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Student surveys and a trial lab collected feedback before, during, and after implementation, revealing strong enthusiasm and clearly identified costly, disengaging sessions, along with desired hands-on, video, and demonstration elements. 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Windsor  \nDo you have an idea for a new activity or laboratory exercise that you would like to incorporate into your course butfeel unsure as to how it will be received by your students? This was our concern when developing first-year biology labs for a biology majors’ course at University of Windsor. Through a Centred on Learning Innovation Fund (CLIF) grant at our institution, we were able to form new and revised laboratory exercises, incorporating on-line, active, and reflective components. But, would the students like the labs? Which labs should be replaced? Using student surveys anda ‘trial’lab, we were able to collect information about the new lab, as well as the old labs. It was a revelation to witness the enthusiasm and the appreciation first-year students hadfor being involved in the development of the labs. The goal of this essay is to identify the benefits and costs of incorporating anew activity into a course, as well as describing the process that we developed, which includes student input as an important component in the development of the activity.  \nIntroduction  \nThe implementation of a class activity can trans  \nform a classroom environment from a passive experience to one that is interactive, while still reinforcing student learning of relevant, and perhaps complex, subject areas. Active learning can take many forms, from a short in-class exercise, like minute papers and clicker questions, to a complete course activity, like problem-based learning and laboratory exercises (Cameron, 1999; Crawford, 2007) . Independent of the type of activity implemented, allowing students to take part in their own learning provides the opportunity for a deeper learning expe-  \nrience (Biggs, 2003) .  \nDeveloping a new activity and incorporating it into a course and/or classroom requires time commitments by the instructor in determining areas of weakness and creating effective methods to improve the learning experience. In addition, instructors must be prepared to accept a loss of classroom control associated with the move from a teacher-centred toa student-centred environment. Indeed, common concerns associated with adding a novel activity to a course include difficulties relating to organizational and technical issues ([e.g. in-class](e.g. in-class) time commitment,  \nnew technology), as well as risks associated with student acceptance of a new learning experience (i.e. potential student anxiety, lack of interest) . We experienced these same concerns when developing new laboratory activities for a first-year biology course. Personal communication with students, instructors, and laboratory personnel indicated that some of the laboratory exercises in the course were outdated and required improvement, so it was our aim to develop new exercises that students would find engaging and interesting while also improving comprehension of relevant course material.  \nThe process we developed in our study focused on providing undergraduate students with opportunities to give their perceptions of current and newly developed lab activities through the use of surveys. Feedback has been identified as an important component for improvement of both undergraduate student learning (Chickering & Gamson, 1987) and instructor teaching practices (Piccinin, 2006) . In this case, we used the feedback from polled students before, during, and after implementing newly designed lab exercises so that we could be confident that the improvements to the laboratory sessions were aligned with the students’ concerns and interests.  \nIn this essay, we identify the advantages of implementing a new activity and areas of concern associated with this course of action, describe the process we used to develop and incorporate new laboratory activities into the first-year biology course, and discuss the applicability of this process to other situations. To ","cbCaivaEnVcx6Dse","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaivaEnVcx6Dse","pdf",671064,"English","# Introduction\n# Ranking of Laboratory Sessions\n# Developing and Experiencing the New 'First Lab'","[{\"question\":\"Why did the authors develop new first-year biology lab activities?\",\"answer\":\"They aimed to replace outdated laboratory exercises and improve student engagement and comprehension of course material, responding to concerns voiced by students, instructors, and lab personnel.\"},{\"question\":\"How did student input shape the redesign of the labs?\",\"answer\":\"The authors used student surveys (including rankings and written comments) and a trial lab to gather feedback before, during, and after implementing redesigned lab exercises, ensuring improvements aligned with student concerns and interests.\"},{\"question\":\"What did students dislike about the existing lab sessions?\",\"answer\":\"Students were especially dissatisfied with two of six labs, describing them as boring, tedious, and repetitive, and requesting more hands-on work, videos/demonstrations, and activities distinct from secondary school lab repeats.\"}]","Developing a New Activity - STUDENT APPROVED | PDF",13]