This past week I have struggled with my regular biology class in finding ways for them to be more engaged and motivated to study the material that they have a unit exam on (on Tuesday!). I know that the material is a little difficult to wrap your head around because it requires a great deal of visualization and conceptual/logistical knowledge to fully understand. Mitosis and Meiosis seem like topics that will forever be one of those topics that students either get or don't get the first time that they encounter it.
The reason I have been frustrated is because I don't know how to make it better for my students. They took a quiz on the material, and many of them did poorly so I gave them the opportunity to make corrections for 1/2 credit (only a handful took advantage of the opportunity) and we continued to review the material. About a week later, they were given almost the exact same quiz and much to my surprise and demise, 1/2 of them did worse than they had the first time around. So, kind of at a loss for words as I collected the quizzes, I asked my students for suggestions of what I could/should do to help them learn the material. Many of them mentioned games, more visuals, and hands-on activities but after having spent nearly 3 weeks on those 2 topics my bag of tricks for Mitosis and Meiosis had already begun to run dry. Even my mentor appeared to be at a loss but having taught the topic many times before, she was unsurprised and tried to encourage me to understand that the nature of the topic was one that many students will just not understand. This sort of just frustrated me more because I felt that there had to be a way.
As their unit exam looms closer, I am determined to make the most of the last day - but I realize that it is a little late to remedy things for this unit. Hopefully the next unit (on DNA replication) will go better. I have some fun activities and visuals for them lined up but I feel that I need to be even more innovative in how I approach the topic given how the last unit went.
1.28.2010
Whew ...1 down, 1 to go
That's what I always thought when it came to final exams I would count down the number of exams I had remaining every semester (or I suppose every quarter in college). This week was my placement's final exam week. While somewhat boring during the actual test itself, I've learned a few valuable things from what to do when something goes wrong to calculating grades in general:
1) seriously review all the material yourself before review days/exams - the students ask some really good questions sometimes!
2) What goes on after a student is caught cheating is really unpleasant for everyone involved : the teacher, the administration, the student and their parents
3) Just doing your work in class (not matter how poorly done it is) is SO much better than a 0. I had students going up full letter grades from turning in 1 mini-project assignment!
4) It's sometimes really frustrating to see a student's grade and then have to try and decide whether or not they deserve to be bumped up - or, really frustrating to see a student's grade and know that they tried so hard but the numbers don't work out and you can't really bump them up...
Other than that, I've begun to take over the 1 regular biology class and shadowing my mentor on the 2nd honors biology class that we have. And it's been fun so far! Can't wait to see how the new semester pans out starting next week!
1) seriously review all the material yourself before review days/exams - the students ask some really good questions sometimes!
2) What goes on after a student is caught cheating is really unpleasant for everyone involved : the teacher, the administration, the student and their parents
3) Just doing your work in class (not matter how poorly done it is) is SO much better than a 0. I had students going up full letter grades from turning in 1 mini-project assignment!
4) It's sometimes really frustrating to see a student's grade and then have to try and decide whether or not they deserve to be bumped up - or, really frustrating to see a student's grade and know that they tried so hard but the numbers don't work out and you can't really bump them up...
Other than that, I've begun to take over the 1 regular biology class and shadowing my mentor on the 2nd honors biology class that we have. And it's been fun so far! Can't wait to see how the new semester pans out starting next week!
12.09.2009
"Oooh, we're half way there..."
Well almost anyway! I've been on a bit of a hiatus from blog posts lately, sorry about that! This semester has flown buy, it's hard to think that it's been nearly 6 months since the MAC program started!
Some things I wanted to touch on, I've been really excited to plan my own unit plan for methods. (Sorry if you've already heard too much about this!) The unit I'm doing is on the Human Body so really cool interesting topic that I think has a lot of potential in it! Some cool things (well I think cool things) I'm doing for the project involves transparent life size drawings of the human systems as well as some fun comparisons to the Body Worlds Exhibit! I'm still trying to think of ways to use more technology in my unit so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! So far I have some cool video clips to show, but you know that's such a small part of what's available to us. Hopefully I'll get some good ideas from the web2.0 tool webinars that are going around this week :)
Also, I've been rather inspired by the claymation movies we did in 504. After doing the claymation stuff, I started thinking about all the wonderful projects my biology classes could do in showing how photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and other cycles (of which biology has many) using claymation. See a variation on claymation movies here: Protein Synthesis. Being the rather artsty person I am, this idea appeals a lot to me. I really like the idea of teaching through the creation of projects (my mentor student taught at Community) so I've gotten a good glimpse of how to incorporate that into a school that's so different from community.
Alright, well onto the many papers that are between me, winter break, and flordia! So, as the song says, Livin' on a prayer ! Good luck to everyone in the MAC program finishing up the semester! :)
Some things I wanted to touch on, I've been really excited to plan my own unit plan for methods. (Sorry if you've already heard too much about this!) The unit I'm doing is on the Human Body so really cool interesting topic that I think has a lot of potential in it! Some cool things (well I think cool things) I'm doing for the project involves transparent life size drawings of the human systems as well as some fun comparisons to the Body Worlds Exhibit! I'm still trying to think of ways to use more technology in my unit so any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! So far I have some cool video clips to show, but you know that's such a small part of what's available to us. Hopefully I'll get some good ideas from the web2.0 tool webinars that are going around this week :)
Also, I've been rather inspired by the claymation movies we did in 504. After doing the claymation stuff, I started thinking about all the wonderful projects my biology classes could do in showing how photosynthesis, cellular respiration, and other cycles (of which biology has many) using claymation. See a variation on claymation movies here: Protein Synthesis. Being the rather artsty person I am, this idea appeals a lot to me. I really like the idea of teaching through the creation of projects (my mentor student taught at Community) so I've gotten a good glimpse of how to incorporate that into a school that's so different from community.
Alright, well onto the many papers that are between me, winter break, and flordia! So, as the song says, Livin' on a prayer ! Good luck to everyone in the MAC program finishing up the semester! :)
11.15.2009
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