ABSTRACT
When students act like professionals, they learn more. With only a few exceptions (first-year composition), laboratory classrooms are part of major curriculums. Students in the major seek out the trappings of the field: the special communication styles and postures that constitute professionalism. Making professionalism one of the components helps to tap these interests and to connect students to the more arduous tasks. I have found that students respond to difficult challenges when these are introduced as the problems faced by professionals. Their practice in the laboratory becomes practice for those roles.
