Getting Started Teaching an Undergraduate Engineering Laboratory

A group of six faculty from laboratory and design courses at a large public university in the Midwest United States recently started a community of practice (CoP) for laboratory and design instructors. The goal of the CoP was to share resources and generate ideas for improving laboratory and design courses after the pandemic. We realized that many of us faced similar challenges during that time as we moved our courses to alternate formats and that we would have benefited from being able to share ideas and collectively brainstorm solutions. Since then, the CoP has grown to almost 40 members representing most of the departments in the college. We have hosted workshops, coffee chats, and other events to facilitate the exchange of ideas between members. Some of the popular topics have been facilitating teamwork; improving inclusivity and belonging; and training laboratory staff. These events have led to us curating resources in these areas. The purpose of this Tips and Tricks paper is to share these resources about teaching laboratory and design courses that we have collected within the CoP with the broader engineering education community, especially for instructors who have recently started teaching a course with a laboratory or large design project.