Pedagogical elements in virtual labs

A method for a virtual lab to use the resources of an underlying system to provide an assessment of learning experiences to a learner who uses the virtual lab, the method comprising:

• an act of generating a virtual lab for an underlying learning objective defined by a lab instructor;
• an act of decomposing the virtual lab into a plurality of lab steps, each lab step defining a portion of the underlying learning objective that can be performed independently from other portions of the underlying learning objective, each lab step including pedagogical information for teaching the learner the portion of the underlying learning objective defined in the lab step and including information specifying a first portion of the underlying system that will execute each lab step;
• an act of causing the first portion of the underlying system to execute a first lab step of the plurality of lab steps to thereby allow the learner to perform the portion of the underlying learning objective defined in the first lab step;
• an act of receiving an event generated by the learner's performance of the first lab step of the plurality of lab steps indicating that the first lab step has been completed;
• in response to receiving the event, an act of causing an assessment procedure to be performed that determines the learner's level of mastery of the pedagogical information of the first lab step;
• and
• an act of isolating the learner from the virtual lab such that learner has no access to the virtual lab while the assessment procedure is being performed.

A system, the system comprising:

• one or more computing resources of an underlying system;
• one or more processors;
• a lab instructor who defines an underlying learning objective;
• a learner who is intended to learn the learning objective;
• and
• a virtual lab manager, the virtual lab manager comprising at least a lab generator, an event manager, and an assessment manager, the virtual lab manager configured to perform the following:
• generate a virtual lab for the underlying learning objective;
• decompose the virtual lab into a plurality of lab steps, each lab step defining a portion of the underlying learning objective that can be performed independently from other portions of the underlying learning objective, each lab step including pedagogical information for teaching the learner the portion of the underlying learning objective defined in the lab step and including information specifying which portion of the one or more computing resources will execute each lab step;
• cause the specified portion of the one or more computing resources to execute a first lab step of the plurality of lab steps to thereby allow the learner to perform the portion of the underlying learning objective defined in the first lab step;
• receive a first event generated by the learner's performance of the first lab step of the plurality of lab steps;
• cause a performance of a specific pedagogical procedure dictated by the first event;
• receive a second event generated by the learner's performance of the first lab step of the plurality of lab steps, the second event indicating that the first lab step has been completed;
• cause an assessment procedure to be performed that determines the learner's level of mastery of the pedagogical information of the first lab step;
• and
• isolate the learner from the virtual lab such that learner has no access to the virtual lab while the assessment procedure is being performed.