” on the concept map), all three fact-finding meetings included researchers who had developed innovative approaches to high school science laboratories. We also commissioned two experts to present papers reviewing available research on the role of laboratories in students’ learning of science. At the fact-finding meetings, some researchers presented evidence of student learning following exposure to sequences of instruction that included laboratory experiences; others provided data on how various technologies FIGURE 1-1 High school science laboratory experiences: Role and vision. Concept map with references to guiding questions in committee charge. contribute to student learning in the laboratory. Responding to the congressional mandate to meet the mathematics and science needs of students at risk of not achieving state student academic achievement standards, the third fact-finding meeting included researchers who have studied laboratory teaching and learning among diverse students. Taken together, all of these activities enabled the committee to address questions 2, 3, and 4 of the charge. The committee took several steps to ensure that the study reflected the current realities of science laboratories in U.S high schools, addressing the themes of “how science teachers learn and work” and “constraints and enablers of laboratory experiences” on the concept map. At the first fact-finding meeting, representatives of associations of scientists and science teachers described their efforts to help science teachers learn to lead effective labora- tory activities. They noted constraints on laboratory learning, including poorly designed, overcrowded laboratory classrooms and inadequate preparation of science teachers. This first meeting also included a presentation about laboratory scheduling, supplies, and equipment drawn from a national survey of science teachers conducted in 2000. At the second fact-finding meeting, an architect spoke about the design of laboratory facilities, and a sociologist described how the organization of work and authority in schools may enable or constrain innovative approaches to laboratory teaching. Two meetings included panel discussions about laboratory teaching among groups of science teachers and school administrators. Through these presentations, review of additional literature, and internal discussions, the committee was able to respond to questions 1, 5, and 6 of the charge. The agendas for each fact-finding meeting, including the guiding questions that were sent to each presenter, appear in Appendix A . The committee recognized that the question in its charge about the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of science (question 7) is important to the future of science and to high school science laboratories. In presentations and commissioned papers, several experts offered suggestions for how laboratory activities could be designed to more accurately reflect the work of scientists and to improve students’ understanding of the way scientists work today. Based on our analysis of this information, the committee partially addresses this question from the perspective of how scientists conduct their work (in this chapter). The committee also identifies design principles for laboratory activities that may increase students’ understanding of the nature of science (in Chapter 3 ). However, in order to maintain our focus on the key question of student learning in laboratories, the committee did not fully address question 7. Another important question in the committee’s charge (question 8) addresses the alignment of laboratory learning in middle school, high school, and undergraduate science education. Within the short time frame of this study, the committee focused on identifying, assembling, and analyzing the limited research available on high school science laboratories and did not attempt to do the same analysis for middle school and undergraduate science laboratories. However, this report does discuss several studies of student laboratory learning in middle school (see Chapter 3 ) and describes undergraduate science laboratories briefly in its analysis of the preparation of high school science teachers (see in Chapter 5 ). The committee thinks questions about the alignment of laboratory learning merit more sustained attention than was possible in this study. During the course of our deliberations, other important questions emerged. For example, it is apparent that the scientific community is engaged in an array of efforts to strengthen teaching and learning in high school science laboratories, but little information is available on the extent of these efforts and on their effectiveness at enhancing student learning. As a result, we address the role of the scientific community in high school laboratories only briefly in Chapters 1 and 5 . Another issue that arose over the course of this study is laboratory safety. We became convinced that laboratory safety is critical, but we did not fully analyze safety issues, which lay outside our charge. Finally, although engaging students in design or engineering laboratory activities appears to hold promising connections with science laboratory activities, the committee did not explore this possibility. Although all of these issues and questions are important, taking time and energy to address them would have deterred us from a central focus on the role of high school laboratories in promoting the teaching and learning of science for all students. One important step in defining the scope of the study was to review the history of laboratories. Examining the history of laboratory education helped to illuminate persistent tensions, provided insight into approaches to be avoided in the future, and allowed the committee to more clearly frame key questions for the future. HISTORY OF LABORATORY EDUCATION The history of laboratories in U.S. high schools has been affected by changing views of the nature of science and by society’s changing goals for science education. Between 1850 and the present, educators, scientists, and the public have, at different times, placed more or less emphasis on three sometimes-competing goals for school science education: (1) a theoretical emphasis, stressing the structure of scientific disciplines, the benefits of basic scientific research, and the importance of preparing young people for higher education in science; (2) an applied or practical emphasis, stressing high school students’ ability to understand and apply the science and workings of everyday things; and (3) a liberal or contextual emphasis, stressing the historical development and cultural implications of science (Matthews, 1994). These changing goals have affected the nature and extent of laboratory education. By the mid-19th century, British writers and philosophers had articulated a view of science as an inductive process (Mill, 1843; Whewell, 1840, 1858). They believed that scientists engaged in painstaking observation of nature to identify and accumulate facts, and only very cautiously did they draw conclusions from these facts to propose new theories. British and American scientists portrayed the newest scientific discoveries—such as the laws of thermodynamics and Darwin’s theory of evolution—to an increas- ingly interested public as certain knowledge derived through well-established inductive methods. However, scientists and teachers made few efforts to teach students about these methods. High school and undergraduate science courses, like those in history and other subjects, were taught through lectures and textbooks, followed by rote memorization and recitation (Rudolph, 2005). Lecturers emphasized student knowledge of the facts, and science laboratories were not yet accepted as part of higher education. For example, when Benjamin Silliman set up the first chemistry laboratory at Yale in 1847, he paid rent to the college for use of the building and equipped it at his own expense (Whitman, 1898, p. 201). Few students were allowed into these laboratories, which were reserved for scientists’ research, although some apparatus from the laboratory was occasionally brought into the lecture room for demonstrations. During the 1880s, the situation changed rapidly. Influenced by the example of chemist Justus von Liebig in Germany, leading American universities embraced the German model. In this model, laboratories played a central role as the setting for faculty research and for advanced scientific study by students. Johns Hopkins University established itself as a research institution with student laboratories. Other leading colleges and universities followed suit, and high schools—which were just being established as educational institutions—soon began to create student science laboratories as well. The primary goal of these early high school laboratories was to prepare students for higher science education in college and university laboratories. The National Education Association produced an influential report noting the “absolute necessity of laboratory work” in the high school science curriculum (National Education Association, 1894) in order to prepare students for undergraduate science studies. As demand for secondary school teachers trained in laboratory methods grew, colleges and universities began offering summer laboratory courses for teachers. In 1895, a zoology professor at Brown University described “large and increasing attendance at our summer schools,” which focused on the dissection of cats and other animals (Bump, 1895, p. 260). In these early years, American educators emphasized the theoretical, disciplinary goals of science education in order to prepare graduates for further science education. Because of this emphasis, high schools quickly embraced a detailed list of 40 physics experiments published by Harvard instructor Edwin Hall (Harvard University, 1889). The list outlined the experiments, procedures, and equipment necessary to successfully complete all 40 experiments as a condition of admission to study physics at Harvard. Scientific supply companies began selling complete sets of the required equipment to schools and successful completion of the exercises was soon required for admission to study physics at other colleges and universities (Rudolph, 2005). At that time, most educators and scientists believed that participating in laboratory experiments would help students learn methods of accurate observation and inductive reasoning. However, the focus on prescribing specific experiments and procedures, illustrated by the embrace of the Harvard list, limited the effectiveness of early laboratory education. In the rush to specify laboratory experiments, procedures, and equipment, little attention had been paid to how students might learn from these experiences. Students were expected to simply absorb the methods of inductive reasoning by carrying out experiments according to prescribed procedures (Rudolph, 2005). Between 1890 and 1910, as U.S. high schools expanded rapidly to absorb a huge influx of new students, a backlash began to develop against the prevailing approach to laboratory education. In a 1901 lecture at the New England Association of College and Secondary Schools, G. Stanley Hall, one of the first American psychologists, criticized high school physics education based on the Harvard list, saying that “boys of this age … want more dynamic physics” (Hall, 1901). Building on Hall’s critique, University of Chicago physicist Charles Mann and other members of the Central Association for Science and Mathematics Teaching launched a complete overhaul of high school physics teaching. Mann and others attacked the “dry bones” of the Harvard experiments, calling for a high school physics curriculum with more personal and social relevance to students. One described lab work as “at best a very artificial means of supplying experiences upon which to build physical concepts” (Woodhull, 1909). Other educators argued that science teaching could be improved by providing more historical perspective, and high schools began reducing the number of laboratory exercises. By 1910, a clear tension had emerged between those emphasizing laboratory experiments and reformers favoring an emphasis on interesting, practical science content in high school science. However, the focus on content also led to problems, as students became overwhelmed with “interesting” facts. New York’s experience illustrates this tension. In 1890, the New York State Regents exam included questions asking students to design experiments (Champagne and Shiland, 2004). In 1905, the state introduced a new syllabus of physics topics. The content to be covered was so extensive that, over the course of a year, an average of half an hour could be devoted to each topic, virtually eliminating the possibility of including laboratory activities (Matthews, 1994). An outcry to return to more experimentation in science courses resulted, and in 1910 New York State instituted a requirement for 30 science laboratory sessions taking double periods in the syllabus for Regents science courses (courses preparing students for the New York State Regents examinations) (Champagne and Shiland, 2004). In an influential speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1909, philosopher and educator John Dewey proposed a solution to the tension between advocates for more laboratory experimentation and advocates for science education emphasizing practical content. While criticizing science teaching focused strictly on covering large amounts of known content, Dewey also pointed to the flaws in rigid laboratory exercises: “A student may acquire laboratory methods as so much isolated and final stuff, just as he may so acquire material from a textbook…. Many a student had acquired dexterity and skill in laboratory methods without it ever occurring to him that they have anything to do with constructing beliefs that are alone worthy of the title of knowledge” (Dewey, 1910b). Dewey believed that people should leave school with some understanding of the kinds of evidence required to substantiate scientific beliefs. However, he never explicitly described his view of the process by which scientists develop and substantiate such evidence. In 1910, Dewey wrote a short textbook aimed at helping teachers deal with students as individuals despite rapidly growing enrollments. He analyzed what he called “a complete act of thought,” including five steps: (1) a felt difficulty, (2) its location and definition, (3) suggestion of possible solution, (4) development by reasoning of the bearing of the suggestion, and (5) further observation and experiment leading to its acceptance or rejection (Dewey, 1910a, pp. 68-78). Educators quickly misinterpreted these five steps as a description of the scientific method that could be applied to practical problems. In 1918, William Kilpatrick of Teachers College published a seminal article on the “project method,” which used Dewey’s five steps to address problems of everyday life. The article was eventually reprinted 60,000 times as reformers embraced the idea of engaging students with practical problems, while at the same time teaching them about what were seen as the methods of science (Rudolph, 2005). During the 1920s, reform-minded teachers struggled to use the project method. Faced with ever-larger classes and state requirements for coverage of science content, they began to look for lists of specific projects that students could undertake, the procedures they could use, and the expected results. Soon, standardized lists of projects were published, and students who had previously been freed from rigid laboratory procedures were now engaged in rigid, specified projects, leading one writer to observe, “the project is little more than a new cloak for the inductive method” (Downing, 1919, p. 571). Despite these unresolved tensions, laboratory education had become firmly established, and growing numbers of future high school teachers were instructed in teaching laboratory activities. For example, a 1925 textbook for preservice science teachers included a chapter titled “Place of Laboratory Work in the Teaching of Science” followed by three additional chapters on how to teach laboratory science (Brownell and Wade, 1925). Over the following decades, high school science education (including laboratory education) increasingly emphasized practical goals and the benefits of science in everyday life. During World War II, as scientists focused on federally funded research programs aimed at defense and public health needs, high school science education also emphasized applications of scientific knowledge (Rudolph, 2002). Changing Goals of Science Education Following World War II, the flood of “baby boomers” strained the physical and financial resources of public schools. Requests for increased taxes and bond issues led to increasing questions about public schooling. Some academics and policy makers began to criticize the “life adjustment” high school curriculum, which had been designed to meet adolescents’ social, personal, and vocational needs. Instead, they called for a renewed emphasis on the academic disciplines. At the same time, the nation was shaken by the Soviet Union’s explosion of an atomic bomb and the communist takeover of China. By the early 1950s, some federal policy makers began to view a more rigorous, academic high school science curriculum as critical to respond to the Soviet threat. In 1956, physicist Jerrold Zacharias received a small grant from NSF to establish the Physical Science Study Committee (PSSC) in order to develop a curriculum focusing on physics as a scientific discipline. When the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics launched the space satellite Sputnik the following year, those who had argued that U.S. science education was not rigorous enough appeared vindicated, and a new era of science education began. Although most historians believe that the overriding goal of the post-Sputnik science education reforms was to create a new generation of U.S. scientists and engineers capable of defending the nation from the Soviet Union, the actual goals were more complex and varied (Rudolph, 2002). Clearly, Congress, the president, and NSF were focused on the goal of preparing more scientists and engineers, as reflected in NSF director Alan Waterman’s 1957 statement (National Science Foundation, 1957, pp. xv-xvi): Our schools and colleges are badly in need of modern science laboratories and laboratory, demonstration, and research equipment. Most important of all, we need more trained scientists and engineers in many special fields, and especially very many more competent, fully trained teachers of science, notably in our secondary schools. Undoubtedly, by a determined campaign, we can accomplish these ends in our traditional way, but how soon? The process is usually a lengthy one, and there is no time to be lost. Therefore, the pressing question is how quickly can our people act to accomplish these things? The scientists, however, had another agenda. Over the course of World War II, their research had become increasingly dependent on federal fund- ing and influenced by federal needs. In physics, for example, federally funded efforts to develop nuclear weapons led research to focus increasingly at the atomic level. In order to maintain public funding while reducing unwanted public pressure on research directions, the scientists sought to use curriculum redesign as a way to build the public’s faith in the expertise of professional scientists (Rudolph, 2002). They wanted to emphasize the humanistic aspects of science, portraying science as an essential element in a broad liberal education. Some scientists sought to reach not only the select group who might become future scientists but also a slightly larger group of elite, mostly white male students who would be future leaders in government and business. They hoped to help these students appreciate the empirical grounding of scientific knowledge and to value and appreciate the role of science in society (Rudolph, 2002). Changing Views of the Nature of Science While this shift in the goals of science education was taking place, historians and philosophers were proposing new views of science. In 1958, British chemist Michael Polanyi questioned the ideal of scientific detachment and objectivity, arguing that scientific discovery relies on the personal participation and the creative, original thoughts of scientists (Polanyi, 1958). In the United States, geneticist and science educator Joseph Schwab suggested that scientific methods were specific to each discipline and that all scientific “inquiry” (his term for scientific research) was guided by the current theories and concepts within the discipline (Schwab, 1964). Publication of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn, 1962) a few years later fueled the debate about whether science was truly rational, and whether theory or observation was more important to the scientific enterprise. Over time, this debate subsided, as historians and philosophers of science came to focus on the process of scientific discovery. Increasingly, they recognized that this process involves deductive reasoning (developing inferences from known scientific principles and theories) as well as inductive reasoning (proceeding from particular observations to reach more general theories or conclusions). Development of New Science Curricula Although these changing views of the nature of science later led to changes in science education, they had little influence in the immediate aftermath of Sputnik. With NSF support, scientists led a flurry of curriculum development over the next three decades (Matthews, 1994). In addition to the physics text developed by the PSSC, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) created biology curricula, the Chemical Education Materials group created chemistry materials, and groups of physicists created Intro- ductory Physical Science and Project Physics. By 1975, NSF supported 28 science curriculum reform projects. By 1977 over 60 percent of school districts had adopted at least one of the new curricula (Rudolph, 2002). The PSSC program employed high school teachers to train their peers in how to use the curriculum, reaching over half of all high school physics teachers by the late 1960s. However, due to implementation problems that we discuss further below, most schools soon shifted to other texts, and the federal goal of attracting a larger proportion of students to undergraduate science was not achieved (Linn, 1997). Dissemination of the NSF-funded curriculum development efforts was limited by several weaknesses. Some curriculum developers tried to “teacher proof” their curricula, providing detailed texts, teacher guides, and filmstrips designed to ensure that students faithfully carried out the experiments as intended (Matthews, 1994). Physics teacher and curriculum developer Arnold Arons attributed the limited implementation of most of the NSF-funded curricula to lack of logistical support for science teachers and inadequate teacher training, since “curricular materials, however skilful and imaginative, cannot ‘teach themselves’” (Arons, 1983, p. 117). Case studies showed that schools were slow to change in response to the new curricula and highlighted the central role of the teacher in carrying them out (Stake and Easley, 1978). In his analysis of Project Physics, Welch concluded that the new curriculum accounted for only 5 percent of the variance in student achievement, while other factors, such as teacher effectiveness, student ability, and time on task, played a larger role (Welch, 1979). Despite their limited diffusion, the new curricula pioneered important new approaches to science education, including elevating the role of laboratory activities in order to help students understand the nature of modern scientific research (Rudolph, 2002). For example, in the PSSC curriculum, Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist Jerrold Zacharias coordinated laboratory activities with the textbook in order to deepen students’ understanding of the links between theory and experiments. As part of that curriculum, students experimented with a ripple tank, generating wave patterns in water in order to gain understanding of wave models of light. A new definition of the scientific laboratory informed these efforts. The PSSC text explained that a “laboratory” was a way of thinking about scientific investigations—an intellectual process rather than a building with specialized equipment (Rudolph, 2002, p. 131). The new approach to using laboratory experiences was also apparent in the Science Curriculum Improvement Study. The study group drew on the developmental psychology of Jean Piaget to integrate laboratory experiences with other forms of instruction in a “learning cycle” (Atkin and Karplus, 1962). The learning cycle included (1) exploration of a concept, often through a laboratory experiment; (2) conceptual invention, in which the student or TABLE 1-1 New Approaches Included in Post-Sputnik Science Curricula   New Post-Sputnik Curricula Traditional Science Curricula Time of development After 1955 Before 1955 Emphasis Nature, structure, processes of science Knowledge of scientific facts, laws, theories, applications Role of laboratories Integrated into the class routine Secondary applications of concepts previously covered Goals for students Higher cognitive skills, appreciation of science   SOURCE: Shymansky, Kyle, and Alport (1983). Reprinted with permission of Wiley-Liss, Inc., a subsidiary of John Wiley & Sons, Inc. teacher (or both) derived the concept from the experimental data, usually during a classroom discussion; and (3) concept application in which the student applied the concept (Karplus and Their, 1967). Evaluations of the instructional materials, which were targeted to elementary school students, revealed that they were more successful than traditional forms of science instruction at enhancing students’ understanding of science concepts, their understanding of the processes of science, and their positive attitudes toward science (Abraham, 1998). Subsequently, the learning cycle approach was applied to development of science curricula for high school and undergraduate students. Research into these more recent curricula confirms that “merely providing students with hands-on laboratory experiences is not by itself enough” (Abraham, 1998, p. 520) to motivate and help them understand science concepts and the nature of science. In sum, the new approach of integrating laboratory experiences represented a marked change from earlier science education. In contrast to earlier curricula, which included laboratory experiences as secondary applications of concepts previously addressed by the teacher, the new curricula integrated laboratory activities into class routines in order to emphasize the nature and processes of science (Shymansky, Kyle, and Alport, 1983; see Table 1-1 ). Large meta-analyses of evaluations of the post-Sputnik curricula (Shymansky et al., 1983; Shymansky, Hedges, and Woodworth, 1990) found they were more effective than the traditional curriculum in boosting students’ science achievement and interest in science. As we discuss in Chapter 3 , current designs of science curricula that integrate laboratory experiences into ongoing classroom instruction have proven effective in enhancing students’ science achievement and interest in science. Discovery Learning and Inquiry One offshoot of the curriculum development efforts in the 1960s and 1970s was the development of an approach to science learning termed “discovery learning.” In 1959, Harvard cognitive psychologist Jerome Bruner began to develop his ideas about discovery learning as director of an NRC committee convened to evaluate the new NSF-funded curricula. In a book drawing in part on that experience, Bruner suggested that young students are active problem solvers, ready and motivated to learn science by their natural interest in the material world (Bruner, 1960). He argued that children should not be taught isolated science facts, but rather should be helped to discover the structures, or underlying concepts and theories, of science. Bruner’s emphasis on helping students to understand the theoretical structures of the scientific disciplines became confounded with the idea of engaging students with the physical structures of natural phenomena in the laboratory (Matthews, 1994). Developers of NSF-funded curricula embraced this interpretation of Bruner’s ideas, as it leant support to their emphasis on laboratory activities. On the basis of his observation that scientific knowledge was changing rapidly through large-scale research and development during this postwar period, Joseph Schwab advocated the closely related idea of an “inquiry approach” to science education (Rudolph, 2003). In a seminal article, Schwab argued against teaching science facts, which he termed a “rhetoric of conclusions” (Schwab, 1962, p. 25). Instead, he proposed that teachers engage students with materials that would motivate them to learn about natural phenomena through inquiry while also learning about some of the strengths and weaknesses of the processes of scientific inquiry. He developed a framework to describe the inquiry approach in a biology laboratory. At the highest level of inquiry, the student simply confronts the “raw phenomenon” (Schwab, 1962, p. 55) with no guidance. At the other end of the spectrum, biology students would experience low levels of inquiry, or none at all, if the laboratory manual provides the problem to be investigated, the methods to address the problem, and the solutions. When Herron applied Schwab’s framework to analyze the laboratory manuals included in the PSSC and the BSCS curricula, he found that most of the manuals provided extensive guidance to students and thus did not follow the inquiry approach (Herron, 1971). The NRC defines inquiry somewhat differently in the National Science Education Standards . Rather than using “inquiry” as an indicator of the amount of guidance provided to students, the NRC described inquiry as encompassing both “the diverse ways in which scientists study the natural world” (National Research Council, 1996, p. 23) and also students’ activities that support the learning of science concepts and the processes of science. In the NRC definition, student inquiry may include reading about known scientific theories and ideas, posing questions, planning investigations, making observations, using tools to gather and analyze data, proposing explanations, reviewing known theories and concepts in light of empirical data, and communicating the results. The Standards caution that emphasizing inquiry does not mean relying on a single approach to science teaching, suggesting that teachers use a variety of strategies, including reading, laboratory activities, and other approaches to help students learn science (National Research Council, 1996). Diversity in Schools During the 1950s, as some scientists developed new science curricula for teaching a small group of mostly white male students, other Americans were much more concerned about the weak quality of racially segregated schools for black children. In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education was in violation of the U.S. Constitution because it provided black students with “separate but equal” education. Schools in both the North and the South changed dramatically as formerly all-white schools were integrated. Following the example of the civil rights movement, in the 1970s and the 1980s the women’s liberation movement sought improved education and employment opportunities for girls and women, including opportunities in science. In response, some educators began to seek ways to improve science education for all students, regardless of their race or gender. 1975 to Present By 1975, the United States had put a man on the moon, concerns about the “space race” had subsided, and substantial NSF funding for science education reform ended. These changes, together with increased concern for equity in science education, heralded a shift in society’s goals for science education. Science educators became less focused on the goal of disciplinary knowledge for science specialists and began to place greater emphasis on a liberal, humanistic view of science education. Many of the tensions evident in the first 100 years of U.S. high school laboratories have continued over the past 30 years. Scientists, educators, and policy makers continue to disagree about the nature of science, the goals of science education, and the role of the curriculum and the teacher in student learning. Within this larger dialogue, debate about the value of laboratory activities continues. Changing Goals for Science Education National reports issued during the 1980s and 1990s illustrate new views of the nature of science and increased emphasis on liberal goals for science education. In Science for All Americans , the AAAS advocated the achievement of scientific literacy by all U.S. high school students, in order to increase their awareness and understanding of science and the natural world and to develop their ability to think scientifically (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989). This seminal report described science as tentative (striving toward objectivity within the constraints of human fallibility) and as a social enterprise, while also discussing the durability of scientific theories, the importance of logical reasoning, and the lack of a single scientific method. In the ongoing debate about the coverage of science content, the AAAS took the position that “curricula must be changed to reduce the sheer amount of material covered” (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1989, p. 5). Four years later, the AAAS published Benchmarks for Science Literacy , which identified expected competencies at each school grade level in each of the earlier report’s 10 areas of scientific literacy (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993). The NRC’s National Science Education Standards (National Research Council, 1996) built on the AAAS reports, opening with the statement: “This nation has established as a goal that all students should achieve scientific literacy” (p. ix). The NRC proposed national science standards for high school students designed to help all students develop (1) abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry and (2) understandings about scientific inquiry (National Research Council, 1996, p. 173). In the standards, the NRC suggested a new approach to laboratories that went beyond simply engaging students in experiments. The NRC explicitly recognized that laboratory investigations should be learning experiences, stating that high school students must “actively participate in scientific investigations, and … use the cognitive and manipulative skills associated with the formulation of scientific explanations” (National Research Council, 1996, p. 173). According to the standards, regardless of the scientific investigation performed, students must use evidence, apply logic, and construct an argument for their proposed explanations. These standards emphasize the importance of creating scientific arguments and explanations for observations made in the laboratory. While most educators, scientists, and policy makers now agree that scientific literacy for all students is the primary goal of high school science education, the secondary goals of preparing the future scientific and technical workforce and including science as an essential part of a broad liberal education remain important. In 2004, the NSF National Science Board released a report describing a “troubling decline” in the number of U.S. citizens training to become scientists and engineers at a time when many current scientists and engineers are soon to retire. NSF called for improvements in science education to reverse these trends, which “threaten the economic welfare and security of our country” (National Science Foundation, 2004, p. 1). Another recent study found that secure, well-paying jobs that do not require postsecondary education nonetheless require abilities that may be developed in science laboratories. These include the ability to use inductive and deductive reasoning to arrive at valid conclusions; distinguish among facts and opinions; identify false premises in an argument; and use mathematics to solve problems (Achieve, 2004). Achieving the goal of scientific literacy for all students, as well as motivating some students to study further in science, may require diverse approaches for the increasingly diverse body of science students, as we discuss in Chapter 2 . Changing Role of Teachers and Curriculum Over the past 20 years, science educators have increasingly recognized the complementary roles of curriculum and teachers in helping students learn science. Both evaluations of NSF-funded curricula from the 1960s and more recent research on science learning have highlighted the important role of the teacher in helping students learn through laboratory activities. Cognitive psychologists and science educators have found that the teacher’s expectations, interventions, and actions can help students develop understanding of scientific concepts and ideas (Driver, 1995; Penner, Lehrer, and Schauble, 1998; Roth and Roychoudhury, 1993). In response to this growing awareness, some school districts and institutions of higher education have made efforts to improve laboratory education for current teachers as well as to improve the undergraduate education of future teachers (National Research Council, 2001). In the early 1980s, NSF began again to fund the development of laboratory-centered high school science curricula. Today, several publishers offer comprehensive packages developed with NSF support, including textbooks, teacher guides, and laboratory materials (and, in some cases, videos and web sites). In 2001, one earth science curriculum, five physical science curricula, five life science curricula, and six integrated science curricula were available for sale, while several others in various science disciplines were still under development (Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, 2001). In contrast to the curriculum development approach of the 1960s, teachers have played an important role in developing and field-testing these newer curricula and in designing the teacher professional development courses that accompany most of them. However, as in the 1960s and 1970s, only a few of these NSF-funded curricula have been widely adopted. Private publishers have also developed a multitude of new textbooks, laboratory manuals, and laboratory equipment kits in response to the national education standards and the growing national concern about scientific literacy. Nevertheless, most schools today use science curricula that have not been developed, field-tested, or refined on the basis of specific education research (see Chapter 2 ). CURRENT DEBATES Clearly, the United States needs high school graduates with scientific literacy—both to meet the economy’s need for skilled workers and future scientists and to develop the scientific habits of mind that can help citizens in their everyday lives. Science is also important as part of a liberal high school education that conveys an important aspect of modern culture. However, the value of laboratory experiences in meeting these national goals has not been clearly established. Researchers agree neither on the desired learning outcomes of laboratory experiences nor on whether those outcomes are attained. For example, on the basis of a 1978 review of over 80 studies, Bates concluded that there was no conclusive answer to the question, “What does the laboratory accomplish that could not be accomplished as well by less expensive and less time-consuming alternatives?” (Bates, 1978, p. 75). Some experts have suggested that the only contribution of laboratories lies in helping students develop skills in manipulating equipment and acquiring a feel for phenomena but that laboratories cannot help students understand science concepts (Woolnough, 1983; Klopfer, 1990). Others, however, argue that laboratory experiences have the potential to help students understand complex science concepts, but the potential has not been realized (Tobin, 1990; Gunstone and Champagne, 1990). These debates in the research are reflected in practice. On one hand, most states and school districts continue to invest in laboratory facilities and equipment, many undergraduate institutions require completion of laboratory courses to qualify for admission, and some states require completion of science laboratory courses as a condition of high school graduation. On the other hand, in early 2004, the California Department of Education considered draft criteria for the evaluation of science instructional materials that reflected skepticism about the value of laboratory experiences or other hands-on learning activities. The proposed criteria would have required materials to demonstrate that the state science standards could be comprehensively covered with hands-on activities composing no more than 20 to 25 percent of instructional time (Linn, 2004). However, in response to opposition, the criteria were changed to require that the instructional materials would comprehensively cover the California science standards with “hands-on activities composing at least 20 to 25 percent of the science instructional program” (California Department of Education, 2004, p. 4, italics added). The growing variety in laboratory experiences—which may be designed to achieve a variety of different learning outcomes—poses a challenge to resolving these debates. In a recent review of the literature, Hofstein and Lunetta (2004, p. 46) call attention to this variety: The assumption that laboratory experiences help students understand materials, phenomena, concepts, models and relationships, almost independent of the nature of the laboratory experience, continues to be widespread in spite of sparse data from carefully designed and conducted studies. As a first step toward understanding the nature of the laboratory experience, the committee developed a definition and a typology of high school science laboratory experiences. DEFINITION OF LABORATORY EXPERIENCES Rapid developments in science, technology, and cognitive research have made the traditional definition of science laboratories—as rooms in which students use special equipment to carry out well-defined procedures—obsolete. The committee gathered information on a wide variety of approaches to laboratory education, arriving at the term “laboratory experiences” to describe teaching and learning that may take place in a laboratory room or in other settings: Laboratory experiences provide opportunities for students to interact directly with the material world (or with data drawn from the material world), using the tools, data collection techniques, models, and theories of science. This definition includes the following student activities: Physical manipulation of the real-world substances or systems under investigation. This may include such activities as chemistry experiments, plant or animal dissections in biology, and investigation of rocks or minerals for identification in earth science. Interaction with simulations. Physical models have been used throughout the history of science teaching (Lunetta, 1998). Today, students can work with computerized models, or simulations, representing aspects of natural phenomena that cannot be observed directly, because they are very large, very small, very slow, very fast, or very complex. Using simulations, students may model the interaction of molecules in chemistry or manipulate models of cells, animal or plant systems, wave motion, weather patterns, or geological formations. Interaction with data drawn from the real world. Students may interact with real-world data that are obtained and represented in a variety of forms. For example, they may study photographs to examine characteristics of the moon or other heavenly bodies or analyze emission and absorption spectra in the light from stars. Data may be incorporated in films, DVDs, computer programs, or other formats. Access to large databases. In many fields of science, researchers have arranged for empirical data to be normalized and aggregated—for example, genome databases, astronomy image collections, databases of climatic events over long time periods, biological field observations. With the help of the Internet, some students sitting in science class can now access these authentic and timely scientific data. Students can manipulate and analyze these data drawn from the real world in new forms of laboratory experiences (Bell, 2005). Remote access to scientific instruments and observations. A few classrooms around the nation experience laboratory activities enabled by Internet links to remote instruments. Some students and teachers study insects by accessing and controlling an environmental scanning electron microscope (Thakkar et al., 2000), while others control automated telescopes (Gould, 2004). Although we include all of these types of direct and indirect interaction with the material world in this definition, it does not include student manipulation or analysis of data created by a teacher to replace or substitute for direct interaction with the material world. For example, if a physics teacher presented students with a constructed data set on the weight and required pulling force for boxes pulled across desks with different surfaces, asking the students to analyze these data, the students’ problem-solving activity would not constitute a laboratory experience according to the committee’s definition. Previous Definitions of Laboratories In developing its definition, the committee reviewed previous definitions of student laboratories. Hegarty-Hazel (1990, p. 4) defined laboratory work as: a form of practical work taking place in a purposely assigned environment where students engage in planned learning experiences … [and] interact with materials to observe and understand phenomena (Some forms of practical work such as field trips are thus excluded). Lunetta defined laboratories as “experiences in school settings in which students interact with materials to observe and understand the natural world” (Lunetta, 1998, p. 249). However, these definitions include only students’ direct interactions with natural phenomena, whereas we include both such direct interactions and also student interactions with data drawn from the material world. In addition, these earlier definitions confine laboratory experiences to schools or other “purposely assigned environments,” but our definition encompasses student observation and manipulation of natural phenomena in a variety of settings, including science museums and science centers, school gardens, local streams, or nearby geological formations. The committee’s definition also includes students who work as interns in research laboratories, after school or during the summer months. All of these experiences, as well as those that take place in traditional school science laboratories, are included in our definition of laboratory experiences. Variety in Laboratory Experiences Both the preceding review of the history of laboratories and the committee’s review of the evidence of student learning in laboratories reveal the limitations of engaging students in replicating the work of scientists. It has become increasingly clear that it is not realistic to expect students to arrive at accepted scientific concepts and ideas by simply experiencing some aspects of scientific research (Millar, 2004). While recognizing these limitations, the committee thinks that laboratory experiences should at least partially reflect the range of activities involved in real scientific research. Providing students with opportunities to participate in a range of scientific activities represents a step toward achieving the learning goals of laboratories identified in Chapter 3 . 1 Historians and philosophers of science now recognize that the well-ordered scientific method taught in many high school classes does not exist. Scientists’ empirical research in the laboratory or the field is one part of a larger process that may include reading and attending conferences to stay abreast of current developments in the discipline and to present work in progress. As Schwab recognized (1964), the “structure” of current theories and concepts in a discipline acts as a guide to further empirical research. The work of scientists may include formulating research questions, generat-    The goals of laboratory learning are unlikely to be reached, regardless of what type of laboratory experience is provided, unless the experience is well integrated into a coherent stream of science instruction, incorporates other design elements, and is led by a knowledgeable teacher, as discussed in Chapters and . ing alternative hypotheses, designing and conducting investigations, and building and revising models to explain the results of their investigations. The process of evaluating and revising models may generate new questions and new investigations (see Table 1-2 ). Recent studies of science indicate that scientists’ interactions with their peers, particularly their response to questions from other scientists, as well as their use of analogies in formulating hypotheses and solving problems, and their responses to unexplained results, all influence their success in making discoveries (Dunbar, 2000). Some scientists concentrate their efforts on developing theory, reading, or conducting thought experiments, while others specialize in direct interactions with the material world (Bell, 2005). Student laboratory experiences that reflect these aspects of the work of scientists would include learning about the most current concepts and theories through reading, lectures, or discussions; formulating questions; designing and carrying out investigations; creating and revising explanatory models; and presenting their evolving ideas and scientific arguments to others for discussion and evaluation (see Table 1-3 ). Currently, however, most high schools provide a narrow range of laboratory activities, engaging students primarily in using tools to make observations and gather data, often in order to verify established scientific knowledge. Students rarely have opportunities to formulate research questions or to build and revise explanatory models (see Chapter 4 ). ORGANIZATION OF THE REPORT The ability of high school science laboratories to help improve all citizens’ understanding and appreciation of science and prepare the next generation of scientists and engineers is affected by the context in which laboratory experiences take place. Laboratory experiences do not take place in isolation, but are part of the larger fabric of students’ experiences during their high school years. Following this introduction, Chapter 2 describes recent trends in U.S. science education and policies influencing science education, including laboratory experiences. In Chapter 3 we turn to a review of available evidence on student learning in laboratories and identify principles for design of effective laboratory learning environments. Chapter 4 describes current laboratory experiences in U.S. high schools, and Chapter 5 discusses teacher and school readiness for laboratory experiences. In Chapter 6 , we describe the current state of laboratory facilities, equipment, and safety. Finally, in Chapter 7 , we present our conclusions and an agenda designed to help laboratory experiences fulfill their potential role in the high school science curriculum. TABLE 1-2 A Typology of Scientists’ Activities Type of Activity Explanation Posing a research question One of the most difficult steps in science is to define a research question. A researchable question may arise out of analysis of data collected, or be based on already known scientific theories and laws, or both. While the initial question is important as a goal to guide the study, flexibility is also valuable. Scientists who respond to unexpected results (that do not fit current theories about the phenomena) by conducting further research to try to explain them are more likely to make discoveries than scientists whose goal is to find evidence consistent with their current knowledge (Dunbar, 1993, 2000; Merton and Barber, 2004). Formulating hypotheses Scientists sometimes generate one or more competing hypotheses related to a research question. However, not all scientific research is hypothesis-driven. The human genome project is an example of bulk data collection not driven by a hypothesis (Davies, 2001). Designing investigations Scientists design investigations—which may involve experimental or observational methods—to answer their research questions. Investigations may be designed to test one or more competing hypotheses. Making observations, gathering, and analyzing data Observing natural phenomena is often an essential part of a research project. Scientists use a variety of tools and procedures to make observations and gather data, searching for patterns and possible cause-and-effect relationships that may be studied further. Observations may be guided by theory, may be designed to test a hypothesis, or may explore unknown phenomena (Duschl, 2004). Building or revising scientific models Although modeling scientific phenomena has always been a central practice of science, it has only been recognized as a driving force in generating scientific knowledge over the past 50 years (Duschl, 2004). Scientists draw on their imagination and existing knowledge as they interpret data in order to develop explanatory models or theories (Driver et al., 1996). These models serve as tentative explanations for observations, subject to revision based on further observations or further study of known scientific principles or theories. Evaluating, testing or verifying models One of the defining characteristics of science is that the evidence, methods, and assumptions used to arrive at a proposed discovery are described and publicly disclosed so that other scientists can judge their validity (Hull, 1988; Longino, 1990, 1994). In one recent example, astronomers at the Green Bank radio telescope in West Virginia identified glycoaldehyde, a building block of DNA and RNA, in an extremely cold area of the Milky Way (Hollis et al., 2004). The discovery of this substance in an area of the galaxy where comets form suggests the possibility that the ingredients necessary to create life might have been carried to Earth by a comet billions of years ago. In a news report of the discovery, the director of the Arizona Radio Observatory, who had criticized the Green Bank astronomers for not being thorough enough, said her students had replicated the Green Bank observations (Gugliotta, 2004, p. A7). TABLE 1-3 A Typology of School Laboratory Experiences Type of Laboratory Experience Description Posing a research question Formulating a testable question can be a great challenge for high school students. Some laboratory experiences may engage students in formulating and assessing the importance of alternative questions. Using laboratory tools and procedures Some laboratory experiences may be designed primarily to develop students’ skills in making measurements and safely and correctly handling materials and equipment (Lunetta, 1998). These “prelab” exercises can help reduce errors and increase safety in subsequent laboratory experiences (Millar, 2004). Formulating hypotheses Like formulating a research question, formulating alternative hypotheses is challenging for high school students. However, some new curricula have led to improvement in formulating hypotheses (see ). Designing investigations Laboratory experiences integrated with other forms of instruction and explicitly designed with this goal in mind can help students learn to design investigations (White and Frederiksen, 1998). Making observations, gathering, and analyzing data Science teachers may engage students in laboratory activities that involve observing phenomena and in gathering, recording, and analyzing data in search of possible patterns or explanations. Building or revising models Laboratory experiences may engage students in interpreting data that they gather directly from the material world or data drawn from large scientific data sets in order to create, test, and refine models. Scientific modeling is a core element in several innovative laboratory-centered science curricula that appear to enhance student learning (Bell, 2005). Evaluating, testing, or verifying explanatory models (including known scientific theories and models) Laboratory experiences may be designed to engage students in verifying scientific ideas that they have learned about through reading, lectures, or work with computer simulations. Such experiences can help students to understand accepted scientific concepts through their own direct experiences (Millar, 2004). However, verification laboratory activities are quite different from the activities of scientists who rigorously test a proposed scientific theory or discovery in order to defend, refute, or revise it. Since the late 19th century, high school students in the United States have carried out laboratory investigations as part of their science classes. Since that time, changes in science, education, and American society have influenced the role of laboratory experiences in the high school science curriculum. At the turn of the 20th century, high school science laboratory experiences were designed primarily to prepare a select group of young people for further scientific study at research universities. During the period between World War I and World War II, many high schools emphasized the more practical aspects of science, engaging students in laboratory projects related to daily life. In the 1950s and 1960s, science curricula were redesigned to integrate laboratory experiences into classroom instruction, with the goal of increasing public appreciation of science. Policy makers, scientists, and educators agree that high school graduates today, more than ever, need a basic understanding of science and technology to function effectively in an increasingly complex, technological society. They seek to help students understand the nature of science and to develop both the inductive and deductive reasoning skills that scientists apply in their work. However, researchers and educators do not agree on how to define high school science laboratories or on their purposes, hampering the accumulation of evidence that might guide improvements in laboratory education. Gaps in the research and in capturing the knowledge of expert science teachers make it difficult to reach precise conclusions on the best approaches to laboratory teaching and learning. In order to provide a focus for the study, the committee defines laboratory experiences as follows: laboratory experiences provide opportunities for students to interact directly with the material world (or with data drawn from the material world), using the tools, data collection techniques, models, and theories of science. This definition includes a variety of types of laboratory experiences, reflecting the range of activities that scientists engage in. The following chapters discuss the educational context; laboratory experiences and student learning; current laboratory experiences, teacher and school readiness, facilities, equipment, and safety; and laboratory experiences for the 21st century. Abraham, M.R. (1998). The learning cycle approach as a strategy for instruction in science. In B.J. Fraser and K.G. Tobin (Eds.), International handbook of science education . London, England: Kluwer Academic. Achieve. (2004). Ready or not: Creating a high school diploma that counts . (The American Diploma Project.) Washington, DC: Author. American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1989). Science for all Americans . Washington, DC: Author. American Association for the Advancement of Science. (1993). Benchmarks for science literacy . Washington, DC: Author. Arons, A. (1983). Achieving wider scientific literacy. Daedalus , 112 (2), 91-122. Atkin, J.M., and Karplus, R. (1962). Discovery or invention? The Science Teacher , 29 , 45-51. Bates, G.R. (1978). The role of the laboratory in science teaching. School Science and Mathematics , 83 , 165-169. Bell, P. (2005). The school science laboratory: Considerations of learning, technology , and scientific practice . Paper prepared for the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision. Available at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/July_12-13_2004_High_School_Labs_Meeting_Agenda.html . Biological Sciences Curriculum Study. (2001). Profiles in science: A guide to NSF - funded high school instructional materials . Colorado Springs, CO: Author. Available at: http://www.bscs.org/page.asp?id=Professional_Development|Resources|Profiles_In_Science [accessed Sept. 2004]. Brownell, H., and Wade, F.B. (1925). The teaching of science and the science teacher . New York: Century Company. Bruner, J.S. (1960). The process of education . New York: Vintage. Bump, H.C. (1895). Laboratory teaching of large classes—Zoology. [Letter to the editor]. Science, New Series , 1 (10), 260. California Department of Education. (2004). Criteria for evaluating instructional materials in science, kindergarten through grade eight . Available at: http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/sc/cf/documents/scicriteria04.pdf [accessed Nov. 2004]. Champagne, A., and Shiland, T. (2004). Large-scale assessment and the high school science laboratory . Presentation to the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision, June 3-4, National Research Council, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/June_3-4_2004_High_School_Labs_Meeting_Agenda.html [accessed Jan. 2004]. Davies, K. (2001). Cracking the genome: Inside the race to unlock human DNA . New York: Free Press. Dewey, J. (1910a). How we think . Boston, MA: D.C. Heath. Dewey, J. (1910b). Science as subject-matter and method. Science, New Series , 31 , 122, 125. Downing, E.R. (1919). The scientific method and the problems of school science. School and Society , 10 , 571. Driver, R. (1995). Constructivist approaches to science teaching. In L.P. Steffe and J. Gale (Eds.), Constructivism in education (pp. 385-400). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Driver, R., Leach, J., Millar, R., and Scott, P. (1996). Young people’s images of science . Buckingham, U.K.: Open University Press. Dunbar, K. (1993). Concept discovery in a scientific domain. Cognitive Science , 17 , 397-434. Dunbar, K. (2000). How scientists think in the real world: Implications for science education. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 21 (1), 49-58. Duschl, R. (2004). The HS lab experience: Reconsidering the role of evidence, explanation, and the language of science . Paper prepared for the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision, July 12-13, National Research Council, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/July_12-13_2004_High_School_Labs_Meeting_Agenda.html [accessed Nov. 2004]. Gould, R. (2004). About micro observatory . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University. Available at: http://mo-www.harvard.edu/MicroObservatory/ [accessed Sept. 2004]. Gugliotta, G. (2004). Space sugar a clue to life’s origins. The Washington Post , September 27. Gunstone, R.F., and Champagne, A.B. (1990). Promoting conceptual change in the laboratory. In E. Hegarty-Hazel (Ed.), The student laboratory and the science curriculum (pp. 159-182). London, England: Routledge. Hall, G.S. (1901). How far is the present high-school and early college training adapted to the nature and needs of adolescents? School Review , 9 , 652. Harvard University. (1889). Descriptive list of elementary physical experiments intended for use in preparing students for Harvard College . Cambridge, MA: Author. Hegarty-Hazel, E. (1990). Overview. In E. Hegarty-Hazel (Ed.), The student laboratory and the science curriculum . London, England: Routledge. Herron, M.D. (1971). The nature of scientific enquiry. School Review, 79, 171-212. Hilosky, A., Sutman, F., and Schmuckler, J. (1998). Is laboratory-based instruction in beginning college-level chemistry worth the effort and expense? Journal of Chemical Education , 75 (1), 103. Hofstein, A., and Lunetta, V.N. (2004). The laboratory in science education: Foundations for the twenty-first century. Science Education , 88 , 28-54. Hollis, J.M., Jewell, P.R., Lovas, F.J., and Remijan, J. (2004, September 20). Green Bank telescope observations of interstellar glycolaldehyde: Low-temperature sugar. Astrophysical Journal , 613 , L45-L48. Hull, D. (1988). Science as a process . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Karplus, R., and Their, H.D. (1967). A new look at elementary school science . Chicago: Rand McNally. Klopfer, L.E. (1990). Learning scientific enquiry in the student laboratory. In E. Hegarty-Hazel (Ed.), The student laboratory and the science curriculum (pp. 95-118). London, England: Routledge. Kuhn, T.S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Linn, M. (2004). High school science laboratories: How can technology contribute? Presentation to the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision. June 3-4, National Research Council, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/June_3-4_2004_High_School_Labs_Meeting_Agenda.html [accessed April 2005]. Linn, M.C. (1997). The role of the laboratory in science learning. Elementary School Journal , 97 (4), 401-417. Longino, H. (1990). Science as social knowledge . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Longino, H. (1994). The fate of knowledge in social theories of science. In F.F. Schmitt (Ed.), Socializing epistemology: The social dimensions of knowledge (pp. 135-158). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Lunetta, V. (1998). The school science laboratory: Historical perspectives and contexts for contemporary teaching . In B.J. Fraser and K.G. Tobin (Eds.), International handbook of science education (pp. 249-262). London, England: Kluwer Academic. Matthews, M.R. (1994). Science teaching: The role of history and philosophy of science . New York: Routledge. Merton, R.K., and Barber, E. (2004). The travels and adventures of serendipity . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Mill, J.S. (1963). System of logic, ratiocinative and inductive. In J.M. Robson (Ed.), Collected works of John Stuart Mill . Toronto: University of Toronto Press (Original work published 1843). Millar, R. (2004). The role of practical work in the teaching and learning of science . Paper prepared for the Committee on High School Science Laboratories: Role and Vision, June 3-4, National Research Council, Washington, DC. Available at: http://www7.nationalacademies.org/bose/June3-4_2004_High_School_Labs_Meeting_Agenda.html [accessed April 2005]. National Education Association. (1894). Report of the Committee of Ten on secondary school studies . New York: American Book Company. National Research Council. (1996). National science education standards . National Committee on Science Education Standards and Assessment, Center for Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. National Research Council. (2001). Educating teachers of science, mathematics, and technology: New practices for the new millennium . Committee on Science and Mathematics Teacher Preparation, Center for Education. Washington, DC: National Academy Press. National Science Foundation. (1957). Annual report . Available at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1957/annualreports/start.htm [accessed Nov. 2004]. National Science Foundation. (2004). An emerging and critical problem of the science and engineering workforce . Washington, DC: Author. Available at: http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/srs/nsb0407/start.htm [accessed Sept. 2003]. Penner, D.E., Lehrer, R., and Schauble, L. (1998). From physical models to biomechanics: A design based modeling approach. Journal of the Learning Sciences , 7 , 429-449. Polanyi, M. (1958). Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy . London, England: Routledge. Roth, W.M., and Roychoudhury, A. (1993). The development of science process skills in authentic contexts. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 30 , 127-152. Rudolph, J.L. (2002). Scientists in the classroom: The cold war reconstruction of American science education . New York: Palgrave. Rudolph, J.L. (2003). Portraying epistemology: School science in historical context. Science Education , 87 , 64-79. Rudolph, J.L. (2005). Epistemology for the masses: The origins of the “scientific method” in American schools. History of Education Quarterly , 45(2), 341-376. Schwab, J.J. (1962). The teaching of science as enquiry. In P.F. Brandwein (Ed.), The teaching of science (pp. 1-103). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Schwab, J.J. (1964). The structure of the natural sciences. In G.W. Ford and L. Pugno (Eds.), The structure of knowledge and the curriculum (pp. 31-49). Chicago: Rand McNally. Shymansky, J.A., Hedges, L.B., and Woodworth, G. (1990). A re-assessment of the effects of inquiry-based science curriculum of the sixties on student achievement. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 20 , 387-404. Shymansky, J.A., Kyle, W.C., and Alport, J.M. (1983). The effects of new science curricula on student performance. Journal of Research in Science Teaching , 20 , 387-404. Stake, R.E., and Easley, J.A. (1978). Case studies in science education . Center for Instructional Research and Curriculum Evaluation and Committee on Culture and Cognition. Urbana: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne. Thakkar, U., Carragher, B., Carroll, L., Conway, C., Grosser, B., Kisseberth, N., Potter, C.S., Robinson, S., Sinn-Hanlon, J., Stone, D., and Weber, D. (2000). Formative evaluation of Bugscope: A sustainable world wide laboratory for K-12 . Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Special Interest Group on Advanced Technologies for Learning, April 24-28, New Orleans, LA. Available at: http://bugscope.beckman.uiuc.edu/publications/index.htm#papers [accessed May 2005]. Tobin, K. 1990. Research on science laboratory activities: In pursuit of better questions and answers to improve learning. School Science and Mathematics , 90 (5), 403-418. Welch, W.W. (1979). Twenty years of science education development: A look back. Review of Research in Education , 7 , 282-306. Whewell, W. (1840). Philosophy of the inductive sciences, founded upon their history . London, England: John W. Parker. Whewell, W. (1858). The history of the inductive sciences, from the earliest to the present time (3rd edition). New York: Appleton. White, B.Y., and Frederiksen, J.R. (1998). Inquiry, modeling, and metacognition: Making science accessible to all students. Cognition and Instruction , 16 (1), 3-118. Whitman, F.P. (1898). The beginnings of laboratory teaching in America. Science , New Series , 8 (190), 201-206. Woodhull, J.F. (1909). How the public will solve the problems of science teaching. School Science and Mathematics , 9 , 276. Woolnough, B.E. (1983). Exercises, investigations and experiences. Physics Education , 18 , 60-63. Laboratory experiences as a part of most U.S. high school science curricula have been taken for granted for decades, but they have rarely been carefully examined. What do they contribute to science learning? What can they contribute to science learning? What is the current status of labs in our nation's high schools as a context for learning science? This book looks at a range of questions about how laboratory experiences fit into U.S. high schools: What is effective laboratory teaching? What does research tell us about learning in high school science labs? How should student learning in laboratory experiences be assessed? Do all student have access to laboratory experiences? What changes need to be made to improve laboratory experiences for high school students? How can school organization contribute to effective laboratory teaching? With increased attention to the U.S. education system and student outcomes, no part of the high school curriculum should escape scrutiny. This timely book investigates factors that influence a high school laboratory experience, looking closely at what currently takes place and what the goals of those experiences are and should be. Science educators, school administrators, policy makers, and parents will all benefit from a better understanding of the need for laboratory experiences to be an integral part of the science curriculum—and how that can be accomplished. READ FREE ONLINE Welcome to OpenBook! You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website. Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features? Show this book's table of contents , where you can jump to any chapter by name. ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one. Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book. Switch between the Original Pages , where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text. To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter . Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email. View our suggested citation for this chapter. Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available. Get Email Updates Do you enjoy reading reports from the Academies online for free ? Sign up for email notifications and we'll let you know about new publications in your areas of interest when they're released. Dictionaries home American English Collocations German-English Grammar home Practical English Usage Learn & Practise Grammar (Beta) Word Lists home My Word Lists Recent additions Resources home Text Checker Definition of laboratory noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary 320 IMAGES Speech Laboratory Speech Science Lab What is Speech Lab? Speech Science Lab Speech Laboratory Speech Laboratory VIDEO Reel Journey Part 3 : From Koothupattarai talents to screen Stars டான்ஸ் இரட்டை அர்த்த பேச்சு Double meaning speech நம்ம ஊர் கச்சேரி Language lab usage Language laboratory in English || B.Ed Del.Ed Topic || Language Lab 🎯Language Laboratory👩‍🔬Meaning /Advantages and Disadvantages of language laboratory📚Pedagogy Notes✅ Bottomline Speech Laboratorys speech technology solutions COMMENTS The Benefits Students Can Get from Speech Laboratories This is why the presence of speech laboratories can be of great help. Here are some other advantages in using the speech lab: • The lab is perfect for any type of language. For foreign language learning, it can also be used as long as the course materials are available. Language Laboratory: Meaning and Benefits/Advantages Meaning of language laboratory. Advantages/ Benefits of Language laboratory. A language lab is practical-. Students learn much faster in the language lab-. The teacher takes on a more important role in the language lab-. Use more resources and varied activities than in a traditional classroom-. Language labs allow for diversity in the classroom-. Language Lab: What it is and how it will improve your ... A language lab is an environment that enables all students to practice their listening and speaking skills concurrently. Students can work individually and/or collaborate with their classmates in pairs, small groups, and full-class settings. Teachers can listen, observe and interact with their students. 2. Anatomy of a modern language lab. Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences Research The Speech Perception and Cognitive Effort Lab focuses on the contribution of cognitive mechanisms — such as working memory and selective attention — to understanding speech in difficult circumstances. For example, this could include a talker with an unfamiliar accent or the presence of competing sounds. What Is a Language Lab: Everything You Need to Know A language lab is a special type of environment equipped with audio and visual technology designed to help students learn a foreign language. It can include computers, microphones, headphones, video screens, and a variety of other equipment. Challenges in foreign language communication are solved with the help of a modern language lab, where ... Laboratory of Speech Neuroscience How does the brain transform sound into meaning? This is the big question that guides our research at the Laboratory of Speech Neuroscience. We believe that by identifying the neural representations, operations, and information flow, it will be possible to uncover the computational architecture that supports speech processing in the human brain. Benefits and effectiveness of language labs in language teaching But noticed that they are more excited about it when we do this in the language lab.". 1# Language lab creates a change into the normal class routine: A change in the typical class pace and routine creates excitement and motivates students. 2# Language lab increases the options to focus on verbal tasks: A lot of face-to-face communication is ... The Role of Language Lab in Schools Language labs offer a myriad of benefits that traditional classroom settings often struggle to provide. These labs provide students with the opportunity to hone their listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in a controlled and technologically enriched environment. The audio-visual aids allow students to hear and mimic native speakers ... PDF Speech Laboratories: An Exploratory Examination of Potential ... Speech labs provide students with a facility to practice and videotape speeches (Teitelbaum, 2000) as well as receive verbal, written and videotaped feedback from monitors (otherwise known as lab attendees) working in the lab. Before communication labs can be fully endorsed, an in-depth analysis exploring the pedagogical effects of these labs ... [PDF] The Role of Language Laboratory in English Language Learning This study aims at determining the relationship between language labs and the effective ways of mastering better performance of English language. The study raised two questions. They are "Is language laboratory useful in teaching English to Saudi students?" And "How do language labs help in improving students' performance?" Descriptive and analytical approaches have been adopted in ... An Introduction to Machine Learning for Speech-Language Pathologists Machine learning (ML) has become an increasingly popular approach for diagnosis and prognostication in the medical and rehabilitation realms, including within the field of speech-language pathology (Adikari et al., 2023; Azevedo et al., 2023; Miller et al., 2023; Varoquaux & Cheplygina, 2022).ML refers to a branch of computer science focused on the development of models and algorithms that ... PDF The Role of Language Laboratory in English Language Learning Settings language lab can greatly help students to learn a language of their own choices and pace. Previously, the language laboratory appeared as an audio or audiovisual used as equipment in language teaching. They can be used in schools, universities, and all academies. So, this study is going to answer these two questions: Basic Research in Speech Science—Speech-Language Pathology Normative speech processes are studied in the field of speech science, a broad discipline that encompasses several related specialties focusing on the way speech is produced and perceived. Although breakthrough discoveries in speech science research are being made every day, the flow of information from laboratory to clinic can sometimes be ... Importance of Language Laboratory in Developing Language Skills The present paper deals with the importance of language laboratory. in developing language skills. It basically presents how language labs. are useful in developing the language skills of the ... Speech Outlining, Organization, and Delivery Try stretching exercises before your speech to loosen tension and help you relax. Boston. 120 Boylston Street. Boston, MA 02116. 617-824-8500. Los Angeles. The Netherlands. Enhance your speech preparation skills with Emerson's Speech Lab resources. Access tools and tips for effective speech to excel communication studies. Speech Production Lab The article offers a critical view into the meaning of collaboration in the undergraduate experience, and is a deep reflection into the power of undergraduate engagement and harnessing collective wisdom. ... Lorenzo was in the middle of the Speech Production Lab's first virtual meeting on March 19, 2020, when Kyle Riebock and Emily McCann ... Meaning & Modality Lab Welcome to the Meaning and Modality (M&M) Laboratory at Harvard Linguistics! We are interested in understanding the uniquely human capacity for language, especially the ability to convey abstract, infinite, specific meanings across the multiple modalities for natural language, including but not limited to speech and sign. PDF Importance of Language Laboratory in Developing Language Skills Laboratory, Phonetics, multimedia, digital, audio conferencing, audio channel, pedagogy correSpondence ... is very positive in assessing students' speech. For example, learners of a language can ... Laboratory Definition & Meaning The meaning of LABORATORY is a place equipped for experimental study in a science or for testing and analysis; broadly : a place providing opportunity for experimentation, observation, or practice in a field of study. How to use laboratory in a sentence. Meaning & Modality Linguistics Laboratory Welcome to the lab! Welcome to the Meaning and Modality (M&M) Laboratory at Harvard Linguistics! We are interested in understanding the incredible human capacity for language, especially the ability to convey abstract, infinite, specific meanings across the multiple modalities for natural language, including both speech and sign. LABORATORY LABORATORY definition: 1. a room or building with scientific equipment for doing scientific tests or for teaching science…. Learn more. The Effect of English Laboratory Use in Speaking Ability The paper aims at finding out whether or not English laboratory use affects students' achievement. As. one of basic skills, speakinginvolves oral and written features. English l aboratory may ... laboratory a place designed for scientific investigation and experimentation. : a place where new drugs and other chemical produces are created and tested. : a place for students of science or technology to experiment, make observations, and practice scientific techniques, or a place equipped with special technology for various types of students to use as an aid to learning.... See the full definition What is the speech laboratory? A speech laboratory is a specialized facility equipped with technology for assessing and improving speech and language skills. ... Indirect speech is when the meaning of a person's words is ... Ohio Man Tells Trump and Vance to Stop Using His Son's Death to Spread transcript. Ohio Dad Asks Trump Ticket to Stop Using Son's Death for 'Political Gain' Aiden Clark was killed when an immigrant's minivan crashed into a school bus he was travelling in last ... Speech Laboratory Speech Laboratory. • The Speech Laboratory of each department is full air-conditioned and has fifty student cubicles and one (1) teacher's control pane. It is equipped with two (2) deck cassette player, VCD player, Video Camera, and TV Monitor. • Each cubicle is also provided with textbook ready for students to use during speech ... 1 Introduction, History, and Definition of Laboratories Read chapter 1 Introduction, History, and Definition of Laboratories: Laboratory experiences as a part of most U.S. high school science curricula have bee... Login Register Cart Help. America's Lab Report ... In an influential speech to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1909, philosopher and educator John Dewey ... laboratory noun a room or building used for scientific research, experiments, testing, etc. a clinical/research laboratory; to send a specimen to the laboratory for analysis; in a/the laboratory The effects of weathering can be simulated in the laboratory.; laboratory experiments/tests assignment essay homework paper phd report resume review thesis