Teacher story by: Dr. L. Lätsch, Dr. D. Dirin, Dr. A. Yakimov

“Preparation builds confidence, experimentation builds understanding”

ETH Zürich; Chemistry; Chemical Biology

The challenge

Passive learning Our course served nearly 300 students but relied on instruction-following experiments. Students often arrived unprepared, so valuable laboratory time was spent understanding the protocol rather than the chemistry behind the experiment or developing practical skills.

The transformation

We redesigned pre-lab preparation around LabBuddy. Students now actively build the experimental protocol from guided components, answer conceptual questions, and complete preparation before entering the laboratory. This freed laboratory time for experiments and discussions.

The final result

95% of students would like to use LabBuddy in future courses. This active-learning approach increased post-course assessment performance by 16.5% while reducing overall laboratory time by 16%.