One kit to rule them all: designing take home lab kits at programme level

Abstract

Many educators use take home kits to provide practical hands-on activities to their students. There are clear benefits, including increasing opportunities for practical learning, meeting a range of student learning styles, and maximising inclusivity.It is common to use take home lab kits to illustrate individual experiments or even for whole modules, but it is rare to work across modules to create a single curated set of parts for use over an entire programme, including modules that would not be obviously connected with the kit contents. By giving responsibility for practical engineering education to a dedicated team, practical learning outcomes can be analysed for overlap and complementary activities. A single set of equipment can then be specified and certified safe for take home operations, providing both time and cost efficiencies for staff.We present the design of a take home kit for use across multiple modules of a first year undergraduate programme in electrical and electronic engineering. There are clear benefits from crafting a developmental practical programme across modules, using just one home lab kit. We describe the design stages of the kit specification, the alignment with learning outcomes, and important considerations for inclusive teaching practice.