Modern Objectives and Methods for Laboratory Instruction

In considering the role of the undergraduate laboratory in an engineering curriculum, it is important that the objectives of the laboratory program be well understood and clearly set forth. It is proposed that the objectives of a modern laboratory program should be: 1) to supplement and strengthen the teaching of subject matter by laboratory methods and 2) to teach the theory and practice of experimentation. A complete laboratory program designed to meet the above objectives should include classroom demonstrations, self-demonstrations, a course on the theory and practice of experimentation, a measurements course, and a senior projects laboratory. The unique features of, such a laboratory program are 1) the self-demonstrations which are designed and programmed much like a teaching machine but which are made up of normal laboratory equipment with which the student carries out an actual physical experiment, and 2) the handling of the theory and practice of experimentation as a body of information which can be taught and which exists as a subject in its own right to be included in an engineering curriculum.