Teaching Science IRL

Oh, 2019-2020. This school year has been a year full a changes for me, as I’m sure it has been for you as well. As of this writing, we have finished up a school year that concluded with pretty much every school in America trying to do online or at-home learning due to the coronavirus pandemic and we are currently staring down an upcoming school year full of uncertainty.

For me, I also started teaching at a new school in August 2019 after teaching at my previous school for 5 years so the whole year kind of felt like a giant upheaval. With so much change, I got the opportunity to try some things in the classroom and was forced to do new things with online teaching in the spring as I’m sure you did too! So after some reflection, I want to focus on some of the successful and fun new things I did with students this year. So I give you my top 7 new things I did this year with success. (For reference I mostly taught high school anatomy this year so some of these activities are specific to an anatomy class, but some of these ideas can work in a middle school science classroom or in a classroom of any subject area.)

Also, some of things mentioned below might not be applicable to the classroom next year if we are teaching online or if we are not allowed to do labs in groups, but some are things that can work online or in a socially distanced classroom. I hope you find something here you can use in your classroom!

 

1. Rat Dissection

For the first time this year I taught anatomy with another teacher and got to see some different ways to do things in the anatomy classroom. One of things I was most taken aback by was that my new co-teacher typically does a rat dissection in the beginning of the year in addition to a pig dissection in the spring at the end of the year. At first I found this very interesting, but after I completed it with my class I realized that it was genius! A full dissection right at the beginning of the year is a great was to introduce all the body systems all at once, it forces students to use the anatomical terms and directions they have been learning from the get go, and it gets students EXCITED. The first unit of anatomy can be intimidating to students (it’s full of terms they have never heard of) but I think the dissection helped hook them in even though the first impressions of the class can be overwhelming. It was also nice to be to refer back to the dissection throughout the year. (“Do you remember the spleen during the rat dissection? It was that really dark red organ on the right side toward the back of the rat?”) I realize that two full dissections can be costly, but if your school can afford it or if you have a small anatomy class, a big dissection at the beginning of the year can be really helpful and meaningful for students. I have been buying dissection specimens from a company called Biology Products for a couple years and I like their specimens. They do use formalin in their preservation fluid, if that bothers you, but I find it worth it for the price.

2. Chicken Wing Dissection

Another new dissection I did this year was the chicken wing dissection during our muscle unit and this is so simple and straight forward, I don’t know why I haven’t done it sooner. Chicken wings can be purchased pretty cheap and it’s a nice way to help students tie together the skeletal and muscular systems. Something I want to work going forward with anatomy is better showing how body systems work together and that they don’t just work in silos sperate from each other. Also this lab can be simplified for middle school or made more complex for high school. So versatile! You can find lots of different versions of this lab by just Googling “chicken wing dissection lab”.

3. Spirometer Lab

Testing for lung volume was a new lab I did during our respiratory unit and I tried it two different ways with different classes. With my lower level students I used this lab from Biology Corner using a balloon to get a rough estimate of lung capacity. With my upper level students I use a lab from my co-teacher (similar to this one) that used lung volume bags. Of the two labs, I think the lung volume bags worked a lot better and students got a kick out of seeing their estimated lung volumes. Obviously, I don’t know if we will be able to do this lab next year with the threat of the corona virus still eminent, but this lab was fun for students and I will do it again when it is safe to do so. The lung volume bags and parts are pretty simple and not too expensive. Also I think the lung volume lab from Biology Corner could work in a math class learning to calculate the volume of a sphere.

4. Digital Escape Room

I have done one escape room that I made myself a couple years ago with some success but this May, as my students losing interest in online learning, I purchased this premade digital escape room for my students to change things up a little. It was a slightly different way for students to review what they had learned and they seemed to enjoy it. It worked well over Zoom (I put students into breakout rooms and emailed them the different levels as they worked through each one) and it I think it was a nice way for students to not only to see what they knew and didn’t but it gave them a little time to interact with each other in small groups as well. Over the summer I plan on trying to make my own digital escape rooms for a couple units. I much prefer doing escape rooms manually with locks or puzzles they do together in person, but I think the digital escape rooms with be great with the adjustments we will have to make next year with COVID-19.

5. Digestion Demo

Since we couldn’t do a lab during our digestion unit this year, I did a demonstration over zoom that showed the digestion of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. I had students fill out a handout during the Zoom where they simply listed what they observed and what they thought was happening. After the demonstrations we discussed how each molecule was digested and how it connected to what happens in the digestive system. This seems to work really well as it gave students a visually of digestion even if it was over Zoom and not in-person. I plan on making a list of other demos that will fit in and help students understand concepts in anatomy for next year since I’m not sure if we’ll be in the classroom again or if we will be able to labs in groups like we usually do.

6. Podcasts

During online learning in the spring I was looking for ways to keep things fresh and interesting as I felt like students were losing motivation and interest in school as it became more clear that we would probably not be returning to in person classes at all in 2020. Giving students a podcast to listen to and some simple questions to answer seemed to interest my students and I think it is a great way to help students learn new material and practice listening skills. It’s also a way for students to hear from experts in the field and they hear stories that might new otherwise get from reading an article or textbook on the subject. It’s also just a nice way to change things up a bit if students have been doing a lot of reading or watching videos for your class. This year I had students listen to podcasts about the Tuskegee Syphilis study, the coronavirus, and (my personal favorite) a short one about giardia. There are loads of good podcasts you could use in literally any class!

7. Retrieval Practice

Last summer I read two books: Small Teaching by James Lang and Understanding How We Learn: A Visual Guide by Weinstein, Sumeracki, and Caviglioli and both books emphasized the evidence (such as this) that supports the use of retrieval practice in the classroom. Retrieval practice is simply having students try to pull information they have learned from their memory to help solidify new information. This strategy is backed up by multiple studies so I made a point to use it more in my classroom and I think it made a HUGE difference in student learning. Anatomy has a reputation for being all about memorization and memorizing is a big part of the class. Memorizing the meaning of so many new words is the first step for students who are interested in the medical field or just learning more about their bodies and it sets them up for being about to think critically about problems that can occur in body systems. I think the various activities I did using retrieval practice helped students retain all the new information they were learning, helped them do better on their assessments, and help them gain confidence in the class. You can read more about retrieval practice here and this blog has some great and simple ways to implement this in your classes if you are interested.

I also want to mention that there is a list in my head of 10-20 new things I tried this year that were not successful or did not work well enough to mention in this list. There is also a list of old things I have done in years past that did work at all at my new school or with my new group of students or that didn’t translate well to online learning. Trying something new and having that lessons fail in front of students is always uncomfortable but I always feel like it’s better to try new things and fail than to not try at all. The global pandemic has made teaching less than optimal right now, but it’s also an opportunity to try and fail and succeed with new lessons, activities, and approaches.

What new things have you been trying out or hope to try out next year??? I would love hear about it in the comments!