Reflections On My First Biology Modeling Course

It's hard to believe I'm through with biology for the year!  The main indicator of how successful this course has been will be my students' EOC scores, both their individual scores and their growth scores based on their last science exam (middle school).

My general impression of the AMTA biology curriculum is positive overall.  Breaking it down further:

The Good

• Class periods seemed to fly by for both me and the students.  The majority of days, my students were working right up to the bell.
• Engagement was higher overall:  I had no students completely disengage and check out for any period of time, as I have in years past.  Everyone participated on some level every day, even if their greatest contribution for the day was writing on the white board in pretty colors.  It was rare for me to have to pry heads off desks or deal with students refusing to work.  Attitudes were generally better than average.
• I truly liked the sequence and how the curriculum told a story.  The units built upon each other in a logical manner, so we rarely left a topic completely behind to begin a new one.  I found the sequence far superior to how our biology textbooks and state standards are organized, which basically divides biology into three or four major chunks that don't feel connected at all.
• I also loved the lab first/inquiry format.  It made our labs a lot more meaningful.
• While still heavy on the worksheets, the exercises really forced students to think.  They couldn't just jump around and answer the easy questions, nor did they have those random "critical thinking" questions that you see on traditional textbook worksheets-- I despise those things.
• My socratic questioning skills have greatly improved-- that shows in my administrator evaluations.  I was scoring 4s and 5s out of 5 in questioning, where in previous years I was scoring 3s at best.
• I do feel like many of my students have improved their scientific reasoning skills and have a better grasp on biology as a whole than in years past.
• My students also seemed more comfortable about speaking up in class (although this was occasionally to my own detriment, ha!).
• I also feel like I covered my state standards better than I ever have in the past.  Although I don't know if that's a function of the modeling curriculum, or just general experience with teaching biology for several years now.  Ecology, testing for macromolecules, and dihybrid crosses were the only things that I needed to add to the existing AMTA lesson plans.  I did more justice to some standards that I have frequently glossed over (cough cough evolution).  

The Bad

• I had an achievement gap all year that I could not close for the life of me.  The majority of my students excelled, but some could not grasp anything we were doing (evident in the MBCI results for my standard biology class). Those students continued to fall further and further behind.  What is even more frustrating for me is that several of the students on the wrong side of the achievement gap were trying very hard-- most of them weren't your unmotivated slackers who have given up on school.  They were doing assignments, they were participating-- they just weren't improving AT ALL.  I have never experienced this problem to this degree.  I usually pride myself on being able to teach something to everyone.
• Along the same lines, I had more course failures this semester than I have ever had for biology.  Out of 58 students, I had 3 failures.  While that number isn't excessive per se, it is higher than usual for my classes.  Also, all of those failing students were female, which really has me scratching my head and wondering if there was a connection.
• I'm worried about my EOC scores.  Even my honors students thought the test was really hard.  My students in years past also have always thought the test was hard, yet did fine when their scores came back.  I guess I won't know until I see their quick scores in January.
• There was NOT enough rigor for honors.  Part of this is my lack of experience with honors:  I'm still trying to figure out how best to differentiate my standard and honors curriculum.  About half my honors students have 100% averages this semester, which is a little bit embarrassing.
• My classroom is usually a bit chaotic and informal-- that's just my personality.  The atmosphere of my classroom was even more chaotic and informal this year.  Usually, I don't mind so long as the students are on-task and learning.  But the chaos became a bit of a problem towards the end of the semester, when my students suddenly seemed to regress into elementary school behavior with the holiday break approaching.  To be quite frank, they have downright ticked me off over the past couple weeks with their immaturity.  I want them to enjoy learning and be comfortable enough to take risks in the classroom, but I also want them to know how to conduct themselves in college or a workplace.

Improvements to be made

• Pacing!  Now that I've done it once, I know that I really need to pick and choose activities at the beginning of the year.  I would rather have the time to do some of the more in depth reinforcement/model deployment activities in units 5-7 than waste so much time on units 1-3.
• Along with the pacing, I am still struggling to find a good balance for board meeting discussions.  They often got cut short by the bell, or drug on FOREVER in the case of my large class.  Board meetings became boring meetings many times, with students only talking when they were directly questioned.  In my ideal classroom, the board meetings would hopefully become more student-driven.
• I didn't assign textbooks this semester and I feel like I should have.  I go back and forth every year about assigning textbooks.  I don't have a classroom, so I can't just keep a classroom set handy.  This year, I had a cart with books that I brought to class when I planned on using them.  I don't rely on the textbook heavily, but I do think it would have been helpful for my lower achieving students to have it as a resource (or at least address the excuse, "I couldn't do the homework because you didn't give us a book!).  The problem with assigning textbooks is that the students conveniently never bring them to class when they need them.
• I feel like I needed more assessment-- exit tickets, more repetitive questioning, individual grill & drill practice, etc.  Don't get me wrong, I thought the included exercises were very strong, and all of the questioning and discussion gave me tons of opportunities for formative assessment.  I also included weekly quizzes and daily bell ringers.  But with so much group work and collaboration, my weaker students kept managing to trick me into thinking that they were improving when test results said again and again that they truly weren't.  After every test, I was at least partially surprised by the number of failures.
• I loved the interactive lab notebooks, but they needed more structure. I'm thinking maybe a vocab or concept check list given at the beginning of each unit to match up to what they're writing in their notebook??
• I need to figure out a way to best incorporate the concept of "the model" for biology.  I fell back into the PowerPoint trap a lot in the middle of the year.  This may be slightly easier for most topics in chemistry.

It is going to be really interesting with chemistry next semester:  I had very respectful and mature students this semester.  They were "game" to work and generally well behaved.  Next semester, I unfortunately already know of a lot of the students in my classes... let's just say I don't exactly have the cream of the crop.  On my roster there are a lot of students with regular disciplinary problems, a lot of truancy, and a lot of students with history of failure.  It's going to be a different classroom culture than this semester.  At the same time, I have several students that I also taught for biology last year with the traditional lecture/lab pedagogy.  Some were good students, some were dreadful students. I'm curious to see how they will react to the modeling curriculum and if it is reflected in their EOC and ACT scores.

Modeling Biology Concept Inventory Post-Test Results

I could use any/all of the following things in excess to cope with my students' Modeling Biology Concept Inventory post-test results:

The results were that disappointing.  To recap, I have one section of standard biology and two sections of honors biology.  This is the first year I've ever had honors classes-- in prior years, I've only taught standard sections of biology.  I used the same modeling biology curriculum with both standard and honors.  My classes were surprisingly small this semester, with the exception of one honors section of 34 students.  I have not had a chance to break down the data by concept or standard yet; I've only entered the raw scores.

Here's the run down:

Section 1:  Standard Biology (12 students)

Pre-Test Class Average:  8/30 (27%)

Post-Test Class Average:  13/30 (43%)

Class Growth Average:  4 points

One student, who is currently failing, actually scored two points lower on the post-test as compared to the pre-test.  Two students showed no growth, scoring exactly the same (yet getting different questions correct).  The highest post-test score in this section was a 19/30, the lowest was a 7/30 from a student who showed no change. Two students showed double digit growth.  If you toss out the three students without growth, the class growth average becomes six points.  The median score pre-test score was 8/30, the median post-test score was 12/30. 

Section 2:  Honors Biology (34 students)

Pre-Test Class Average:  12/30 (40%)

Post-Test Class Average:  18/30 (60%)

Class Growth Average:  6 points

All students had a minimum of two points of growth, with six students showing double digit growth.  The low post-test score in this section was 11/30, three students scored 23/30, which was the highest score.  The median pre-test and post-test were 12/30 and 18/20, respectively.

Section 3:  Honors Biology (12 students)

Pre-Test Class Average:  10/30 (33%)

Post-Test Class Average:  17/30 (57%)

Class Growth Average:  7 points

All students in this section had a minimum of four points growth, but only one student had double digit growth.  The post-test low score was a 10/30, the high score was a 23/30.  The median pre- and post-test were 11.5/30 and 17.5/30, respectively.

I'm disappointed.  I think the MBCI is a difficult test, but these scores were still lower than I anticipated.  The fact that one of my students regressed and two of my students showed no growth is extraordinarily upsetting.  I'm also discouraged by just how low the growth and overall class averages are for each class.  A 13/30 class average is the equivalent of 43%-- that's not even passing.  I sure hope my students' EOC scores come back higher than this, or else I'm going to have some unhappy administrators.

I'm trying to think just what I could have done differently, especially to reach those three students who did not achieve in my class.  But I'm going to save my overall reflections on my first semester using the biology modeling curriculum for another post.

Dissection Fun...

The day they've all been waiting for... dissections!  If you remember, comparative dissections are technically part of Unit 4 in the modeling curriculum.  However, we needed to get through all of the state standards before the EOC.

We just did a comparison of the anatomy of the earthworm and rat.

Not the greatest earthworm picture ever

Inside the rat...

No woozy students, and only two students were "morally opposed" and opted to do the online dissections.  All in all, I'd consider it a success!

My students have only two more days of class this semester.  Tomorrow we'll do that DNA extraction that we never got around to, and then we'll review for their final test they'll take on Wednesday.  Their final test will be a combination lab practical/retaking the Modeling Biology Concept Inventory.  The MBCI data is just for me-- I'm not actually reviewing them for it, nor am I giving them a grade on it.

EOC Prep: Data, data everywhere...

What have I been doing?  Data tracking.  Tomorrow is my students' state end of course exam for biology.  It's hard to believe that it's already that time...

Since last Friday, we have been working on practice tests and review.  I have been struggling over the years to find an EOC review method that works best.  Let's just say that the struggle continues.

Some teachers say they start at the beginning of the curriculum and revisit every topic, then take a practice test.  I've found that style ineffective for me and my style of teaching:  the students tune out and none of us get a very good assessment of what we know/don't know until we're done.

Lately, I have been trying to tailor review activities to individual students' needs:  I usually give a practice test as a diagnostic and use that to guide the review material.  Sometimes I have done "whole class" reviews, other years I have done individual review packets.  In a perfect world, I would give a post-practice test afterwards, but we always seem to run out of time.

This year, I sort of blended my methods.  I somehow actually had time to create a real, live data tracker for their EOC practice test results.  Data tracking is something that was stressed heavily in my alternative teacher certification program, but I've never had the time to utilize it in my own classes.  The schools I've taught at haven't mandated it, and it's time consuming to create all of the necessary tools from scratch.  But somehow this year I had a chance to sit down and make a simple excel spreadsheet to track my students performance on the EOC practice test.

Raw data for each student per question, color-coded by unit-- 1 for answering a question correctly, 0 for incorrect.

Raw scores for each student and color-coded performance for each unit.  Missing data from a handful of students, hence the reds.

I also calculated the % of students who answered each question correctly.  I had several students absent, so no question has 100% correct.

The results have been really interesting.  I also have successfully gotten myself worked up into a tizzy.  You can see the numbers for some of my standard biology students in the 2nd picture above, and they are NOT pretty.  But in years past, I do recall students doing significantly better on the actual EOC vs. the practice test.  Last year, I believe only my absolute brightest standard students even passed the same practice test, yet they all had strong scores on the real exam.  Thanks to this data tracker, I should eventually have facts to support my recollection...

Based off the data, students then had to complete a combined class/independent review activity.

There were six questions that had lower than 50% of students answering correctly.  We reviewed these six topics as a class (boring lecture style).  Of these six questions:  

• One was a cell diagram where it was unclear if the arrow was pointing to the ER specifically or a ribosome on the ER.  That was an easy fix.
• One involved a coral reef food web.  I was really surprised that this question was missed so frequently, but when I asked the class about it, apparently it was the way that the diagram was drawn that threw a lot of students off.  They misinterpreted the diagram and thought it was a trick question.
• One (well, technically two but we combined them) were testing for macromolecules in food.  We just needed to review that topic, since most students had forgotten which indicator to use for each macromolecule.
• One (technically two) were on enzymes.  I did not cover enzymes well.  We did enzymes the week my classes were disrupted by students taking the ACT Plan test.  So we revisited the topic.
• One was on the percentage of chromosomes in gametes formed by meiosis.  Now, every single student in my classes can repeat that gametes are haploid and have half the chromosomes of the parent cell.  But for some reason, seeing the number as a percentage threw them for a loop.
• The last was a tricky pedigree chart for an x-linked recessive disorder.  It began with an affected father and carrier mother who produced affected sons and daughters.  Seeing both males and females affected made many students assume it was an autosomal disorder.

After our whole class review, I gave students the breakdown of how they scored for each unit.  Based on their score, they had to attend stations with review materials for their weakest units.  The idea for the activity was good, but it was difficult to execute.  If I can find a way to streamline and organize the stations, it may work better in the future.

So... that's that.  Tomorrow is the big test.  I should find out their quick scores after the new year and their full results sometime in July.  I am extraordinarily curious to see how my standard biology class will fare and if the class average will be higher than last year's average (I didn't have any honors students last year to compare).  I really want feedback on how effective the modeling curriculum has been for my teaching!!!!

Unit 7 Reflections: Worksheets Galore

Holy worksheets!  Unit 7 could be re-titled "the unit of a thousand exercises."  Or at least that's what it feels like.  Most of the units in the curriculum until this point have had less than five exercises. Unit 7 has nine!

Granted, they are pretty good worksheets, as far as worksheets go.  I really liked Exercise 3, which basically has students work through some of Mendel's pea plant data on their own and support Mendel's conclusions.  Challenging, but not too challenging.  Unit 7 doesn't bring up Mendel's name until well after we've discussed punnett squares.  I'm becoming a big fan of this pedagogical style-- students using what they've learned to support the findings of past influential scientists.  In my mind, it's far superior to the alternative of me rambling on about Mendel's laws, then trying to have the students apply them to real life.  The engagement level seems much higher-- students were much more willing to muddle through pea plant data when they already understood what should be going on.

The worksheets are broken up by some readings in The Cartoon Guide To Genetics by Larry Gonick and Mark Wheelis.

A few weeks ago, I ordered myself a copy of this from Barnes & Noble for $11.70... Barnes & Noble had the lowest total price when you included shipping.  Well, you get what you pay for.  My lovely book FINALLY arrived today ("arrives in 2-6 business days" yeah right).  While it looks like a nice enough book, I'm past the point of utilizing it this semester.  I'm looking forward to breaking it out next year.

Exercise 4 isn't actually a worksheet, but rather a genetic disorder research activity.  It also was a nice change of pace from the worksheets upon worksheets.  Groups are assigned one of six autosomal disorders:  Cystic Fibrosis, PKU, Tay Sachs, Huntington's, Polydactyly, and Sickle Cell Anemia.  The students in the group are to research the disorder and create a circle chart of the symptoms, genetic cause, treatment, and prognosis.

Exercise 4 Circle Chart

The students then presented this information to the class.  This was a nice, low key presentation that got everybody in the room talking and presenting, since I assigned each group member a "wedge" to research and present.  In my state standards "Checks for Understanding" section, it states that students should "Design an informational brochure to describe a human genetic disorder."  While not a brochure, I think this sufficed quite nicely, especially with limited time.

We then applied what we learned about genetic disorders to a way to track these disorders in a family (enter the pedigree chart).  We also introduced the concept of sex-linked.  I sent them home with the Hemophilia:  A Royal Disease reading and a couple questions.

Tomorrow is our last day of instruction for the SEMESTER.  Seriously.  Our state EOC exam will be administered next week.  Friday will be a review day, as well as whatever days next week that my students aren't missing for other subjects' EOC exams.

So tomorrow's plan is to apply a little more practice identifying autosomal vs. sex-linked in pedigree charts, briefly discuss dihybrid/polygenic crosses, and to bust through as many of exercises 5-9 as we can.  My early prediction is that we won't get through many...

Instead of the unit test, my students will just be taking a quiz on the unit due to lack of time.  This is the first time I have had to heavily modify one of the AMTA unit tests because I thought it was too rigorous for my students.  The test has a lot of differentiation between co-dominant and incomplete dominant.  While we covered those topics in the Potato Head Genetics activity, we just didn't have time to go into as much depth as I would have liked.  Instead, I substituted sample EOC questions on genetics, which lean more towards straight Mendelian crosses and pedigree charts.

Unit 7 "Alternate" Plan

The main plan for Unit 7 calls for 45+ days of growing pea plants prior to beginning the heredity unit.  That really isn't feasible for me at my school... although the real reason this idea was thrown out the window is because I didn't carefully read the Unit 7 lesson plan until about three weeks ago.  Oops.

Luckily, they give an alternate lesson plan for those of us without resources (or in my case, time) to execute the fast pea plant experiment.  It starts off with a simulation entitled "Potato Head Genetics."

Stock Mr. Potato Head photo stolen off the internet

We kicked off this activity on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving break.  Not exactly the best time to be starting something new, but we are pressed for time before the end of the semester.

In a perfect world, I would have 34 Mr. & Mrs. Potato Heads with a variety of different color "parts" to distribute to my students.  While they are only about $5 a piece, I wasn't about to spend nearly $200 of my own money on Potato Heads.  At the same time, I definitely wasn't going to walk into my department head's room with a P.O. for 34 Potato Heads, either.  So... back to the drawing board.  Quite literally in this case.  I bought one Mr. Potato Head from Walmart as a "model," but then had students draw their own.

The general idea of this lesson plan is we have to repopulate the Potato Head species by using a gamete bank to make test tube Potato Heads, then interbreed them to produce more offspring.  The goal is to introduce the concept of punnett squares, dominant/recessive alleles, incomplete dominance, co-dominance, multiple alleles, dihybrid crosses, etc

The lesson plan kept talking about this "gamete bank."  I was incredibly confused about how I was supposed to set this gamete bank up.  At a loss, I ended up spending tons of time making sets of popsicle sticks for each allele. Students randomly choose sticks out of baggies to determine the genotype of the test tube potato.  At the end of the day Tuesday, I realized I somehow missed this file in the lesson plans:

Gametes for the gamete bank.  These would have made my life easier.

As far as creating test tube potato zygotes, I tried doing it a few different ways in my classes.  In a smaller class, I split the room into boys and girls (since we had about equal numbers).  They randomly drew popsicle sticks to determine the genes carried by the male gamete and the female gamete.  Then we joined them together and drew the new individual.  I then reviewed the terms "phenotype," "genotype," and "allele" from unit 3 and we introduced new terms of "dominant" and "recessive."  We then discussed multiple alleles, incomplete dominance, co-dominance, homozygous, and heterozygous.

In my larger classes, I tried to have each lab group draw from the baggies to create a gamete, then join with a different group to make an offspring:

The product of fertilization

Next, in an attempt to introduce punnett squares and probability, students were to trace a gene through meiosis.  This is a great activity to show teachers just how well your students didn't learn meiosis.  Granted, we had to rush through Unit 6, but it became painfully apparent that my students didn't understand meiosis at all.  Sure, they could give rudimentary drawings and explanations of the steps, tell me about the 4 haploid gametes, tell me about crossing over... but attempting to trace a gene through meiosis proved impossible for most groups.  And quite frankly, there wasn't enough time to make them claw their ways to understanding.  As a result, punnett squares got put on hold and we jumped ahead to "mating" our potatos.

We did this activity on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving break, so as you can imagine, the students were off the wall.  "Do you realize you are the ONLY teacher in the ENTIRE school making us do work today?"  Haha, right...

Ideally, for mating, all students were supposed to start with similar genotypes from the gamete crosses.  Of course, since that went dreadfully, I ended up making quick "genotype" cards to distribute.   I did use the include data sheets, but I modified the activity again-- instead of doing multiple generations, students had to find a mate and create two offspring, all while listening to the sweet, sweet tunes of Billy Paul:

When we come back to class tomorrow, we're going to kick off punnett squares by discussing why our children don't look exactly like the parents, and then asking how could we predict the likelihood that a trait will be passed on...

I feel like I'm in constant "damage control" mode lately-- lessons keep not going as intended, and I have to figure out how to make something out of them the next day... sigh.  I'm really curious to see my students end of course exam scores after this semester... have they truly gotten anything out of this semester?  It's hard to tell some days...

Unit 6 Woes...

Here are words I thought I'd never say:  I wish I had more time to spend on mitosis and meiosis because we're all truly enjoying it.

Usually mitosis and meiosis are one of those "ugh" topics for me to teach-- let's just get through it as quickly as possible so the students are capable of answering EOC questions about it.  Seriously, no 15 year old needs to be able to distinguish between prophase and telophase to be successful in life.

But the activities are SO incredibly good for this unit.  Exercise 3 has students analyzing an experiment on weed killer that disrupts mitosis in weed roots.  Talk about applicable real life connections!  And Exercise 4 is a really informative cancer WebQuest that breaks it down extremely well.  Again, another great connection.  Alas, no time to do either...

So it's onward ho... my students will be taking the state EOC exam on December 11th.  That may sound like it's sufficiently far away, but it's truly not.  Next week we only have two class periods due to the Thanksgiving holiday.  Then we have one week of class before the exams begin.  On December 8th, 9th, and 10th, the majority of my students will be taking EOC exams for other courses like english and math, so I likely won't see them.  When you account for that, I only have 9 more class periods to cover meiosis and all of the genetics in unit 7.  Oy vey.  I always end up with little time for genetics-- I really need to shuffle it to the front end of my curriculum one semester.

On a side note-- I spoke somewhat disparagingly of the Genome, Chromosomes, and DNA WebQuest in my previous post.  I mentioned I wish I had not planned to do it today because my students never get anything from them.  Well... wrong again, or at least that is my impression after today.  They truly enjoyed this one.  Since we'd already kicked around the concept of chromosomes and mutations a lot, it was a good reinforcement activity.  And some of them took The DNA Game a little too seriously...

Unit 6: Back to the model...

I'm proud to say that I've actually gotten back to the concept of a "model" for Unit 6.  No PowerPoints, no lecturing.

On Friday, students observed prepared slides of an onion root tip:

Random image from Google Images

Students were asked to draw the different types of cells they see in their lab notebooks.  I then had them get together with their lab groups and white board a consensus of the different looking cells in the onion root tip:

I told them the squiggly lines were chromosomes and we confirmed as a class the only organelle we could clearly see was the nucleus.  After discussion, we came to a consensus that the cells were dividing to make new cells so the root could grow.  As a class, they put the images in order (as best they could based on the drawings) and I told them that each of the images was part of mitosis.  I then gave them the name of each phase.

We then created a class "model" for cell division:

Students then completed Exercise 1, where they verbally explained each of the phases and calculated the percentage of cells in each phase based on a picture of what they had seen in the lab.

All was well until I attempted the Popsicle Stick Chromosome activity.  For this activity, I spent WAY too long creating popsicle stick chromosomes from the images included in the curriculum.  The notes suggest affixing chromatids together with velcro... I had adhesive magnet strips on hand, which I thought would work and save me a trip to Walmart.  Nice idea in theory, but they all proceeded to fall off as soon as the students pulled the sticks out of the baggie.

Lots of effort on my part for very little gain...

I attempted this activity with two of my classes.  It was such a bust with each class, that I skipped it the rest of the day.  Students struggled with pairing the shapes.  Students struggled with the concept the shapes represented genes, despite watching an interactive video on chromosomes before.  The notes say to give the students a baggie with 4 chromosomes (2 pairs), and have them try to model mitosis.  They're supposed to come to the conclusion that they don't have enough chromosomes, so the chromosomes must duplicate.  My students weren't coming to that conclusion.  Then when I gave them additional chromosomes, they couldn't attach them as intended, so they really weren't understanding anything-- they just thought they had 8 chromosomes.

I'm not sure if I'll attempt this activity again, but I've already considered some ideas to improve it-- like actually using velcro like it says, for starters.  Also, numbering the baggies for easy handout and making sure all the baggies are identical would prevent chaos.  My baggies got mixed up a little between classes, which just exacerbated the disaster.

Students then completed Exercise 2 using the textbook for assistance, applying the information learned to revise our "model" with more detail about each of the phases of the cell.  Although I'm sorry to say, I feel like my students had a better grasp on mitosis and cell division on Friday, prior to the popsicle stick debacle, Exercise 2, and expanding their "model."

We're doing the Web Quest on chromosomes tomorrow-- which was ideally supposed to be done before Exercise 2.  I couldn't get computers until Wednesday.  Now I'm somewhat regretting my decision to even do the Web Quest... my students never seem like they retain anything from them...

Unit 5 Review and Biology v. Chemistry

Last September in our final modeling workshop, one of the university professors helping out with the event had another fabulous quote:  biology requires students to understand more advanced chemistry than the students actually learn in general chemistry.

As someone who teaches both biology and chemistry, this quote rocked me to the core-- because it is absolutely true!  The state of Tennessee is going to test my students at the end of the year on topics such as hydrogen bonding, polarity of molecules, and the structure of organic molecules.  When will these students see these topics again?  Hydrogen bonding and polarity are glossed over in high school chemistry.  Many of them will never see organic chemistry ever again and do quite well for themselves regardless.

This observation does make a good argument for inverted curriculum, which I had previously been rather indifferent about.  I spent this entire unit wishing my students had a stronger background in chemistry.  When you are trying to teach a student something like how a phospholipid works, a former chemistry student would at least have some prior knowledge of polarity to fall back on.  When they are trying to predict whether or not ions will diffuse through the cell membrane, at least they would understand something about ionization.  The list of benefits are endless.  Instead, I'm forcing my students to memorize concepts when they don't have the background to fully understand these concepts.  I definitely talk about chemistry more in biology than I talk about biology in chemistry!

Anyway...

Today was review day, since our unit 5 test will be tomorrow.  There were a lot of wonderful activities in this unit that I just flat out didn't have time to do, like "The case of the Somalian Ivory Poachers" and the gel electrophoresis simulation.  Both looked like fun and both had great real world connections.  I'm bummed we didn't get to do them.

What we did do:

-Modified introduction to cells/microscopes with prepared plant cell slides, cheek cell wet mounts, and pond water wet mounts.

-Modified Diffusion/Osmosis Lab activity with dialysis tubing, as well as demos with scented body spray and food coloring in water.

-Notes on Cell Membranes/Passive Transport*

-Exercise 1 with associated textbook reading

-Osmosis in hypertonic/hypotonic/isotonic solutions rubber egg lab

-Exercise 2, modified to match lab

-Active Transport textbook reading

-Notes on Active Transport*

-Documentary on Rosalind Franklin's role in the discovery of DNA's structure (in place of DNA Webquest since we couldn't access the computers this day)

-Nucleic Acid Article Reading/Notes on Nucleic Acids*

-What is a protein? Group research paper activity

-Protein Synthesis with Words lab activity

-Webquest:  Protein Synthesis

-Notes on Transcription/Translation/Mutations*

-Exercise 3 Transcription/Translation

-"Little Mito:  The story of where he came from" and associated writing assignment

-Enzymes Notes*

-Toothpickase Enzyme Lab

-How does a cell function as a whole?  Cell Analogy activity

* instead of having a "model," I have fallen back to using PowerPoints for notes.  How can I get back to the concept of a model for each topic, instead of just dictated notes?  Is it a problem to keep falling back on these PowerPoint presentations?  I'm not sure.

I really, really, REALLY liked the cell analogy activity as a review before the test tomorrow.  I know this is not an activity unique to modeling, but I had never done it before.  Plus, I was feeling like despite this unit being called "Cell Structure and Function," we talked very little about the cell on the whole.  This brought it all back together and really made the students think about ALL the organelles working with each other.  I have to say, the biology modeling curriculum is organized in such a way that it builds upon itself near flawlessly.

My first two blocks were pretty boring with their analogies, mainly sticking with easy analogies like factory or school...

My last block went wild.  They were doing things like Star Wars, Football Teams, iPhones... and then this wildly inappropriate, yet absolutely hilarious analogy comparing a cell to "da hood."

I would have been more concerned about this if it hadn't been created by a bunch of suburban kids who have only seen this stuff on TV.  Instead, we all had a good laugh as they tried to explain to us how "da hood" works.

Unit 5 Reflections: Protein Synthesis with Words

When I did my modeling workshop, one of our leaders had a great quote.  He said that his first period class deserves a refund every day.  It doesn't get much more true than that... especially for me today!

Examples of the cards to be created for the Protein Synthesis with Words activity.  Tip:  it takes a good hour to create and set up this activity.

After the debacle that was first block today, I was pretty well convinced that the Protein Synthesis with Words activity was a worthless piece of garbage.  Luckily, the activity got better as the day progressed.  My first block students are my only non-honors class, so I do have to "help" them along a little more than my honors classes, but I supposed I killed them with intended kindness today.  We reviewed the differences between the nitrogenous bases in DNA and RNA, we practiced matching the complementing bases, we read through the activity together, I assigned roles, and I even modeled how to do sentence #1 for the class.

...and then the proverbial shite hit the fan.

They couldn't figure out anything.  They were making mistakes.  They were yelling at each other for messing up.  Only a couple groups were able to "synthesize" any protein sentences.  We all left frustrated and never even got to white board or discuss the lab.

So next block, I decided not to tell those students much of anything to see if that worked better.  We still reviewed the nitrogenous bases of DNA and RNA and how to match complementing bases, we still read the instructions together, I still assigned roles... and that was it.  They were all able to figure it out on their own.  The activity went brilliantly the rest of the day.

After about 30-45 minutes of "decoding" the sentences, I had everyone stop where they were.  I gave them the correct answers, since quite a few groups had at least one sentence they were stuck on.  I had them create white boards with a verbal and diagram explanation of how proteins are synthesized. (I forgot pictures!)  And I believe they all walked away with a conclusion than DNA in the nucleus is turned into RNA and used to assemble proteins in the ribosomes with the anticodons determining the amino acid sequence.  I did not introduce the words "transcription" or "translation" yet.  Looking ahead at the lesson plan, I kind of wish I had at least introduced the concepts of mRNA, tRNA, and rRNA, but we simply ran out of time.

Tomorrow, we will be doing a WebQuest on Protein Synthesis to learn the details of Transcription and Translation and create our "notes" (model).

I'm not quite sure how much I'll revisit the activity with my first block... I may or may not try to have them whiteboard their conclusions.

When I do this activity again, and I will, I definitely will remember to back off and let them figure it out on their own...

Unit 5 and the benefits of "lab first"

I'll admit, I may have strayed from the central theme of modeling instruction-- "the model."  I'm still struggling with the concept of the "model" for biology.  Our models just end up being, well, notes.  I realize I haven't even been using the word "model" this semester as I did in the earlier units.  I should try to improve upon that and re-incorporate the concept of the model.

But I have become an ardent fan of the "lab first" style of teaching science.  I don't think I'll ever go back to a traditional lecture/lab structure.  One of many teachers' criticisms of labs is that the students often miss the point.  I frequently saw this myself:  you'd cover a topic like osmosis and diffusion, then go into the lab supposedly to reinforce the concepts.  The problem was the students often couldn't put two and two together and just ended up going through the motions.  I'd frequently skip discussing the lab in lieu of just having them answer questions about the lab, which they often answered poorly.

The benefits of switching to lab first are innumerable.  Two of the biggest are that it forces you to actually discuss the lab results and it gives the students something tangible to make connections with.  The only downside is that I occasionally get a snarky comment from a student who thinks he/she knows it all ("I don't get how this is supposed to show us ______.").  But even those are rare and have greatly decreased.

For example, this week I have been covering cell membranes and transport.  Hypertonic, Hypotonic, and Isotonic are terms students traditionally struggle with.  So earlier this week, we made rubber eggs (instead of the potato lab) that were ready for today:

From left to right, eggs soaked in distilled water, a mixture of corn syrup and water, and corn syrup alone

The students were able to talk out what happened to the eggs and form a conclusion based on what they already learned about osmosis.  All I had to do was introduce the new terms.  The concept of "hypertonic" is a million types easier for a student to grasp when they are quite literally grasping a deflated egg in their hand.  And when they got confused, I just reminded them to think about the eggs.

I gave my classes Unit 5 Exercise 2 today (I replaced "potato" with "egg").  Several of my students told me it was "easy."  That's nice to hear for a change!

Unit 4 Wrap Up

Remnants of our photosynthesis lab

You know that feeling when everything hits the fan?  That's been my past couple weeks.

I thought Cellular Respiration and Photosynthesis went well.  My test results from last week said otherwise.  Looking back, Unit 4 was WAY too much material and way too diverse of material.  I was aware of this while I was teaching, but I didn't realize quite how significantly it impacted my students until the test.  Grades were still good, but class averages were lower than usual.

In my darling standard biology class, the 50:50 split was worse than ever.  Half the class had high As, two Cs, and the remaining students failed and failed badly.  For those students who failed, they temporarily lost their lab privileges and in lieu of lab completed an open notes re-test.  The strategy seemed to help, re-test grades were much improved, and I was able to work one on one with many of them while the other students were working on a dialysis tubing lab.  I realized two things working with the students individually:  1) just how overwhelming this unit was, and 2) the average sophomore in high school knows NOTHING about plants.  I mean nothing at all.  Multiple students said that my class was the first time that had EVER heard that plants make their own food.  I'm not sure I've ever encountered that before... but without any prior knowledge to help make connections, the process of "photosynthesis" was a billion times harder for them.  Who woulda thunk it.

In the meantime, we've started Unit 5 The Cell.  I've made some modifications due to time.  We did an intro to the microscope and looked at plant and cheek cells.  Then we did some diffusion/osmosis experiments, including perfume in air, food coloring in water, and glucose/starch in dialysis tubing.

Out of all my classes, only ONE group included "air" particles in their diagram.  Obviously this wasn't the group.

Dialysis tubing with glucose/starch solution placed in a beaker of DI water and Lugol's Iodine.  Fun fact- glucose didn't diffuse through the tubing as it should have this time around. I inadvertently reinforced a misconception in all my students' minds.

Not the strongest conclusion ever... 

We also set up a "rubber egg" osmosis lab instead of the potato lab included in the teacher notes.  Meh, I wasn't feeling the potato set up.

We have, count 'em, less than FIVE more weeks to get through:  transcription/translation/protein synthesis, enzymes, mitosis, meiosis, and all of genetics.  Ouch.  Let the panic attack begin.

Unit 4 Reflections: Cellular Respiration Continued

Cellular Respiration-- not one of the most interesting things we get to teach as biology teachers.  I mean honestly, raise your hand if you actually care about the Krebs Cycle?  I sure don't.  And I've never totally understood why or how it's important for the state to test students on whether more ATP is produced in Glycolysis or Oxidative Phosphorylation.  But I digress...

We held our board meetings on yesterday's activities.  Here's how I set it up:

Yesterday, I had written a generic definition of "cellular respiration" on the board that they copied down between activities.  I didn't talk about it at all, I just told them that they were modeling "cellular respiration" with the ball and stick models.

Today, I asked them to refer back to that definition and create a white board with a verbal, mathematical, and diagram explanation of that definition of cellular respiration using evidence from the two lab activities.  They were confused and stumped, but surprisingly game and receptive to the challenge.

Prior to WBing, we had recapped about the "ingredients" in each of the balloons, and even hypothesized a little about each of their role in inflation of the balloon.  They had some really interesting theories they were all sure of-- the warm water caused the molecules in the balloon to move faster, causing expansion of the balloon.  The warm water dissolved the sugar faster so it could "react" with the yeast.  The yeast was a catalyst.  The yeast produced oxygen.  I just kept telling everyone those were interesting theories.

Most groups used the chemical equation for mathematical (I kinda tipped them off on that), and diagrams of the balloons or models were easy enough-- but they were stumped on the verbal.

In each class, I spend a lot of time with about 50% of the groups firing questions at them, and basically ignored the other groups.  I tried to focus on the "weaker" and more uncertain groups.  They all had the same questions:  "We don't know what you want us to do.  These labs had nothing to do with each other."

In my rapid firing, we focused on the glucose and the chemical equation.  Glucose was one of the reactants in the model of cellular respiration.  Was glucose involved in the balloon lab at all?  (Yes, it could be derived from the sugar)  Was anything else in the chemical equation also found in the balloons?  Where did the oxygen come from?  What evidence did you have CO2 may have been produced?  Does it seem plausible that this reaction could have happened in the balloon?  So if I leave sugar sitting on the counter, it will turn in to CO2 and water, right?  (Umm... no...)  Then why did the balloon inflate?  What else was in the balloon?  Re-read that definition-- why did we add the yeast?  What did we discuss about yeast earlier?

And then about that time, each group had the most rewarding OH MY GOD I GET IT light bulb moments.  :) :) :) :)

My only regret is that these groups were SO excited they "got it" and while many of their peers still didn't... and they WANTED to blurt it out in the board meetings.  The groups I spent time with were waving their hands in the air the entire board meeting, wanting to talk... and I reeeeeally wanted to let them show off their new found knowledge.  But... I also wanted everyone else to have that same epiphany.

We then did a terribly boring textbook "active reading" session about ATP.  Great way to cap that good discussion, huh?  But there was a reason.  On Monday, we had a district teacher inservice with a speaker who I will not name.  He was not one of the better educational speakers I have ever heard.  While he made some good points, overall I thought he was extremely antiquated and out of touch with today's students and schools.  His big emphasis was on more reading and writing-- less doing, more reading, writing, and note-taking.  Kids today aren't college prepared because they can't read textbooks and they can't write papers (I do agree with that part).  One of his criticisms of science teachers was that we "do" too much and pride ourselves on not even using a textbook (um, guilty).  I disagree with him that you should only read and write about science, but I do think I am doing my students a disservice if they never have to trudge through a science textbook at least a few times.  While we do read in class, our reading is usually article-based.  The speaker gave me a good reminder to step it up with the textbooks.  Reading about ATP was a perfect opportunity-- I can think of no topic more dull to practice reading dull stuff.

Each student received a photocopy of the 4 pages out of the text on ATP and highlighters.  We read the first few paragraphs together and discussed how to identify the important points... then I set them free with a guiding question (what provides energy for the cell) and told them to keep highlighting what seemed important.  Afterwards, they were to write a paragraph reflection of the reading that answered the guiding question.  We discussed our paragraphs afterwards, which was extremely insightful.  While many students did fine and wrote great summaries, here is a direct quote from a bright honors student with a 98 class average:  "I didn't understand a single thing I read."  Hmmm.  While I don't think we will be reading the textbook every day, I definitely do think I need to throw it in more frequently.

Unit 4 Reflections: Macromolecules and Cellular Respiration

...and we're back from our lovely 10 day fall break today.  And jumped right in with cellular respiration.

I've had to add a lot to unit 4.  Not only did I toss in all the ecology standards, but I also needed to cover the biological macromolecules in more depth than the AMTA lesson plan suggested.

The AMTA lesson plan has students researching proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids on their own with a few guiding questions, then jumping in to comparative dissections.  My state EOC exam tests pretty darn heavily on proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids-- especially the structures and how to determine their presence in the laboratory.  Plus, our biology teachers here usually save our dissection for the last days of class after the EOC exam, since dissection and internal anatomy are not tested.  So, I ended up skipping the dissections (for now) and spending more time on the macromolecules.

Having the students research the macromolecules with guiding questions was futile.  First of all, when given the option of textbook or Google, students always go to Google.  I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing, as textbooks are becoming utilized less and less, even at the collegiate level.  But... as sophomores in high school, students can be easily led astray by misinformation online.  Especially on a topic like this, which is loaded with intimidating new vocabulary like "monosaccharide" or "polypeptide."  The whiteboard results I got, to put it simply, were really bad.  I still think it was a good activity, but I will definitely limit them to the textbook next time to avoid wasting nearly an entire class period.  Instead of dissections, we then went to the lab to practice testing for macromolecules.

Sudan IV testing for lipids

The AMTA curriculum kicks off cellular respiration with a yeast lab using Vernier Probes to measure % O2 and CO2.  The total amount of Vernier equipment my school owns:  0.  We got nothin'.  So it was back to the drawing board again.

What I decided to do was combine a yeast balloon lab with the next activity in the lesson plan, which is modeling cellular respiration with ball and stick models.  First, students created balloons with yeast and differing amounts of warm water, sugar, and air:

They measure initial diameter, set their balloons aside, while I briefly introduced them to the term "cellular respiration."  They were instructed to make a model of a glucose molecule and 6 diatomic oxygen molecules:

A glucose and a pile of O2 - not bad for students who have never taken chemistry, let alone organic chemistry. I wasn't going to split hairs on the position of the bonds in the glucose at this point. Maybe I should have.

They were then told a chemical reaction occurred between the molecules and they needed to create two new molecules.  I asked them to think about waste products, respiration, and had to prod some groups on ideas... but all of them eventually came up with CO2 and H2O.  They were then challenged to figure out how many CO2 and H2O molecules this reaction would create.  Once they were complete, they had to create an equation for cellular respiration.

Then we revisited our balloons and determined change in diameter.

We didn't get much time to discuss or create a consensus.  My plan tomorrow is to hold a board meeting with a verbal, mathematical, and diagrammatic representation of cellular respiration based on the results of the two activities.  And I guess I'll see what I get!

Unit 4-- An ecological detour

When I did my cursory review of the biology modeling curriculum before the start of the school year, I somehow neglected to notice the utter lack of ecology included.  I guess I assumed when I saw food chains/food webs that the curriculum would somehow address ecology and interdependence in that section.  Well, you know what happens when you ASS-ume...

I believe something like 18% of my state's end of course exam is on ecology and interdependence, including human effects on ecosystems, carrying capacities, and succession.  Not to mention it's its own entire section in my state standards.  And uh, none of this stuff is anywhere in the curriculum as written.

So, the past few days have been "cram everything about ecology into a few days while pretending we're just learning about food chains."  Yay.  But it fit better here than anywhere upcoming.

I keep trying to relate everything back to energy, so it kind of makes sense with the unit.

Here's the cool part:  I'm reusing some of my previous ecology materials, but with a modeling spin.  And it seems to be working decently.  For example, I gave my students a what I think is an easy handout entitled "Deer:  Predation or Starvation" which has them analyzing and graphing the data of a standard wolf reintroduction scenario.  Oh, how my students moaned and complained about this activity last year!  The had so incredibly much trouble with manipulation and graphing of the data.

But this year, even my standard students got through it relatively uneventfully.  We used it for a segue into defining the term "carrying capacity," and they got it no problem.  I threw all sorts of carrying capacity scenarios out at them, and at least 85% of the students could predict and analyze what would happen.

Succession is another topic that we went through at warp speed, but I think they just might have gotten it.  (We haven't finished it yet with my standard class, which will be the true baseline for comparison)  We spent days on succession in previous years-- looking at pictures, drawing flipbooks, reading scenarios, etc.  Last year, I remember one of my brighter students telling me succession was the hardest thing in biology.

This year, I literally just cut up succession timeline pictures and put them in baggies-- I did one bag of pond succession and one bag of forest succession.  I told them to put each baggie of pictures in order and storyboard it on their whiteboard.  We discussed our observations and what we thought was happening, and defined the terms "ecological succession" and "climax community."  Then we discussed what might have caused the succession, divided the causes into categories, and voila!  We gave the categories the names primary succession and secondary succession.  And I sent them home with a Mount Saint Helens article for homework that will hopefully embed a few more related terms in their heads.  I mean, I would have loved to have done more, but we spent maybe 30 minutes on the topic.  From the discussion, the understanding seemed as good or better as compared to the years I've spent days on the topic!

It's the small battles, I suppose.

The downside:  we are seriously behind now.  Like, majorly, will-not-get-through-all-the-curriculum, what am I going to cut behind.  The only upside is that I'm not any more behind than I was this point last year, and my students did fine on the EOC...

Unit 4 Reflections: What is Energy and Energy in an Ecosystem- A Vital Commodity

Unit 3 tests are finally graded.  I was THRILLED to see a narrowing of the "great A/F divide" in my standard class.  Grades were higher than usual on the whole, and the number of failures was cut in half.  Some progress is better than no progress!

Verbal and diagrammatic representation of the energy in the "What is Energy" Lab

Unit 4 started off with a lab:  What is Energy?  Like many of the other activities, I found it took an excessive amount of time for a concept that the students were already pretty solid on.  There were 10 stations for groups to observe.  If I do it again, I think I may reduce the number of stations in half.  I found my students were familiar enough with the concept that energy cannot be created or destroyed and that it can transfer forms.

The teacher notes recommend reading the book, "Zoom" by Istvan Banyai before jumping into the next activity.  We didn't for two reasons:  1) We are really, really, really running short on time, but more importantly 2) I ordered the book last week off Amazon and it still hasn't arrived.  Maybe next time around.  My segue was just telling the students that we would be observing energy at the ecosystem, organism, and cellular levels.

I think the Energy in an Ecosystem- A Vital Commodity was great, except for one pesky detail.  In every single class, one of the trophic levels performed "better" than it should have despite me adjusting the numbers of each organism.  In both my honors classes, for some reason the dolphins acquired more energy than the cod:

Dolphins have more energy than the cod and the shrimp!

This has been easy enough to address through discussion, but I am still worried it is reinforcing a big misconception that the top organisms have the most energy!  I was trying to wait to stop the simulation until some dolphins died, but the problem was that my shrimp and cod were dying faster than the dolphins despite sufficient numbers of plankton.  If I waited for the dolphins to die, we would have had very little data.

In my standard class, who hasn't white-boarded yet, the cod were higher than the shrimp, which may make a huge mess when we graph.  I told them we might repeat the simulation tomorrow.

So we don't have that perfect graph to tip on it's side to make a nice half of an energy pyramid, because our data is off.

In the future, I might plan to repeat this simulation a few times until we get usable data.

Classroom Tip: Concept Cards

For the modeling workshop this past weekend, the participants were asked to prepare 1-3 questions on 3"x5" index cards about topics or issues that may have come up in our modeling classrooms.  We then had a Q&A session with the workshop leaders where they addressed the questions and shared their experiences and possible solutions.  Let me tell you, I went well beyond my 1-3 cards requested.  I gave them a stack!

One of my (many) questions was about keeping students' notes more structured and organized:  as I had mentioned in previous posts, I really feel my standard students need more structure to be able to make the best use of their interactive lab notebooks.  Also, my honors kids have been craving more organization-- they are the rare types that actually would like to be able to refer back to a textbook or a body of work.  Only being able to refer back to a hodgepodge of handouts and notes scattered in their notebook has been throwing some of them off their game.

An experienced modeling teacher had what seems to be a great solution for this:  concept cards.  For each unit, she has her students prepare index cards for each of the major concepts.  They have the concept on one side, and the important information about the concept on the other.  This may be related vocabulary, a summary of the idea, diagrams, etc.  Anything to better help the students quickly review to main points of the concept.  This way they can flip through the cards in their downtime and refresh on the most important points and concepts from the unit.

While this isn't a new invention, I LOVED this idea and hadn't even considered it on my own.  I think it may be the solution I so desperately wanted.  Plus, with having a state end of course exam, I feel like these have potential to be a fabulous study tool later down the road.  So today as a review activity, I'm had my students create concept cards for Unit 3.

And to really incorporate the modeling instruction, I divide the topics up among the lab groups and had them whiteboard their ideas of what they think should go on the cards for each concept:

A whiteboard from my standard bio class

The whiteboarding was really dual purpose-- this allowed them to take some ownership in the concepts, but also made sure everyone recorded all of the important and correct information.  We had a board meeting where we came to a consensus on the most thorough and useful summaries.

I hope to keep up with this idea, and I hope it works.  I also thought it was an effective review activity.  I'm always trying to come up with better ways to review for tests.  Games are fun, but they can be time-consuming to create and the brightest students often dominate the competition.  Just completing a study guide can be dull and ineffective.  This seemed to be a nice middle ground.

Catching up on Unit 3...

Are we really nearly done Unit 3?  Wow, I've gotten behind.  It's been a hectic week.

I was actually out of the classroom last Friday to attend our final two-day chemistry modeling workshop through Project TIME.  It was great to see everyone who I went through the program with in the spring/summer and to hear everyone's experiences!  I also got some fabulous advice and ideas from our leaders and other teachers that I feel will really help fine-tune my classes.

I also had an administrator observe my classroom last week.  I don't get nervous about observations-- I actually enjoy them for the feedback and advice.  I'm my own worst critic, so usually I'm a thousand times harder on myself than any outside observer has ever been.  However, I had never been observed by this particular administrator before and I had heard she can be tough. The day she observed was the day my class spent the majority of the block working on/white-boarding Exercise 1- Natural Selection.  Of all the cool things in this unit, I thought to myself, "she's going to walk away saying I did nothing but make my class do a worksheet the entire period."  I even had a stress dream the next night that she gave me straight 1s in every category.  Ha!  She actually loved what she saw.  I received some of the highest scores I have ever received on an observation.  I received especially high scores in questioning, which has traditionally been one of my weak categories.

Anyway, reflections:

1. I'm starting to appreciate the Thirsty Bird activity more and more as this unit has progressed.  It has given the students a great connection to tie new concepts back into.  I may just slug it out again next time around.

2.  I thought the Whales In Transition Activities generally went well.  The activities were well aligned with my state standards, specifically some standards that I have not done justice to in the past.  They have also given the students great examples and chances to make connections.  Their favorite part of the entire thing?  Making their predictions about the creature between 50-46 MYA.  As you can see, they became quite fond of their creatures, naming them and all:

 

 

 3. We just did the Sneaky Cricket reading today-- HILARIOUS!  It seemed to really help the students tie everything together.  One girl in my standard class remarked, "I finally understand this now!"

4. The "What is fitness?" article I also thought was really good.  Even though it wasn't in my original files I received, I was able to find it online.  I'm glad I did.  Very readable.  Scientific enough to make my honors kids happy, but with language my standard kids could relate to.  They mention a cricket's sperm-packet, which had the standard class' boys rolling on the floor laughing!

One thing that has surprised me about this unit is just how difficult evolution is for many of these students.  I have always sort of glossed over evolution in the past.  To me, I thought the concepts were pretty basic and that most students already understood the general idea.  Oh boy, has this unit opened my eyes!  The misconceptions are rampant and deeply ingrained, even among my brightest students.  But I truly do feel like they are coming around.  We are testing Friday and I'm curious to see the results, especially in my standard class.

My only real criticism of this unit is the included quiz-- it's vague, yet incredibly redundant.  I'm not sure if the quiz is intended to be executed "as is" with all 5 pages of storyboarding, or if it was made for teachers to pick/choose/modify one of the five portions.

One more thing-- my "teacher mistake" for the unit.  At the end of today, I tossed in a quick PowerPoint on types of behavioral adaptations.  The teacher notes call for the students to research and do jigsaw presentations on different types of behavioral adaptations.  Other activities in the unit went longer than expected (imagine that) and we flat out ran out of time for students to research and present.  So... direct teaching it was.  Oh my gosh, did the students ever complain.  All that negative stuff that I've barely seen all year came out in full force.  We went from excellent discussion and engagement during the Sneaky Cricket cartoon to shut down/heads on desks as soon as I started talking.  And not to toot my own horn, but I am a better-than-average lecturer.  I just think the MI pedagogy is so far superior that it is almost impossible to go back to lecturing.  I've gotten a bit "talky" in the later part of this unit for the sake of time, and seeing the students today was a great reminder that I need to back off and focus on questioning instead of telling.