Lab Set-Up, bane of my existence

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I like lecturing a lot better then teaching labs. Lectures always seem to go pretty smoothly. I may flub up an explanation (be unclear, not tell it wrong) every now and again, but generally I feel pretty confident in lectures, especially in courses in which I know the subject matter well.

I hated teaching labs when I first started, and now I'm ambivalent about it. Small Religious U sells to the students that the profs teach the labs, a huge advantage to them over bigger schools where the grad students teach the labs. I really do agree with that. When in lab, I have a lot more insight to share with the students about their results than me at the beginning of my training. Moreover, after many, many student evaluations, I am convinced that labs are where students really learn well. They really should be my focus and I should start thinking of lectures as support for labs, not vice-versa.

But the set-up! In Pet class, which I've been teaching for a while, I can easily get stuff set up and predict how the experiment will go, but THIS semester, I find myself scrambling a bit for the first section just because I'm not playing with a full deck. Nonetheless, the stuff always works, and the pedagogical value is clear.

But for new lab set-ups, such as in the Advanced sabbatical replacement class, I find it impossible to predict all of the things that are needed and how the traffic flow will go. I always feel like I am scrambling during lab to get more stuff ready or something. It feels like a disorganized mess to me.

Here's an example: I read the lab, gathered everything I thought I would need. I asked for help in making solutions that were toxic, and the do-it-all retiree delivered for me. But I forgot, just simply didn't read far enough, or skimmed over the requirements for one piece of equipment. So I had to run and go get it during class. The students may not have noticed, but I was beating myself up about it.

Additionally, there were two tasks that they needed to do in the same space. In reading the prep for the lab, I really failed to realize that I would have to have them do one task, stop and clean up, then begin on the other task. I would have loved to have figured that out from the prep reading. Then I could have been explicit in the announcement/ instructions. It involved me making announcements and giving instructions on the fly during lab (which often means I repeat it because students' attentions are divided).

In research, I've solved this cognitive "flaw" by making explicit protocols and checklists and carefully following them and modifying as necessary. But until I teach a class sevearal times (and am careful to write everything down immediately after lab), I just don't get that done for teaching labs. I hate it, but haven't been able to change it well.