University A&P · Student Study Tools

Pre-Lab Checklist — Night Before

Checklist

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The students who leave A&P lab on time, with notebook entries finished and the day’s structures already in their head, did this checklist the night before. The students who stay late and still feel behind didn’t. 15 minutes here saves 30 minutes at the bench.

Lab session: ______________________________    Unit: ____________________    Date of lab: ____________

1. Logistics (3 min)

• Open the lab manual or course site for tomorrow’s session.
• Confirm the location — some courses move sections between rooms or lab-prep weeks.
• Confirm the time — arrive 10 minutes early when possible; the first 10 minutes of lab are the most important.
• Bring required materials: lab notebook, pen (ink), pencil (sketches), course manual, closed-toe shoes, hair tied back if long, eye protection if your course requires it.

2. Read the lab procedure once at normal speed (5 min)

• Read the entire procedure once, start to finish. Don’t skim.
• Don’t take notes yet — just read.
• Note the safety procedures if there are any (specimen handling, sharps, chemical, microbiological).
• Note any pre-work the manual says you should do (pre-lab questions, video, equipment quiz, etc.).

3. Pre-load the vocabulary (5 min)

• List the named structures or terms from tomorrow’s lab in your notebook (just the names; you’re not memorizing tonight).
• For each one, write a one-line plain-language definition next to it (you can look these up).
• For unfamiliar terms, break them into Greek/Latin parts (the terminology guide helps).
• If your course has a controlled vocabulary list (rubric, study guide, or syllabus), use that. The unit rubric packets on this site list the canonical terms TAs grade against, with synonyms.

4. Open your notebook to the next blank page (2 min)

• Write tomorrow’s date at the top, in ink.
• Write the lab session title below the date.
• Write three things in a “Pre-lab” section: the goal of the lab; the major materials/specimens; one or two predictions about what you’ll see.
• Add the entry to your notebook’s table of contents (front of notebook). 30 seconds, saves you hours later.

University A&P · Student Study Tools

Day-Of + What To Do If You Forget — Pre-Lab Checklist (cont.)

Checklist

v0.1 · Page 2 of 2

Day-of: arriving at lab (10 min before start)

• Find your bench station and lay out your notebook, pen, pencil, course manual.
• Skim the day’s pre-lab section in your notebook (the one you wrote last night). Re-reading what you wrote yesterday is the cheapest possible retrieval rep.
• Greet your TA briefly if they’re available. Ask if there’s anything new in the procedure since the manual was printed (sometimes there is).
• Glove up before touching specimens if your course requires it.
• Take three breaths. The first 10 minutes of lab are the steepest learning curve of the day; arriving regulated rather than rushed pays compound interest.

During lab: the four-rep rhythm

For each new structure or technique you encounter, do all four:

• Look at it on the specimen, model, or slide.
• Touch it (or the equivalent) — trace it with the probe, identify it on a partner, position it under the objective.
• Name it out loud using the canonical term (not the slang or shorthand). Saying it engages a different memory pathway than reading it.
• Write it in your notebook with the date and any observation.

Look-touch-name-write. Four reps in roughly 30 seconds. After a single lab session, the structures you ran the rhythm on are essentially permanent memory; the ones you only looked at are gone by morning.

Before you leave the bench

• Write a 2–3 sentence summary at the bottom of today’s notebook entry: what you did, what you saw, what surprised you.
• Note one thing to revisit — a structure you weren’t sure of, a technique you want to repeat, a question to ask the TA next time.
• Clean up your station per your course’s policy. The TA who sees you leave a clean bench is the TA who’s patient with you when you have a question two weeks later.
• Add the entry to your TOC if you didn’t already.

Within 6 hours of lab

• 10 minutes: on a blank piece of paper, draw or label the day’s structures from memory. Check your notebook only after you’re done.
• What you got wrong is your remediation list for the week. Add it to your study tracker (see study cycle template).

If you’re running this checklist for the first time

The first three or four lab sessions you do this for, it will feel slow. By session five, the pre-lab takes 8–10 minutes instead of 15, and the “during lab” rhythm becomes automatic. You’ll start finishing labs with extra time, which is the right time to ask the TA questions you couldn’t earlier — the highest-value way to spend the last 10 minutes of any lab session.