Careful what you wish for…

I’ve been afraid. Not afraid of what I might say in this final reflection blog for 2012-2013, but afraid of getting started. I knew it would take work and energy to focus all the thoughts clattering around in my head. Fortunately I’ve got Mind Node Pro to help me sort out my ideas. When I got started, the ideas really started to flow, become specific, and connect. As usual, there was really nothing to be afraid of. It was just a matter of getting over the inertia, or the activation energy, (or plug in your science analogy here). Anyway, after a few hours of mapping, I’ve come back to where I started several years ago. Great science teaching, in theory and IN PRACTICE comes down to three things: What I Know. What I Think. What I’m Going To Do About It. The end result of these three things are students who understand science.

What I Know.

Class time constraints and the proliferation of content on the web have changed the way science is taught for the better. Given that virtually all the information contained in a typical science class is available on the Internet, it makes no sense to repeat what students can learn on their own. Therefore class time should be sacred space where students apply their knowledge. By creating opportunities for students to collaborate, and apply what they know, more students will engage in the lesson, and I can assess what my student know more frequently. One of the many upsides to this approach is the classroom/laboratory becomes a much more interesting and fun place to work. This approach works for me because I’m not interested in lecturing and teaching facts. I am, however, interested in teaching students how think.

What I Think (it far exceeds what I know).

Speaking of thinking…I think if I’m interested and passionate about what I teach and how I teach it, then my students will get into it (I could say “respond in a positive manner” but I’m F’ing tired of “eduspeak”). I also think that science education claims to value skills and reasoning, but bloated curricula suggest otherwise. I think there are two solutions to this problem. First, teachers (myself included) have to figure out ways to teach content through lab work and “inquiry”. Secondly, teachers need to be the content filters…and each teacher needs to determine what content (concept, fact, skill, whatever) is essential for developing student understanding of science (insert your discipline here). If it’s not essential, dump it. This is easy for me to say, because I’m much more interested in teaching science concepts as opposed to science facts.

What I’m going to do about it.

I’m going to continue down my path of loosely-guided inquiry within the confines of a typical school day in order develop student understanding of science. I’m going to keep using data to drive the discussions in my classroom. I’m going to put students on the spot more often to present and discuss their findings in hopes of generating higher quality work. I’m going back to my old practice of starting each lesson/lab/whatever with a question. Yes, this increases the time spent on an introduction because students struggle and often don’t know what they’re talking about, but it allows me to develop a shared understanding of the concept/lesson/whatever, and students are immediately invested what we’re doing for the day.

I’ve got lots more to say about What I Know, What I Think, and What I’m Going To Do, and all these ideas have been developed. Perhaps this is the genesis of a book. Regardless, for me it’s all about putting the ideas into practice. I am, after all, a man of action.

In the mean time, teachers and students are invited to check out my exam preparation page. It’s a comprehensive list of sample IB papers and all the Higher Level IB Biology concepts. It ties in nicely with AP biology review.

Please follow this blog, and its companion jcibapbiology.wordpress.com. You’ll get instant notification when I make updates to the site.

Warm regards,

–Ryan Reardon

Many teachers have resisted this model (14a_H-W test 2 Modified_AA ), but I wanted to see what it could do. I built it. It works great. It engages, dare I say, hooks kids. It’s a great teaching tool. Plus, it’s interesting. Using this computer model has stretched my ideas about evolution, and it’s helped me be creative in my thinking, and in my approach to teaching evolution.

I’m working on my presentation now, but I think I need to be myself, and let the actitivies I use with my students speak for themselves. I’ve been sticking to my method of “ABC” (Activity Before Content”), and it’s worked in the classroom. I think it will work with my peers tomorrow.

Today I was faced with teaching an overview of global food systems, and the differences between high throughput agriculture and traditional subsistence agriculture. I love food, and I love thinking about food systems. I don’t love lecturing/yammering to a room full of teenagers. I spent an hour building a lesson where 1) I asked kids to write down a description of how the grapefruit I was holding made it to my hand. 2) I focused the kids on real soil samples and we passed them around. 3) we reviewed soil profiles (something we learned about in our ecosystem unit way back in August). 4) I led a discussion of the general differences between high throughput ag and subsistence ag. 5) I allowed them to pick a partner and investigate the “nuts and bolts” and “pros and cons” of various agricultural methods. The lesson went quite well. My students were engaged, they interacted with me (still working on getting them to interact productively with each other more naturally), and they got to work when it was their time to work. In a nutshell, my hour-long prep was time well spent.

Welcome to our second-to-last formal unit. This Is Our Evolution Unit. Realize, however, we’ve been talking about these ideas, and uncovering evidence to support these claims, all year long. These next four weeks allow us to dive deeper into the fundamental science of evolution. We will talk about big ideas, we will tie multiple lines of evidence together. We will model changes in the gene pool of populations, we will learn the math that defines evolutionary change, we will use DNA evidence to build phylogenetic trees that bind bind various species together and split them apart.

Phew, that’s a lot of stuff. I think we should start, as Darwin would say, gradually.  This week will be pretty straight forward. By next week we’ll be into the increased complexity of evolutionary biology.

We’ll begin by looking specifically at mitichondrial DNA. This is a great time to refresh our memory of the structure and function of mitochondria, to be reminded of the sheer beauty of chemiosmosis, and relearn how changes in a genotype can penetrate the phenotype of cells, tissues, organs, and even individuals.

For a brief story of a child suffering from a mitochondrial disease check out the following link from ESPN.

I got back into teaching to get back on the edge, ideally the bleeding edge, of science education. I wanted to lead from the classroom. Not necessarily from the front of the classroom, but from within the classroom. I want to get next to my students. I want to get out of the way of my students. I want them to make discoveries on their own and in collaborative groups. I’m leading them, but I’m also pushing them to come up with their own insights.

When the class gets out of control, or if it feels like I’m “covering content” rather than uncovering ideas and concepts, I try and refocus on my three ideas: claims, evidence and reasons. I’m working to get kids to engage with concepts, with data, and with ideas. I’m trying to get them to structure their thinking, and be confident enough to talk about their ideas and insights. The next stage for me and them is getting students to reflect on what they know and write down what they think. I have to get students to move way past regurgitating facts when writing, or writing everything in hopes that some of it is correct (the old “vomit on the page” trick). I need to get students to reflect on what they know and write what they understand.

Invertebrate diversity on JCIB/SVHS campus

The other day I told a colleague I’m on a ten-year journey towards teaching AP/IB as a discovery-based course. I’m convinced that students learn best by doing; and I still think we’re trying to teach too much inside of an AP course. I’ve got to stick to my guns, I’ve got to teach fewer concepts more deeply. I’ve got to be the one who ties the thread through the courses I teach. My leadership will equate to planning the best, most effective lessons and activities for my students. Next, I need to get out of the way, and inspire my students to work, think and understand.

The photos below are a window into my classroom culture. This is the journey I’m on. Hopefully I’m getting close to the vision and sound I have in my head.

population ecology 101

How Does your heart rate

intro to genetics (V 1.0)

chemiosmosis!

Whirligigs

Science in flight

the reason for the glow

this is what 71 AP Biology students looks like…and why it costs $300 to pull off the pGLO lab!

they glow (and check out those satellite colonies!) $300 well spent!

you can’t have an AP Biology class without a human Electron Transport Chain (can you?)

girls dig sceince (working on Primary Productivity with Elodea)