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Using G+ as a Community for Your Class
Edmodo was my go-to virtual classroom for the past two years, but I’ve never felt that the students had really bought into using it. They wouldn’t use it unless I forced them to by creating an...
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Mini Field Trip to the Park
If you’re on the last days before school is out for the summer, you are probably encountering a lot of excited kids who really aren’t interested in sticking their nose in a book. Why not take them...
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Discovering Local Flora and Fauna
After reading this article about Transylvania’s farmers, I was interested in the statement by an ethnoecologist that anyone over 20 years old can on average recognize and name more than 120 species of...
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Classroom Collaboration Tools
With common core standards emphasizing a students ability to write and synthesize information, there are several tools that you can utilize online to give students the opportunity to write and share...
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What’s the Big Idea?
Whether you have been digesting the Next Generation Science Standards or revamping an AP curriculum, you will have noticed that modern standards focus on very broad general elements that serve as...
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What is “Mastery” and Why is It Important?
The idea that learning for mastery was proposed many years ago by Benjamin Bloom. You probably are familiar with the man, and may even have a poster in your class showing “Bloom’s Taxonomy.” Every...
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Are Kids Out of Touch with Nature?
Growing up, I lived near a lake and spent my weekends fishing from the dock, and scavenging in the woods. I knew the names of the fish I caught, even the two varieties of ducks I would see in the...
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Teaching Chi Square Analysis
The AP biology test is administered in the spring and can be a very intense tests for students. If you teach AP Biology, you’ve probably been including things in the curriculum to help students be...
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Are Exit Tickets a Good Way to Assess Understanding?
My genetics unit for Freshman Biology always starts with a history lesson on Mendel and our understanding of heredity at that time. One of the main themes of this lesson is a comparison between two...
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Writing to Learn
The Common Core and Writing The common core include standards for writing that requires all teachers, no matter what discipline to include writing as part of their curriculum. Many teachers outside...
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Why I’m Changing My Classroom Phone Policy
Last year, I decided to run a social experiment with my honors class. This was a small class of 18 students taking Advanced Placement Biology, with a mix of juniors and seniors. The experiment was...
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How to Create Your Classroom Seating Chart
It’s the first day of school and your students are just arriving to class. Some aren’t quite sure they’re in the right place, some confidently stride into the room like they’ve been there all along....
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Guide to Explanatory Writing in Science
I have written before about the value of having students write as a learning tool. In “Writing to Learn” I made some suggestions for ways you could incorporate writing into you daily lessons. I did...
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How to Use Google Docs to Leverage Student Engagement
It is the beginning of class, a lab report is due and students setting their homework on your desk. One student says that she doesn’t have it because her internet wasn’t working. Another student hands...
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How to Make Group Activities and Grading Fair
During the cell unit of Advanced Placement biology, students are required to do three investigations (labs): Diffusion and Osmosis, Photosynthesis, and Cellular Respiration. Students work in groups...
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Is Group Work Really Effective?
I was out for a day last week and left a case study for my anatomy students. The case was about six pages long and starts with a doctor examining a pregnant woman and hearing what he thought was a...
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Science and Engineering Practice 4: Analyzing and interpreting data
Students will likely forget a good portion of all the details they learn in class, but there are certain skills that will stay with them for the long term. I spend a lot of class time working with...
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Your Inner Fish – Video from HHMI
At the NSTA Conference in Chicago last year, I had the pleasure of meeting (at least from a distance) Neil Shubin, who is a fish paleontologist. We watched one of the newer movies, were treated to...
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Spotlight Lessons – Evolution
Evolution can be a subject that causes stress for some teachers because they worry about how students (or their parents) may feel about the subject. I’ve even heard from some teachers that choose to...
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How to Improve Engagement with Dissections
Many biology classes still use dissections as a way for students to learn anatomical structures. There are also many virtual labs available if instructors don’t have access to real specimens or lab...
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