What is the topic?

This webinar dives into the question: how do we truly learn science in the lab?

We’re all familiar with the phrase “hands-on” lab work is a great way to learn. This hands-on aspect is often assumed to be the key pedagogical value of laboratory education. But have you ever stopped to think about why?

This interactive webinar challenges you to look beyond the common conception of “hands-on learning” and explores what’s really happening when students learn in a laboratory. It focuses on the link between the students’ physical actions and their mental processes in understanding science.

We’ll dive into a key question: how do our bodies and minds work together to gain scientific knowledge? While we all know that lab work is a great way to learn, this session offers a fresh perspective on how students truly build their understanding of science in a university lab setting.

What will you gain?

This webinar isn’t just theory. We’ll explore real-world examples from a pharmaceutical analytical chemistry lab, including anonymized illustrations and snippets of student conversations. These examples are transferable across disciplines and will show you what it means to be “minds-on whilst hands-on” and how students effectively engage with their subjects.

By the end of the session, you’ll have come to know a new framework, that of embodied epistemic cognition, for thinking about laboratory education. This will enable you to consider how to guide students toward more productive learning in your own labs.

What will the session look like?

This webinar is interactive. After each presentation segment, we will pause for an interactive moment where you can contextualize and discuss the ideas, ask questions, or share your own experiences. These conversations will help us to jointly expand, challenge or enrich the framework of embodied epistemic cognition.