Many labs take the form of "cookbook investigations" where students perform routine experiments that yield well-known results. However, this approach often stymies anticipation and curiosity, and offers little incentive to think or be creative. Where possible, effective laboratory environments should be learner-centred, with students playing an active role in building their own knowledge and understanding. Teaching staff should act as facilitators, and learning tasks should take the form of authentic problems that connect theory with reality, acting as triggers for self-directed investigations (either practically or through further research).

Importantly, the learning context should be complex and challenging, requiring higher-order thinking skills such as application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Taking a more enquiry-oriented approach, students could be asked to:

• observe a phenomenon, and then ask questions and devise a testable hypothesis or model
• carry-out an experimental strategy and gather data and evidence
• critically analyse their results, and refine approaches to enhance the quality of their data
• reach conclusions about the validity of their hypotheses
• decide whether more experiments are needed to answer the original questions
• if new questions have arisen during the course of the investigation, whether more experiments are needed to answer them
• communicate explanations and conclusions based on their evidence

Once you have identified your lab's main objectives and goals, you will need to turn these into intended learning outcomes. These learning outcomes define the skills a student will have acquired and will be able to do upon successfully completion the lab. They should be expressed from the students’ perspective and be measurable and achievable.