8.5 Evolution of Australian Biota


Engaging students is one of the most important aspects of education. It explains why I have spent all my Sunday playing with play-dough for Slowmation. 

It can be hard to engage students in the evolution of Australian Biota. One of the ways I would do it is by showing them a youtube video for a few minutes. There are so many great clips that are available. I think pictures  can speak a thousand words. I personally love Youtube as a tool in class. The clip below is great as it shows a timeline of the past and also shows future trends. 

The next part of the activity cycle is giving the students a jigsaw puzzle  of Gondwana to work on. They would have letters of the alphabet on certain parts of the map to match the pieces. The students will cut out the shapes and have to put the puzzle together. They would also have to think about the species they expect to see , eg ratites, such as the link below:
http://www.weebly.com/uploads/2/9/2/5/2925372/gondwana_puzzle.pdf  and 
http://sparrow1985.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/long-gone-gondwana1.pdf


I remember being in EES class last semester and watching students roll their eyes when Dr Wil introduced the new topic. When the puzzle came out, it allowed the students to take a breath, and have some time to recollect some of the information that they may have forgotten. During the puzzle activity, I will be facilitating and encouraging the students to use resources such as the internet for more information. 
One of the main misconceptions is the sheer amount needed for continental drift to occur. Andrew Jarrett helped this issue by sharing his experience:
" To put this into perspective, I will tell students that by the time Australia collides with Indonesia, their X millionth grandchildren will be the current Australians. This will hopefully contextualise the speed of continental drift to the students so that the concept is better understood.' I love this analogy. 

Deconstructing is looking at the species that are located now in different continents such as Ostrich, Rhea, Emu & Kiwi. Some students can easily do this activity and others will struggle. I like selecting my own student group combinations so students can be challenged and out of their friend circle, and students from different abilities can be grouped for scaffolding purposes. 

The final step of the learning cycle is piecing the information together . Students are also encouraged to think about the future and where we are heading. Continental drift doesn't stop. (Some students may not sleep at night )

This activity and module is one that stimulates interest in a lot of students. It is also a topic that some find boring and unstimulating. I think engaging students is the most important step of the  learning cycle.   

I have been blessed with three things:

A great family, A very strong sense of smell, which often is not a good thing, and an excellent memory. My sons' first soccer match, against their father, my daughter's first drawing... on the kitchen wall, and my wonderful experiences at uni as an undergraduate student. 

Life was great. My friends and I had a newfound independence and the world was our oyster, until we started Biochemistry, and protein synthesis. 

Every lecture mirrored the next: sugar molecules being drawn on the board with arrows pointing down, and enzyme names on the side... mRNA, tRNA and other polymerase structures took up pages and pages of our books, and we didn't dare look at each other in class in case we left out an Oxygen atom somewhere. We struggled to finish the drawing before he rubbed the board. (I still struggle with whiteboard erasers.) The ironic thing is, even though we all had textbooks, our lecturer had not given us any structure that I personally wasn't sure of where to go to look things up.

Then , for some reason, in student vacation, it made sense. We would look over our notes and it all made sense. We finally understood.

I didn't know why this was the case until Thursday night this week. 

It's because our lecturer didn't have a UbD concept. 

He explained transcription, then moved to translation and covered each with so much detail that we struggled to see any big picture, or even know there was a big picture. I remember one day seeing tears streaming down from a friend's face as she couldn't keep up with the double bonds. All I could do then was pass her a tissue. 

So why did it make sense in StuVac?

The reason it made sense then and he probably heard the 'Ohhhhhh, I get it!!' from his house, is because we were able to put all the material together and realise that all these endless steps were in fact leading to one thing, synthesising proteins. 

When much detail needs to be covered, and the teacher is very comfortable with the material, it is easy to move along and explain concepts many times over to nodding students who can't see the big picture. It doesn't mean they understand.

8.4 Life on Earth

UbD  can start  with an open question, e.g. 'How did life on earth start?' The Scope and sequence is drawn then the assessments are designed that are suitable not only to grade students, but also enrich the learning process, (like Slowmation), and then a program is written and subsequently lesson plans follow. 

If the lecturer had first asked about our bodies, and enzymes, e.g. 'How does an ulcer heal itself ?', then give an overview of protein synthesis with headings of each step, it would have been a much more enriching experience. And I would have remembered a bit more material as any 'Think Pair Share ' I did with Joanne could have been directed at the content instead of what to have for lunch. 

So in summary, analysing and assessing UbD has been very positive. I like the idea, and if done well, it would bring more positive results. For some students, it may not make a big difference, but overall I think it does. Teachers run the risk of becoming a little myopic in their teaching and need to ensure that they continue to build on the syllabus by including extra material and experiences for the students to get  more out of biology. 

EDST555 Biology Assessment 3

EDST555 Biology Assessment 3

Blog 2

Alice Zaslavsky is a geography teacher in Melbourne. 

In 2012, she taught her students and Australia a lesson in responsibility and integrity that they will never forget. 

Being in the final elimination round of Masterchef, she had the choice of avoiding elimination by using her hard-earned immunity pin. By doing so, another contestant, Beau, would take her place and face elimination. 

Fighting back tears, Alice spoke of 'another lesson' she had to teach her students, and that was ' You don't have to step on others to win'. 

She refused to use her immunity pin and cooked her heart out. She was not eliminated and made it to the finals. 

Alice taught her students values on TV. It was not in her classroom, or by looking at maps or how people lived in other countries. 

Please take two minutes to watch the clip below: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXRJjH42AxE&feature=plcp

Teachers have a role to teach students and in my opinion, these values of responsibility and integrity can be taught anytime. When  a teacher throws her recycling in the recycling bin, someone watching may be inspired to follow suite. 

When she doesn't break down and swear when ICT doesn't work and she is left red-faced, she teaches about how to handle difficult situation. 

And in Biology, and in particular 8.3, when she handles microscopes and materials with care, uses only what is required of the materials, and removes waste materials appropriately, she is teaching about respect for the dignity of life, and the responsibility we have towards the environment. 

8.3 is about the details of the cell structure, and even though it doesn't present the world's most controversial debate like genetic mutations or stem cell research would, a biology teacher can still teach about these values with leading by example. 

Alice used Masterchef as a medium to achieve this. What medium will we use? 

EDST555 Biology Assessment 3

Like Beethoven needed to acquire knowledge of musical chords and scales before writing Für Elise and Symphony No. 9, so do stage six students need to acquire basic knowledge of distinguishing between biotic and abiotic factors, describing importance of cycles of materials in ecosystems, and relating strategies to contamination of unwanted substances (5.10a, 5.10b, 5.10c, 5.11.2a, 5.11.2c) before undergoing a field experience of an ecosystem. Such a project takes their learning to a deeper level, as paralleled with higher order Bloom’s taxonomy  questions in stage 6 syllabus (8.2.1, 8.2.2). The final report allows the student to marry the literacy skills of stage 4 and 5, with more detail and analysis as expected in stage 6. This is the symphony of Biology. 

You can click the link below or copy the URL into the browser window to view Stage 4&5 Science, PAGE 22.

http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/pdf_doc/science-syllabus-7-10.pdf