Unit 1 Wrap Up

The test results are in... and they are lousy.  Really, really lousy.  I'm not surprised.  I gave them Unit 1 Test A, more or less unchanged from the curriculum.  The only changes I made was modified a couple questions that didn't match our lab results, and I also took out the linear interpretation stuff about the 5% rule and the y-intercept that we did not cover.  Additionally, I put 5 multiple choice EOC practices questions on there.

Out of 58 students:

• 2 students scored over 100 with extra credit.  
• 2 other As.
• 5 Bs.
• 9 Cs.
• 5 Ds.
• 6 students still need to make up the test due to absences. (I anticipate 1 or 2 will pass, 4 will definitely fail)
• And.. 30 failures.

Awesome.  That makes a teacher feel wonderful about herself.

First of all, I'm kicking myself.  Obviously I sucked this unit up.  But I'm also livid with my students because they are LAZY.  As a class, we worked a problem together like every single one of the test.  Individually, they were supposed to work problems just like every single one on the test.  In their lab groups, they whiteboarded these problems.  The issue is, the A/B/C students are doing all the work, while the failures do nothing.  I have tried to address this issue in my lab groups for the next unit by separating the extreme slackers from the workers, although I may even change them again and make them homogenous so the failures have no choice but to work.

I do think subsequent units *might* get better only because the unit conversions and significant figures were what truly hurt the students.  Many refuse to even try with the unit conversions, despite seeing them in physical science and algebra.

Anyway, what we did in this unit:

• Mass & Change Lab/Model of Mass
• Worksheet 1
• Comparing Volume Units Lab/Model of Volume
• Measurements:  SI Units, Uncertainty, Accuracy/Precision, Sig Figs
• Worksheet 2
• Quiz 1
• Comparing Mass & Volume Lab/Model of Mass
• Worksheet 3
• Thickness of a Thin Layer/Create a Rainbow Density Column
• Quiz 2
• Metric Unit Conversions
• Attempted Worksheet 6
• Backed up and reviewed scientific notation and rounding
• Extra Practice Multiplying/Dividing with sig figs
• Unit 1 Study Guide and Review
• Unit 1 Test A

Monday we have state standardized testing and about half of my students will be missing from my classes.  I think I will force the remaining half to work on test corrections.  I also think I'm going to put them in a seating chart, which I hate doing.

Next time around, I will definitely organize Unit 1 differently.  This was my first legit attempt at making students understand sig figs, which is not heavily enforced in my state standards.  I don't think I will bother with that with my standard students next time around.  I also think I will reorganize the material so that we're solid on the math before we begin the labs.  The standard level chemistry students just didn't have the processing skills to make connections between what we were doing in the lab and things like unit conversions.  We kept jumping back and forth between math details like sig figs and uncertainty and "lab" details, and I think that was confusing for them.

For the next unit, I also think I need to prepare strong questions in advance before lab activities.  A big issue I had in our board meetings was that my students literally could not put 2+2 together.  I was asking them to make inferences about the data, when they don't even understand the word "data."  So I need to be prepared to guide them a bit more.  They are SO used to being fed the answers-- I can't just cut that cold turkey and expect positive results.

I also had several students transfer into another teacher's standard chemistry class this week.  As much as I hate to admit it, that hurts my feelings.  I am generally well liked.  And last semester with the biology modeling curriculum, I felt like my students generally enjoyed my class.  I got quite a bit of compliments and positive feedback from them.  This semester, I overhear things like, "this class ruins my day," or "I was in a good mood until I got in here."

Unit 1 Reflections: Mass & Volume

There comes a moment when I have to ask myself, is this really worth it?  The chemistry modeling curriculum is NOT going well so far.  While I don't want to scrap it completely, I am asking myself, "how much longer can I allow this continue?"

We have spent 2 days on Mass & Volume and still haven't even introduced the idea of density.  No freaking kidding.

It has been like pulling teeth.  It makes me want to quit my job and go flip burgers at McDonalds.

We cannot afford to waste so much time.  I'm ready to throw in the towel and wave the white flag.

Yesterday, we discussed Worksheet 2 Reading Scales, and students took Quiz 1 today.  The whole uncertainty and significant figures lessons were a disaster.

Then we did the Mass & Volume lab.  I inflicted bodily harm with a hacksaw to cut same size pieces of aluminum and steel:

Prior to the lab, we watched a quick video clip on Archimedes and read a short article on Archimedes Principle.  (On a side note, do you know how hard it is to find info on water displacement that doesn't include the world "density"?)  We then came up with a plan on how to determine the mass of a non-geometric object.

I told students the purpose of the lab was to determine if there is a relationship between mass and volume.  They were to measure the length, the mass, and the volume of each of the 6 pieces of metal.  They were then to create a graph of grams over mL with two lines:  one for steel, one for aluminum.  They needed to determine the slope of each line (we don't have computers or Vernier software to do it for them).

In the lab, they did fine.  They worked well, although they got terrible data and did not measure with correct uncertainty and number of sig figs:

When it came time for our white boards, they just plain sucked:

The only white board I got a picture of today

Today, we were to white board after the quiz, then do Worksheet 3.  We never got to Worksheet 3.  We never even finished our notes on density in two of my classes.  It was the biggest waste of time on the planet.  Students have zero conclusion on anything after today.

I am so freaking frustrated.  My students just keep getting worse and worse every day.  Behaviors and attitudes are terrible.  I am hating every single day I am doing this.

We cannot go on like this.

How on earth do you get students to think?  That's half the problem.

I think tomorrow, we're going back to a PowerPoint on density, then doing Worksheet #3.

As of right now, I'm thinking I may have to scrap board meetings temporarily until I can earn some student buy-in.

Unit 1 Reflections: Comparing Volume Units (Part 2) and Measurements

Not that I'm in any position to give others advice, but I do think I have a fabulous classroom tip regarding time management during white-boarding sessions.  While last semester it was a problem, this semester the time management is ten times worse.  My students are collectively needier and less motivated.  After the Mass lab, the white-boarding sessions took a ridiculously long time, which is to be expected the first time around.  The white-boarding sessions for the Volume lab took even longer.  We are already SO behind-- desperate times call for desperate measures.  The solution?  Students now have to "pay" me for extra time.

What "paying" me entails:  I give all of my students six "free passes" at the beginning of the semester.  These are good for bathroom/hall/homework/extra credit passes.  They only receive six, although they have opportunities to earn them throughout the year-- usually "caught being good" type situations.

From now on, I have told students that if they need extra time beyond the time limit I have assigned to complete the activity, the lab manager will have to pay me one pass.  Since I've implemented this, students have been able to produce the same quality of work in the allotted time.  Amazing how that works, huh?  Let's hope it lasts.

Even with the new time management techniques, our white-boarding and consensus of volume still took forever.  Some of the white-boards of their results:

This group "paid" a pass but still could not come up with a conclusion with the extra time

These white boards were from my, uh, good class.  The other classes struggled more.  Although I feel like our board meeting was a bit anti-climatic.  Yup, mL = cm3.  Woo.

Then we created our consensus maps.  Again, these photos were from my good class.  Although I did catch one group in this class Googling facts about volume.  Ahem, you reeeeallly learned gases have an indefinite volume based on this lab?

The student buy-in has been much lower so far with the chemistry curriculum as opposed to the biology curriculum.  Part of it is the student population, but part of it probably is my delivery.  I have not felt as prepared or confident with this curriculum and I'm not sure why.  I think the teacher notes for biology just gave overall better guiding questions to include in the pre-lab/post-lab discussion.

Any buy-in I may have had, I killed today with the world's worst lesson on measurements.  I don't know why I thought I could get through a review of the metric system/SI units, accuracy & precision, uncertainty, and sig figs in a single class period.  Let alone on a Friday before a long weekend.

We went through the slides on Fred Senese's Measurement website per the suggestion in the teacher unit plan.  This was the first time I've "lectured" so far this semester and it sucked.  I may as well have been talking to myself.  While the students were good about copying notes, when I asked them a question, it was nothing but blank stares and confusion.  Also, his slides are written on too advanced of a level for standard level high school chemistry students.  I wished I had used my own materials.  Or next time, maybe I'll jigsaw these topics with students using his website as a resource.

We then did the Uncertainty in Measurements tutorial, which I think is a really good resource.  Unfortunately, the school's WiFi was acting up today and kept dropping on us.  Then I gave students Worksheet #2 - Reading Scales, which they are in no way shape or form ready to complete to the best of their ability.  For those who did not finish (uh, like my entire 3rd block), it became homework.  We'll be checking it Tuesday after the holiday-- I'm not anticipating impressive results.

Unit 1 Reflections: Comparing Volume Units (Part 1)

I think I figured out my "mistake" this semester that left my students struggling with the concept of particles.  Part of the problem is they have low retention from their previous science courses, but I think next time around, I will re-order the lessons a bit.  I made the assumption that students understood that matter is everything, and that matter was made of atoms (or particles).  I think I need to review that in greater depth next year before jumping in to mass.  Dot in a box would be a good part of the pre-lab discussion for the Mass & Change lab.  Upon seeing their poor grades on Worksheet #1, students seem to be finally coming around to the idea that particles are important and they actually have to pay attention when they draw them.

My students proved me wrong today.  Or shall I say, most of my students proved me wrong today.  I expected them to struggle badly with the Comparing Volume Units lab.  The majority of them did not struggle at all.

For this lab, I ordered a set of the Giant Geo Solids from Nasco, as the lesson plan suggests:

I actually bought them with my personal money, since my school's science department is currently operating in the red.  I knew I would get flack about ordering expensive plastic containers, so I just sucked it up and bought them myself.

If anyone is out there reading this, do not bother ordering the Giant Geo Solids, or at least be forewarned that it is a lot of wasted money.  Half of the items in this kit are useless for this lab.  The problem is that the recommended kit includes 10 different shapes; 2 of them are hemispheres and 3 are pyramids.  Do they really expect the students to find the volume of different heights of water in a closed cone, hemisphere, or pyramid with the opening in the base?   That is unnecessarily difficult.  So for over $70, I only received 5 containers I can actually use for this lab.  Luckily, I have reasonably sized classes this semester and could get away with 5 groups.  But it would have been a better use of my money to try and find some sort of clear plastic geometric container at Walmart-- someone has to make something useable that is sold in the toy, floral, or storage departments.

With pre-lab, we revisited the phrase "matter is anything that has mass and takes up space."  I told them that we already discussed mass and how changing the number of particles affects the mass.  So how do we measure taking up space?  (Volume)  How do we calculate volume in geometry class?  (LxWxH or area x H)  What are the units for volume?  (cm3)  Then I pulled out a bottle of water and asked them how to calculate the volume of a liquid, pouring a bit on the floor to make a puddle.  I asked if they could calculate LxWxH of the puddle (no, it spreads).  So how do we measure volume of a liquid?  (graduated cylinder)  What units are on a graduated cylinder?  (mL)  Why are the volume units for a solid different than the volume units for a liquid?

Then I gave them the purpose of the lab:  To determine if there is a relationship between cm3 and mL.  Their only directions were, "Determine the mL and cm3 of 5 different heights of water in your container."

Lucky groups got cubes or rectangular prisms

One unlucky group got a hexagonal prism.  I was surprised when one of my students knew the formula for area of a hexagon without looking it up!  He informed me he was currently in geometry for the third time, since he failed it twice.

The majority of my students breezed through the calculations with little help from me.  I was impressed.  Then, I had students draw a graph of mL vs. cm3 in their lab notebooks and calculate the slope of the line.  I did give them guidelines of putting mL on the X axis and cm3 on the Y axis.  They had minimal difficulty with this task as well.  The lesson plans suggest using Vernier for graphing this activity's data.  As I've mentioned before, we don't have Vernier equipment at my school.  I have my own copy of the software, but it's not installed on our school's laptops.

That's as far as we got today, since we had spent the beginning of the class period going over their previous night's homework (extra histogram practice).  Tomorrow we will white board...

We are so far behind.  I need to figure out what I can cut from unit 1.  I'm thinking of cutting the thickness of tin foil activity.  While it's cool they can determine the relative size of an atom, I think it's not the best use of our time...

Unit 1 Reflections: Worksheet 1 Mass & Change

Ay caramba, it's going to be a long semester...

My students... not getting the "particle" thing.  Just when I think they are beginning to understand, they prove to me that they don't.

My students... not motivated.  Well behaved?  Yes.  Motivated?  Not even remotely.  So when they don't understand this whole particle thing that I keep babbling on about, they don't care.  No motivation to even attempt to understand.  This junior class is collectively terrible about just wanting to be fed the answers and not think for themselves ever-- something I noticed last year as well.

Yesterday, I was debating if I should go into further detail on matter & particles.  I decided, yes, absolutely, I definitely need to address this NOW.  So I did a little demo I like to call "Dot In The Box."  Actually, my high school physics teacher used to call it that.  That is probably one of maybe three things I remember from high school physics.

Dots in a box.  You literally just shake the box to show the changes in particle movement for the different phases of matter.

I wanted to do the demo, then have students whiteboard a consensus model for matter and particles.  For the sake of time, it was more teacher-led than I would have liked.  We basically defined matter and said that all matter is made of atoms.  Since these atoms can be arranged different in different substances, we are calling these atoms the broad term "particles" instead.  Then I demonstrated how they move in the three states of matter.

While this definitely helped my students understanding, I could still see a HUGE disconnect in their answers for Worksheet 1.  We completed the worksheet in class, then whiteboarded the answers.  Some of my whiteboards from 4th block:

The brown is what I added as the class was discussing ways to uh, "fix" the answers, because I strongly disliked almost everything on this board.
On a side note, not a single group in any of my 3 classes gained mass when burning the steel wool-- they all lost mass.  I'm assuming it was from carelessness and lack of lab skills.  Since we didn't have the data to support the idea that the wool should have gained mass when burned, I did not even dare to introduce that concept.  I just kept driving home the idea of conservation of mass- if the mass changed, it was because particles either entered or exited the system.

Probably the only board even close to being on target

Their key was awesome, the details were less than awesome

Rewriting the law of conservation of mass in their own words proved to be the hardest thing in the world.

At the moment, I'm in the process of grading the individual worksheets.  I'll confess, I'm a lazy grader.  With this being their first "real" assessment, I'm trying to go hard on them and be picky.  The quality of work is dreadful right now.  I'm hoping this will provide a wake-up call.  Being hard on them at the start is actually the opposite of how I usually teach chemistry-- they are so scared of it, I usually try to build their confidence slowly.

Unit 1 Reflections: Mass and Change Lab

One of the most frustrating things for me at the moment is that my cell phone is not letting me email or text pictures from my gallery.  My gmail app keeps crashing and my gallery keeps crashing about 7 times out of 10.  Not only is this irritating for blogging, but I also take tons of pictures of things on the whiteboards for absent students or when we are cut short on time.  But I digress...

Our first lab on Mass and Change was supposed to be Wednesday.  Wednesday ended up being a 1/2 day due to an early dismissal for inclement weather, we were on a modified schedule with only 3 of the 4 blocks meeting for shortened class periods.  Thursday we were closed for inclement weather.  With this being our first lab with white boarding, we are muddling through it at a painstakingly slow pace.

On Wednesday/Friday, students completed the Mass and Change Lab.  Students had to observe the relationship between mass and change at 6 different lab stations:  pulling apart steel wool, melting ice, forming a precipitate, burning steel wool, dissolving sugar, and dissolving Alka-Seltzer.  Some highlights:

I wanted to do this lab more "open ended," with students taking notes on some pre-lab instructions, then completing the procedure themselves.  With the lost days and all, I just ended up printing up a simple procedure to place at each lab station.  That was probably a good idea, since this was a great introductory lab to assess students' basic lab skills.  The students worked very well in the lab.  I was impressed with their behavior.  But the majority of their lab skills are extraordinarily low, not surprisingly.  On a side note, I was really proud of some of my former biology students from last year, who seemed noticeably more capable and confident in a laboratory setting than the others.  This is the first year I've had repeat students from biology to chemistry.  It's nice to think they learned something.  I've always been a big believer of spending as much time in the lab as possible in science classes.

The class data was... well... interesting:

I then assigned each lab group 1-2 stations to white board the results verbally, mathematically, diagramatically, and graphically with a histogram.  I wanted to a do a short lesson on histograms before this lab-- that is what got cut thanks to the snow day.  We learned about histograms on the fly, and it was not very pretty.  Hopefully they will get more confident as the year progresses.

This is one class's collection of white boards for the 6 stations (I would call this class my brightest thus far):

Some of the issues:  the data interpretation/conclusion forming skills were so-so.  I had a lot of groups with very weak verbal explanations.  Many just explained the procedure.  With mathematical expression, they really struggled.  Most students just gave me a subtraction problem for change in mass.  I kept pushing for an algebraic equation.  A very small handful of students could fathom that.  Particles are throwing them for a big loop.  They are really struggling with the concept at this point.  I don't know how much I should force it right now-- will they have a light bulb moment if I just keep asking the question?  Or do I need to nip this in the butt now and do a review session on matter and particles?  I'm not sure...

In two of my classes, we got through the consensus board meeting for a model of mass:

Clearly one is much more detailed than the other.

Tomorrow, we will complete Worksheet 1 and then move on to volume...

I'll admit, I'm worried about the chemistry modeling curriculum and my current group of students at this moment in time.  Many don't seem to handle "open ended" or "abstract" well at all.  They zone out, then won't try (especially my 4th block).  And their baseline skills seem loooooow-- lower than average.

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.