I recently took my Grade 11 biology students on a field trip to our local zoo. In this post I will share some photos from the trip.
This field trip formed part of our study of animal behaviour. Whilst at the zoo students were expected to make observations of two different animal species in order to compare their behaviour. They were also asked to think about the arguments for and against zoos, and to find evidence to support both sides of this debate.
I will post a full account of the pre- and post-trip activities in a later blog.
In a couple of my classes this week I was fortunate enough to be able to combine some traditional approaches to teaching and learning biology, whilst utilising technology that would have been virtually unthinkable a few years ago.
Case study 1 - Modelling mitosis
Mitosis is a classic case of a biological concept that can seem very abstract to learners. Many textbooks and websites describe various different approaches for practical classes that involve modelling mitosis in order to make it something more concrete for students to grasp, for example using pipe cleaners, pop beads or modelling clay. I opted to use modelling clay - pipe cleaners were probably a lot easier to source in the past than they are these days! This was the traditional part of the class.
However, I also wanted to add something a bit more engaging to the practical, so I decided to have my students create stop-motion movies. This was the part of the class that would have been much more difficult to achieve in the past, without a fair amount of expensive and specialised kit. Now, since all of my students have smartphones, they simply downloaded a free stop motion app to their phone and away they went. Most of them chose to use a free app called Stop Motion Studio. There is an example of their work here.
So, in the space of a double lab class, I had given brief notes on the four phases of mitosis, had my students make their model chromosomes, and also had them create a stop motion movie to generate a tangible, final finished product. Most of them also had time to make movies showing cytokinesis, illustrating the difference between this process in plant versus animal cells.
Case study 2 - Ecological sampling techniques
The second activity was a practical activity that took us outside of the classroom, something I discussed in my last post. I do enjoy getting out of the classroom with my learners, although the conditions weren't ideal on this particular occasion - the temperature was 34° Celsius and, because it had recently rained, the humidity was around 85%!
For this practical activity learners had an opportunity to try out some classic ecological sampling techniques using quadrats. Again, this is a very traditional method used in biology that has long been a feature of high school biology classes.
The new aspects I was able to incorporate were two-fold in this case. First, students were able to take photos of their quadrats, and the plants they could count within them. These will be useful for a future activity looking at urban biodiversity. Secondly, once we got back to class, the data they had collected were entered into spreadsheets and quickly converted into tables and graphs for analysis.
In general, my feeling is that there are often traditional approaches to pedagogy that are popular and appear frequently in textbooks, websites etc for a reason - they are effective. In these cases, it is worth keeping them. I would also not advocate using technology for the sake of it, however, in the two cases I have outlined above, I feel that technology clearly has a valuable role to play in augmenting the learning opportunities that are available.
I would be interested to hear of other examples where old and new techniques are being used to create new and interesting learning opportunities, please feel free to comment below.
Are high school lab classes still relevant or necessary any more? Or are they an obsolete approach from a bygone era?
Many have argued that science practical classes are formulaic and lack challenge and interest for learners. The argument is that such classes should give opportunities for students to undertake experimental design, and analyse and interpret data - in short, to practice science as it is practiced in the real world.
In principle these are good ideas - blurring the distinction between the classroom and the real-world by moving deeper into the ways a community of practice actually operates. The problem is, as so often, one of time. How can learners be expected to design an experiment, for example, if they have yet to have hands-on experience of basic lab techniques? How can they identify potential areas of error if they simply have not encountered these situations before?
I would argue that there is a place for both relatively structured practical classes, and for open-ended, investigative classes - they do not have to be mutually exclusive, or have one approach ditched in favour of the other.
In practice, the emphasis of a lab class would vary depending on which skills are being highlighted. For example, an experiment investigating the effect of temperature on enzyme activity is relatively simple to design, and learners could be expected to do a reasonable job of it. However, I see it more as an opportunity to practice a wider range of skills, including not just taking and recording measurements, but also data analysis, interpretation, and error identification. Groups could compare their own results with the rest of the class, and gain an appreciation of the importance of pooling larger datasets for greater accuracy. These are exactly the skills advocated by those who suggest lab classes are formulaic. Once these basic skills are in place, then learners would be ready to take on a more in-depth, open-ended inquiry of their own.
We cannot expect learners to come as ready-formed junior scientists in the making. It is still the role of science teachers to guide learners, whilst providing opportunities for more exploration and open-ended investigation once they have mastered the basics.
I'd love to hear others' opinions on this...
