Unit 2 Reflections: Classification

I really wanted to title this blog post "Phylum Phail," because that's sure what it felt like.

Yesterday, I mentioned I wasn't quite sure when to present students with this tree in the activity:

The cryptic phyla tree, complete with obnoxious copier line

The instructions stated:  give each group a set of animal kingdom cards, group the cards based on similarities, WB groups with justification, hold a board meeting to discuss the significance of the characteristics.  Scientists call this level "phylum."  Repeat grouping with a single phylum.  Hold a board meeting to discuss the significance of the characteristics.  Scientists call this level a "class."

Easy enough.  But where does the tree come in?

I couldn't leave things simple.  I just had to try to use that dang tree.

I kicked the activity off by asking if we could classify species beyond the "kingdom" level, to which the students said yes.  So I distributed the animal kingdom cards.

A sample of some of the animal cards

The students started grouping them immediately.  I had them whiteboard their groups, which tended to be more focused on the taxonomic classes than the phyla. Their groupings included things like reptile, mammal, amphibian, insect, etc.  A popular category was "aquatic" for all the sea-dwelling creatures.  Only a few groups included vertebrate and invertebrate.

In hindsight, I should have latched on to those groups who created a vertebrate category like a rabid dog.  Unfortunately, that's not what I did.

Since the categories were ALL over the place, I distributed the tree of phyla to try to "help" them.  Ha!  I tried suggesting that this tree showed actual groupings.  I tried suggesting maybe they should figure out which organisms go in which group.  I even tried walking groups through the "sponges" category and encouraging them to do the same with other categories they could identify.

Things like the echinoderms, the arthropods, etc. were ok for them.  Very, very few groups made the leap that chordata should include more than amphibians.  I had students trying to put snakes in the annelids, mammals in the lophophorates, and all sorts of craziness.  They weren't seeing the similarities and differences.

There were so incredibly many misconceptions that I could not possibly address them all.  The most frustrating thing is that I could not get the students to THINK about the descriptions on the card.  Sponges were easy, because their descriptions were identical.  But as soon as a single word in the description varied, the majority of students were ready to give up on trying to pair them together.  They had a hard time inferring which similarities were most important to the grouping.

So... how would I revise this activity in the future?  And better yet, how am I going to salvage this tomorrow?  First of all, I'd leave out that dang tree until after the activity next time.  I think this would have gone fine had I not been so worried about including the tree.  It could be very useful in the post-discussion, but I definitely won't ever give it to them during the activity again.  Lesson learned.  Tomorrow, I think I'll just have them pull the vertebrates out quickly and go from there.

Unit 2 Reflections: How Can We Organize Living Things?

In unit 2, there are a few activities that I was having a hard time conceptualizing from the teacher notes.  This was one of them.  I had no idea what "Flinn Organism Cards" were, but I took a leap of faith and ordered them.  When they arrived, I was still unsure of how this lesson was going to work.  It was one of those moments when I was truly wishing I had attended a biology-specific modeling seminar before trying to dive into this curriculum head first.

It turns out "Flinn Organism Cards" are actually a dichotomous key lab kit, although they aren't actually used for that purpose.  The kit includes 5 identical decks of 60 cards portraying organisms from all the kingdoms.  Each card includes some basic information about the organism, including name, cell type, how it obtains energy, reproductive strategy, etc.
 

The plan is extremely open ended:  open the lesson by asking how diverse is life, then give each group a deck with the protists and fungi cards removed (note:  I actually gave each group 1/2 a deck so I would have enough cards for 8 groups of 4).  If they don't start grouping them on their own, suggest that they should.  That's it.  After you discuss their groupings, you give them the protist and fungi cards, then discuss again.  Color me skeptical...

Back tracking for a moment:  when I first read through the unit 2 materials, I decided to add in a quick review of organelles and prokaryote/eukaryote prior to this lesson.  I'm not sure if the curriculum intended for the students to discover these different cell types through this classification activity.  The later exercises make reference to prokaryote/eukaryote, so obviously they're supposed to learn the terms somehow.  My thought process was that I wanted to focus this lesson on classification and not be drawn off track by trying to interpret new and important words.  My cell coverage was truly a mini-lesson/review, since unit 5 is devoted to cell structure and function.  We spent maybe half of a block on it at most immediately prior to this activity.

Looking back, I'm glad I did it that way.  Like, "best decision I made all week" glad.  I imagine without knowing the terms prokaryote and eukaryote, I may have seen some more, um, "creative" grouping strategies.  In my opinion, that would have been time not well utilized.  It seemed quite effective when they were all confident with their initial groups (prokaryote, animal, plant... BOOM, we aced this!), then to throw them for a loop when they received the protist and fungi cards.  They had to read the new cards carefully to discover the fine differences, which led them to changing their minds about their previous groupings that they were oh-so-sure about.  It was pretty easy to leap into 5 (well, 6) kingdoms from that point.

I actually made a PowerPoint for tomorrow-- gasp!  I haven't used a PowerPoint yet this year!  But it's only 6 slides:  My reasoning was that I wanted to make sure they get the correct terminology copied down.  I figure I'll have the PowerPoint up during our post-discussion.  Today we got as far as identifying 5 (6) potential groups, but we did not get to go into detail.  Exercise 2 asks for some venn diagrams comparing and contrasting the kingdoms.  Without some note-taking framework, I was worried some students may not voluntarily record enough information to be successful on that activity.

We're also supposed to do some more model deployment on classification at the phylum level and downward tomorrow... I still haven't quite wrapped my head around this activity.  I know I have some animal kingdom cards and a rather cryptic looking tree of the animal kingdom phyla.  I understand what to do with the cards, I'm just not exactly sure how I'm to utilize that dang tree... are they supposed to receive it prior, during, or after the activity?  I might save it for after...

Unit 2 Reflections: What is Living?

A deceivingly expensive assortment of stuff.  Missing:  1 plant

When I was assembling this activity yesterday, I was pretty sure I was going to win teacher of the year today.  The kids were going to love it, we'd have great discussion, and we'd leap right into defining the characteristics of life.

And then we have what actually happened...

My students must be reading this blog, because all the wonderful things I said about them yesterday flew out the window today.  They were off task, they were disruptive, they weren't engaged... except maybe to play with the "toys," but not actually think about them.

After yesterday's exam, we did a reading/reflection on some Crowdfunded Darts designed to search for life on Mars.  Based on the discussion, I was pretty sure my honors students would nail this activity... so I was prepared for it to go quickly and we'd jump right into Exercise 1.  HA!

We kicked off the lesson with the question "what is living?"  I reassigned lab groups, and provided each group with a baggie containing the following:

• Mint plant (circulated the room, $3 at Walmart)
• Meal worms ($2.29 for a container of fishing bait)
• A tulip bulb ($3 for a bag of 9)
• An almond (from my lunch)
• A pull back car (3 for $1.88 x3 at Walmart)
• A lighter (from the chem lab)
• Iron filings (chem lab)
• Magnet (my own stash)
• Paper clip (my own stash)
• Rock with fossils (collected from my yard)
• Mushroom ($1.80 something for a pack at Walmart)
• Yeast ($0.99 for 3, x3)
• Beet/radish seeds (left over from seed lab)
• Candy corn ($2/bag... figure I can use it later, too)
• Grow capsule ($1 for a pack of 15 at the dollar store)

The students were given the task to classify each as living/non-living.

I suppose the goodies were overwhelming to the students on a Thursday.  I had to pull some teeth today in my first two classes to keep them on task.  When we finally got to the discussion, it took FOREVER to talk about things like the tulip bulb, the seeds, the almond, the yeast, the mushroom...

For some reason, in two of my three classes, I had a really hard time getting students to make the jump to the seven (eight) characteristics of life.  One class came up with six of the seven. I ended up giving them the last one (grows) because the bell was ringing... and they had mentioned it several times in discussion.  One class got caught by the bell as we were trying to categorize and we didn't even get to begin a consensus.  Then there was the third class:  they came up with half the list and decided they were done.  I wasn't thrilled with that. I sent them to the internet and their textbooks to come up with the rest.

With that third class... should I have let their model stand?  I'm sure a more experienced modeling teacher would say yes.  I was nervous to do so.  They are very bright.  Actually, quite a few of them are convinced they know everything.  It would have been good for those students to be forced to revise their thinking.  I was just worried we might not have enough time for them to fully make the discovery on their own.  Plus, it's a BIG class-- my biggest.  I'd like to believe my formative assessment is effective... yet in a class that big, it's possible to fly under the radar a little more than usual.  I was worried students might latch on to an incomplete model, and not all make the jump to revising their thinking.

Today was probably my most discouraging day so far this year.  It was not fun, and I felt like I did a lousy job.  And I'm also still having a panic attack about timing...

Unit 1 Wrap Up

The students took their Unit 1 test today.  I only made some slight changes to the AMTA stock exam:  I added some material we had covered in class, and I added an additional topic to the honors class exam.

I have graded all my standard class' tests and about a quarter from my honors classes.  (Can you tell I'm procrastinating?!?)

In the standard class, there was a pretty normal spread of grades:  As (including a perfect score), Bs, Cs... and three failures.  I am 90% sure those failures are directly linked to weak reading skills.   This test was heavy on the reading and details were important.  I could tell the students who did poorly weren't comprehending the reading just by the way they answered.

The honors classes made a mockery of this test.  I've already graded  a ridiculous number of perfect scores.  It was beyond easy for them.  However, they also have strong reading skills, strong math skills, and innate critical thinking ability.  Now I know I need to step it up a notch.

How would I say this unit went?  Slowly.  For the amount of a material we covered, I think it took too long.  I'm hoping to fly like the wind from this point forward.  Ready or not, we have an end of course exam in December.  Next time around, I really wanted to cram a little more detail into this unit about measurements and lab equipment, especially for standard biology students.  I think that's feasible now that I've worked many of my own kinks out.

What we completed in Unit 1 (about 7 90 min class periods):

• Lab Safety/Intro to the Lab
• The Game of Science (Scientific Method)
• The Goldfish Lab (Observations, Experimental Design)
• Exercise 1 Controls and Variables Handout
• The Seed Lab
• "The Blind Man and the Elephant" reading
• A quiz
• Graphing Review/Practice (I added this)
• Histograms (I added this for honors only)
• Exercise 2 Experimental Design
• Writing Lab reports (I added this)
• Unit 1 Test

I can't recall the source, but I did read that there is a magic biology pacing guide floating around somewhere. It suggests 450 minutes for Unit 1.  We overshot that by a mile.  I'm not sure how anyone could do more than two of the suggested labs and stay at 450 minutes!  Although I did add some things that I felt were needed.

Things I need to work on:

• Improving questioning (it IS getting better...)
• Increasing class participation in discussion, as opposed to the same "talkers" every day 
• Transition time:  we definitely lose time in the transitions.
• Figuring out how to imbue critical thinking skills on those with none.  This is a constant struggle for me.

Things I have been impressed with:

• I've had no one try to "check out" yet.  While they may not all want to talk or answer questions in discussion, they're all working and contributing when they have a group assignment.  And they're staying on task surprisingly well in their groups.  With all the groups, the room is often a bit chaotic... and loud.  But when you walk around and listen, they're earnestly debating the topics.  I'm still having Twilight Zone moments when I realize I'm not having to prod or cajole anyone.  Can this be real!?!
• Attitudes still seem decent.  I'm not sure if this is a result of the modeling, the fact that we're only a few weeks into the school year, or if I just have a good group of kids.
• The accountable talk.  In just a couple weeks, I've seen dramatic improvements in how the students explain their reasoning-- especially in my standard class.

They still dig the whiteboards.  I'm not sure how long the novelty will last... probably until I run out of fun- colored markers.

Unit 1 Reflections: Seed Germination Lab

I feel unit 1 has taken an excessive amount of time.  I would have liked to have been done with unit 1 by the end of last week.. instead, we'll be testing this Wednesday.  But oh my gosh, did this lab reveal some misconceptions, especially with my brightest honors class...

In this lab, students were design an experiment to test the effect of an environmental condition (light, pH, water availability, temperature, etc.) on seed germination.  After reading the teacher notes, for some reason I got it in my head that it would be good to run this experiment over the course of a week.  I had no idea how long it would take for the seeds to germinate in "altered" conditions, and I wanted to make sure we got data.  (During the week while this experiment was running, we kept busy.  We did the Simpsons Controls and Variables WS, took a quiz, read "The Blind Man and the Elephant" poem, learned about the procedures for writing lab reports, and reviewed graphing skills.  My honors classes also learned about histograms.)  FYI, A week was completely unnecessary.  Two or three days would have been sufficient for observations.

One of the problems with extending this experiment over a week is that some of the seeds went beyond just germination and actually became sizable sprouts:

Clearly beyond germination

This threw the students for a bit of a loop, as they lost track of what their planned dependent variable was supposed to be (# of seeds germinated) and started focusing on how much the plants grew, if they lived or died after germinating, if they developed roots and leaves, etc.  Now... I encouraged my students to record their observations when they counted the number of seeds germinated, but I did not put out any rulers for the students to measure growth.  A few of my honors students had rulers in their notebooks and did it themselves, but no group asked me personally for a ruler.  But MANY groups in both standard and honors biology tried to estimate and graph growth after the fact when they presented their results, and used growth to support/refute their initial hypothesis.  This lead to a really good discussion on bias and what data you can/should use to form your conclusion.

I also had one group of honors students who set up too small of sample sizes (1 seed in each experimental group) and had 100% germination in all of their samples.  Since their quantitative data was all the same, they tried to graph their qualitative observations instead. I caught them designing a numerical "ranking" system based on their qualitative observations that made my head spin.  Another good discussion on bias and how it's perfectly okay to have inconclusive results from an experiment.

And then I had another group of (honors) students decide to focus their conclusion on the "best" seed from each of their experimental groups and control.  They based their entire verbal, graphical, diagrammatic white board on each of the "best" seeds, even though this group in particular had created the largest sample sizes out of any of my classes.  Talk about MY mind being blown-- here was a group who I really thought "got it" based on their experimental design, yet had MUCH to learn about how to interpret data.

I only snapped pictures of a handful of white boards in a single class today-- the others I forgot about.  Even looking at these pictures now, I keep noticing more potential misconceptions that I may have missed in class.  For example, I initially thought the board below was pretty decent:  yet I didn't even question their choice of the word "faster."  Nor did I catch how they labeled their days on the graph in the class discussion.

After our board meeting, each group was to create a "mind map" (improved model) for experimental design.  Of course, time was running out about this point, and while we created a consensus "mind map" pulling from the groups' white boards, it was a  more teacher-led than I would have liked it to be.

An example of a standard bio class' improved "model"

The amount of time all of this took today was excessive.  However, the students were really on task and having great discussion among their groups about their results.  I was impressed.  But at the same time, we have a ton of material to cover before the end of course exam.  We can't be spending this much time on everything.

During the board meetings, I'm now hitting a problem where the same few students are the only ones chiming in during what is intended to be "class discussion."  I have some ideas on how to (force myself to) remedy this for the next unit.  But right now, since I feel like my questioning skills are still so shaky, I'm thrilled when anyone answers a question.  I had quite a number of questions fall flat today.

Also... remember that "bright" honors class so riddled with misconceptions?  They were possibly the saddest, most dejected looking group of students I've ever seen after I called out group after group for making the same mistakes with bias.  I must have been unintentionally brusque with my delivery.  While I tried to build them back up after the fact, I'm afraid they came away from this activity discouraged.  Definitely something to keep in mind for the future.

Unit 1 Reflections: Goldfish Lab

$0.15 each at Petco

The teacher notes for Unit 1 give some good suggestions for open-ended lab activities: environmental conditions vs. seed germination, salinity vs. brine shrimp development, temperature vs. goldfish mouth opening, and an isopod choice chamber experiment.  The notes suggest doing a minimum of two of the four labs.  I chose to go with the fish and seed labs mainly due to timing and the availability of materials on hand.  No time to order (and receive) new supplies at the beginning of the year!

The seed germination and brine shrimp labs need to run at least overnight, if not longer.  I wanted my students to get instant feedback on their first attempt at experimental design-- this made the goldfish lab seem like the more logical choice to begin with.  It still took about 1.5 to 2 blocks to complete everything and create a model for experimental design.

Something we utilized in the chemistry modeling workshop that I didn't notice in the biology curriculum is the assignment of lab roles.  We received a great handout defining the four lab roles in a group:  lab manager, recorder, technician, and gopher.  I assigned lab roles beginning with this lab, and let me tell you, I am loving it so far.  I have always heard of doing this, and had even tried to assign "jobs" in the past without much success.  The four role system is really well defined and easy to implement.  The kids took to the roles like fish to water (pun intended) and it has GREATLY reduced chaos in the lab.

We started this lab with each group making simple observations of a goldfish in a beaker.  I placed some basic tools around the room for them to use if they wanted:  a hand lens, a ruler, a thermometer.  Students had a set amount of time to make their observations, then white board the results.  Upon sharing the white boards, I had the students classify everyone's observations by type, then try to break those types down into two categories.  Pretty much all of the classes nailed it and immediately divided the observations into quantitative and qualitative.  All I had to do was introduce the actual terms.

When talking about our observations, someone from every class brought up the mouth opening behavior, making my segue into the problem super easy.  The hardest thing for me to do was step back an let them make mistakes with their design.  First day, first class I caught myself prompting one lab group into creating a control... I didn't even realize I did it until talking with a second group!  It actually made for great discussion in my standard biology class to have some groups with a control and some groups without.  My honors classes on the other hand... yeeeeaaaah, they all knew right off the bat that they needed a control, constants, etc.  The lab was more of a review activity for them, but good for me to assess their knowledge base.

Fish in a beaker submerged in warm/hot water bath

Something useful during the board meetings:  one class' board meeting was cut short by the bell, so I took pictures with my phone and pasted them into a document on my computer.  Not only were the pictures helpful when continuing the discussion the following day, but I've used that document a few times in the days since as we revisit the topic of graphing data.

Verbal, Graphical, and Diagrammatic. Not all groups had the same results.

As the days have progressed, I'm becoming less and less of a fan of the consensus models for experimental design that we developed in my classes (especially the standard class).  First, I'm letting them get stuck in "list" mode-- this would probably work better in a mind map.  Secondly, it needs to go into more detail. The honors classes have stronger critical thinking skills, so the weaknesses with our models have not hindered the students' understanding much.  But I waaaaay over-estimated the critical thinking skills of some of my standard students, and now I've watched them continue to struggle with experimental design, and the model does not provide them with enough to fall back on.  I intend on revisiting and revising the model after our seed germination board meeting, which I suppose should be part of every model deployment anyway!

An example of the model I have grown to dislike

Unit 1 Reflections: The Game of Science

We kicked off Unit 1 Experimental Design with "The Game of Science."  With this lesson plan, several board games are given with a list of moves, but no rules.  The challenge is for the students' to develop a "theory" (aka the rules) of the game.
I planned to do this in one 90 minute class period, although I truly had no idea how long it would take.  The groups in my standard biology class all got the same game, while I gave each group a different game in my honors biology classes. Once the students developed a "theory" of the rules of the game, their group was to whiteboard their rules, which we then shared in a board meeting.

My standard biology class struggled a bit more than my honors classes with this activity.  One strategy I implemented for struggling groups was to select a member from a confident group and allow the struggling group to ask them for one hint (I read this on the Woodside Biology blog).  Helpful, although some groups still struggled.

While all the groups were eventually able to develop a theory, some had incorrect theories.  This brought about pretty good debate in the board meeting.  I was pleasantly surprised with the participation level in all my classes.  We even stopped the board meeting in a couple classes to "test" the theories by playing the game following different rules.

I then had the students reconvene with their groups and asked them to think about how they developed their theories for the rules of the game.  I also asked them to think about whether or not that process involved the scientific method (yes).  I then asked them to develop a model for what they believed are the steps in the scientific method based on this experience.

Again, we had a board meeting to come up with our consensus model for the scientific method.  There was quite a bit of debate in all classes about how many steps we should have, what steps were "the same" or could be combined (example: should observing and identifying a problem be 1 or 2 steps?), what steps were truly necessary (examples:  is researching a problem always necessary?  should "analyze" be a step or is it part of forming your conclusion?).

Some examples of the different consensus models my classes came up with, which I re-copied on the board for clarity:

The entire process took about 1 1/2 class periods for my honors classes, although it took nearly 2 class periods for my standard class.  I do think that was quite a long time to spend developing a model for something the students already essentially know, however I hope that the time spent familiarizing ALL of us with the modeling process was well spent.

One issue I feel like I was having was that I was rapid-firing questions at the board meetings.  I did notice my questioning did get a little better as the day(s) progressed... but it still needs work... I kept thinking of better questions I should have asked after the fact.

Back to school!

I suppose this post is a bit late for the title, as our students are in their second week of the 2014-2015 school year!

I attended a workshop for modeling instruction in chemistry over the summer and was quite eager to apply what I learned in the classroom.  Upon completion of 100 hours of training in in modeling instruction, we graduates received membership to the American Modeling Teachers Association.

Our school is on a modified block schedule-- classes meet 90 minutes a day, 5 days a week for an entire semester.  I teach biology in the fall and chemistry in the spring.

I debated if I should attempt to implement the ASU biology modeling curriculum this fall, or just stick with the chemistry curriculum that I was familiar with from the summer workshop.  In the end, my decision was to go ahead and try both the biology and chemistry modeling curriculum this year.  The main factor affecting my decision was I didn't want to fall back into a lecture/lab pattern and "forget" all the good techniques I was introduced to in the modeling workshop.  Plus, I was concerned that the farther removed I was from the workshop, the less inclined I would be to utilize much of anything that I learned about modeling.  I went through the biology curriculum on my own before students returned.  Everything seemed quite doable and in line with both the techniques I had learned in the chemistry workshop and the state standards. 

I hope to blog my experiences to serve as my own personal reflection, as well as to hopefully help others embarking on the journey as novice modelers.

Currently, my biology students are working in Unit 1:  Experimental Design.  More to follow...