Sex Ed - an appropriate topic for high school?

I am currently teaching human reproduction to my Matayom 2 students (Grade 8 / Year 9). This is part of a science class so there is some focus on anatomical aspects of reproduction, but there are also classes where we look at contraception, aspects of sexuality, safe sex, and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). 

One of the things I like to do at the start of this topic is to ask students to call out words or phrases they know that are associated with sex and sexual reproduction, and write them on the board. The aim is to try and get the inevitable giggles and snickering at least partly out of their systems! This is also quite a fun activity to begin the topic, and hopefully lets my students feel that they are free to raise any topics or ask any questions that they may be curious about. 

As I was building up their list of words on the board, one student jokingly proposed 'inappropriate topic' as her phrase. I asked what she meant and she said that the activity was appropriate 'scientifically' but not for a classroom of 13-year olds. This raised an interesting discussion point, and led me to explain that research suggests that earlier sex education does not, as some would have it, lead to kids having sex earlier, but that when they do start becoming sexually active they do so in such a way that STIs and unwanted pregnancies are less likely to be the outcome. Of course, the topics and content of sex education should be age appropriate, and there are some great resources for age appropriate curriculum materials to be found here.   

I can't speak for other schools in Thailand, but my school at least is fairly progressive in terms of sex education, and it crops up in both the science and the health curriculum. In the past my health teacher colleague has invited guest speakers from a local NGO, The Population and Community Development Association (PDA), to talk to students about various aspects of sexual health. (The PDA are also known for their popular, sexual health awareness-raising Thai restaurant, Cabbages and Condoms).

For me personally, I think it is both irresponsible and negligent to not give our students the best possible advice, with age appropriate content, when it comes to education around sex, sexuality, and sexual health. 

Encouraging learner voice and choice

Offering learners more voice and choice is increasingly being advocated as a way to improve engagement and personalise learning. Edna Sackson, from Inquire Within, also mentioned this to me following an earlier post. One of the ways in which I have attempted to achieve this is to give learners the choice of what finished product to submit at the end of the assignment. As ever with this particular assignment, student groups could choose any topic within the broader scope of genetic engineering (e.g. GMOs, cloning, forensic biology etc). However, instead of specifying a finished product that involved a report, or a PowerPoint presentation to the class, I gave them the option of what kind of final product to submit.

Upon completion of the assignment final products submitted included infographics produced in easel.ly, presentation-style reports in Prezi, and PDFs created via Google Slides. Many of the students were unfamiliar with some of these applications, and so were finding their feet with them to some extent. One interesting observation was a student who was explaining to her group members how to find their way around Adobe Illustrator. This was a good example of the teacher stepping back and ceding peer teaching opportunities to the students – I’ve never used Adobe Illustrator in my life! Other spontaneous peer teaching included students showing each other tips and tricks in Photoshop.

Student feedback following an evaluation at the end of the assignment was generally positive, with some neutral responses. Encouragingly, there were no negative responses, although Thai students are often reluctant to criticize even via anonymous evaluation forms!  

Reasons learners gave for enjoying the assignment included the freedom it offered them, that it was fun, it enabled them to use their creativity, and it offered them the chance to learn new skills, such as how to use Prezi or make infographics.

I also asked learners what aspects they would change or improve. Suggestions ranged from having groups present their work to the rest of the class (even if the final product was not a traditional presentation format) to requesting that I assign (!) topics to groups because some groups were deemed to have chosen “easy” topics. Obviously, this latter suggestion would somewhat defeat the purpose of this exercise.

I’ll finish up with a couple of direct quotes from the students regarding this assignment. The first quote supports the idea that learners appreciate the chance to be creative, the second one – well, what can I say!

“I really love this project because we have to use lots of skills not only understanding and writing but we also have to be creative to make an easy-reading infographic”.

“Its kind of fun using technology with the subject which seems to be boring like biology”.

Towards a more active classroom

Before becoming a teacher I worked in public health in the UK. One of my roles was to help disseminate data, involving seminars, workshops etc. I remember a specific occasion when I was involved with a one day workshop, delivering various public health data to a range of professionals in the field. When I came to analyse the feedback questionnaires after the event I was struck by the wide variation of responses. For example, one delegate noted that they were happy the event had been held over a full day, but would have preferred it to be held over two days so there was more time for discussion. On the other hand, a different delegate declared that they felt a full day was excessive and the proceedings could have been dispensed with in a morning. What I took from these responses was that the timing of the event was probably about right!

Similarly, when I analyse my anonymous course feedback questionnaires that I have students complete at the end of my biology course, if I see a range of responses like this I feel that I am probably getting that particular aspect of my classes about right. However, what has become clear from administering these course evaluations is that my students felt that some of my classes did not result in a suitably active classroom. Therefore this is an area that I am currently focusing on in my lesson planning. 

I'm aiming for a more active classroom with all of my classes, for example I have increased the number of lessons where students are engaged in peer-teaching. The photos below show Grade 10 students preparing for and delivering a peer-teaching activity relating to protein synthesis. 

I am also re-designing a section of my course relating to nervous systems. I have all the materials I need from previous years, but I am going to take a different approach with them in the classroom. Some classes will be problem-based, while other work will provide learners with an opportunity to develop a final output of their own choosing, e.g. an infographic, a poster, or an animation. This is also an excellent opportunity to make students' learning more visible, by including a section looking at how the human brain learns, together with recent developments in neuroscience and the way we understand learning, and encouraging students to reflect on how this relates to their own experiences as learners.

I will know in a few weeks time whether or not my attempts to make a more active classroom have been successful…

When teacher thinks their idea is great – but…

I’m sure that this is an experience that most of us who are teachers can relate to. It certainly isn’t the first time it has happened to me. That great new idea you have, that’s going to be a fun, motivating, engaging activity – and then – crash and burn!

A few days ago I was introducing a new topic to my oldest group of biology students – Grade 12 or Matayom 6 here in Thailand. I told them that we would be studying hormones and the endocrine system, at which point giggling and whispers started going around the room. The cause of the amusement:  Hormones – The Series. This is a popular, somewhat risqué (for Thailand) teen-soap. According to Wikipedia, it takes some of its inspiration from the UK show Skins, which was also somewhat controversial in some of its portrayals of teen life.

Anyway, after class had finished I thought – what a great learning opportunity! Instead of what I had originally planned for the students to do over the New Year break - work in groups, do some background research on a hormone of their choice, then give a presentation based on their findings to the rest of the class – why not have them make a video! A scripted, acted play, in which group members took on different roles – one person would be the hormone, another could be the receptor molecule, the “villain” could be a disease associated with their particular hormone and so on. All good, 21^st Century Skills; creative, collaborative stuff!

So I prepared a PowerPoint slide mock-up of publicity posters from Hormones – The Series. I prepared the outline brief for their task. I went to class and announced their next assignment, expecting an overwhelmingly positive response to my creative and innovative use of the learning opportunity that arose in our previous class. And was greeted by a chorus of groans!

“Make a video – really?” and “Why can’t we just take down notes?”

So, somewhat deflated – the “disease as villain” was an off-the-cuff addition to try and garner more enthusiasm for my idea – I pressed on regardless. To be fair to my students, many of them were fairly swift in beginning to storyboard an outline for their video – an example of something learned in English classes being transferred to science – so I don’t want to be too harsh on them. It’s just that moment when you realize that your own enthusiasm for a new approach to teaching the same material doesn’t necessarily always translate well for your students. I’m withholding judgment as to whether I will repeat this assignment until I’ve seen the finished products. Although I imagine they will produce some entertaining videos. If any of them are scientifically accurate enough I may even post them online…

The students in question listening to a guest speaker.