Self-Reflection
The story of this unit is one of believing in these Biology students. When I first told Mrs. Wright I was designing a unit for her class, and asked her what content the class would be covering in April, she showed me all of her materials for Biology and Biology Enhanced. While the Biology class had more time to complete the unit, Mrs. Wright had both less material, and easier material for the Biology class. I decided right away that I wanted to design this unit for Biology.
These kids are bright, but expectations for them are fairly low. Mrs. Wright showed me a general outline of an inquiry version of the bacteria lab, and said she’d like to do a version of it for Biology, but it would have to be simplified. I told her that I thought the Biology classes were quite capable of doing this lab, so I set about adapting the general outline into a full lab based on the Van Andel QPOE2 model in a Google doc, and we did do the lab in Biology, and I think it turned out very well.
I was not to add more material, in terms of concepts, to the unit, but because I believed I could have higher expectations for these students, I went more into depth for aspects I thought were important. This unit focused on scientific inquiry and argumentation, and the interplay between good and bad bacteria, and how that might be relevant to students’ lives. While argumentation was limited to the lab, and the interplay between good and bad bacteria could only be emphasized when talking about general bacteria concepts (the students did not do the argumentative writing assignment), I feel that the students still got the main ideas that I was trying to hammer home. While students were working on the Venn diagram, I listened to groups discussing which ideas should go where, and I definitely heard talk of bacteria as helpful, and even specifically that it is found in your intestines. I had hoped to be able to assess whether students were developing their own views on cleanliness, but as I don’t have their writing assignments to read, I can only hope that they carry the principles they learned into their everyday lives. As for the other overarching goal of doing science, I definitely saw evidence of learning in that area. Students designed experiments, carried them out, and drew logical conclusions, defending them based on evidence. I believed they could do it, and I am glad that they met my expectations.
As I have mentioned a couple times, we did not do the writing assignment I have in this unit plan. With that, this unit potentially could have been too much. I guess time is barrier that all teachers have to deal with. It just seems hard to fit all the meaningful learning I would want to happen into five lessons. Another barrier to implementing this unit is that sometimes students are absent. When four of five lessons in this unit involve working on an ongoing lab with a group, somebody not being there is a problem. The students who are there can work on the lab, and they are fine, but the ones who are missing the lab, are missing valuable practice in doing science. There were a few students missing on different days over the course of doing the lab, and I just had their lab partners fill them in on what they missed, but still I feel they were missing important experience. Another barrier to achieving meaningful learning with the lab is that students would work on different sections at the same time, so one student would know how to justify evidence, but another might just have come up with some possible sources of error. Mrs. Wright encouraged students to work like this, so I didn’t want to undermine her authority, but implementing this unit on my own, I would likely walk around the room, doing my best to enforce students working on each section together (check to make sure they’re on the same slide on the Google doc).
I took on the task of designing this unit for a “low-level” class. I put “low-level” in quotations because I believe that all students, given the appropriate resources, can learn. Often teachers place lower expectations on this class, but designing this unit, I differentiated it from the Enhanced Biology class by not including lots and lots of terms or including all the steps in complicated life cycles—things that might cause cognitive overload and I’m sure most students would forget in a few weeks anyway. I didn’t differentiate it by not allowing students to do science. Maybe I guided some students in these classes more than I would have in Enhanced Biology, but I still allowed them to practice inquiry, and take ownership of their own learning.
Coming out of designing this unit, I want high expectations for all to carry over to my career as a future teacher. It’s hard to design lessons that are accessible for all, but it’s important to give students ownership of their own learning, so that they build confidence in their ability to do science. Maybe my classes won’t always meet my expectations, but I will always believe they have to potential to.
These kids are bright, but expectations for them are fairly low. Mrs. Wright showed me a general outline of an inquiry version of the bacteria lab, and said she’d like to do a version of it for Biology, but it would have to be simplified. I told her that I thought the Biology classes were quite capable of doing this lab, so I set about adapting the general outline into a full lab based on the Van Andel QPOE2 model in a Google doc, and we did do the lab in Biology, and I think it turned out very well.
I was not to add more material, in terms of concepts, to the unit, but because I believed I could have higher expectations for these students, I went more into depth for aspects I thought were important. This unit focused on scientific inquiry and argumentation, and the interplay between good and bad bacteria, and how that might be relevant to students’ lives. While argumentation was limited to the lab, and the interplay between good and bad bacteria could only be emphasized when talking about general bacteria concepts (the students did not do the argumentative writing assignment), I feel that the students still got the main ideas that I was trying to hammer home. While students were working on the Venn diagram, I listened to groups discussing which ideas should go where, and I definitely heard talk of bacteria as helpful, and even specifically that it is found in your intestines. I had hoped to be able to assess whether students were developing their own views on cleanliness, but as I don’t have their writing assignments to read, I can only hope that they carry the principles they learned into their everyday lives. As for the other overarching goal of doing science, I definitely saw evidence of learning in that area. Students designed experiments, carried them out, and drew logical conclusions, defending them based on evidence. I believed they could do it, and I am glad that they met my expectations.
As I have mentioned a couple times, we did not do the writing assignment I have in this unit plan. With that, this unit potentially could have been too much. I guess time is barrier that all teachers have to deal with. It just seems hard to fit all the meaningful learning I would want to happen into five lessons. Another barrier to implementing this unit is that sometimes students are absent. When four of five lessons in this unit involve working on an ongoing lab with a group, somebody not being there is a problem. The students who are there can work on the lab, and they are fine, but the ones who are missing the lab, are missing valuable practice in doing science. There were a few students missing on different days over the course of doing the lab, and I just had their lab partners fill them in on what they missed, but still I feel they were missing important experience. Another barrier to achieving meaningful learning with the lab is that students would work on different sections at the same time, so one student would know how to justify evidence, but another might just have come up with some possible sources of error. Mrs. Wright encouraged students to work like this, so I didn’t want to undermine her authority, but implementing this unit on my own, I would likely walk around the room, doing my best to enforce students working on each section together (check to make sure they’re on the same slide on the Google doc).
I took on the task of designing this unit for a “low-level” class. I put “low-level” in quotations because I believe that all students, given the appropriate resources, can learn. Often teachers place lower expectations on this class, but designing this unit, I differentiated it from the Enhanced Biology class by not including lots and lots of terms or including all the steps in complicated life cycles—things that might cause cognitive overload and I’m sure most students would forget in a few weeks anyway. I didn’t differentiate it by not allowing students to do science. Maybe I guided some students in these classes more than I would have in Enhanced Biology, but I still allowed them to practice inquiry, and take ownership of their own learning.
Coming out of designing this unit, I want high expectations for all to carry over to my career as a future teacher. It’s hard to design lessons that are accessible for all, but it’s important to give students ownership of their own learning, so that they build confidence in their ability to do science. Maybe my classes won’t always meet my expectations, but I will always believe they have to potential to.