The Biology Blog

This blog aims to allow the members of the Biology Department to reflect upon their Collaborative Projects. These are broad in their scope and include, Active Learning, Learning Spaces, the Google Classroom, Differentiation, and Feedback.

There is considerable enthusiasm amongst colleagues, and so some exciting initiatives are beginning to take shape.

Dr Alan Heredia is focussed on Active Learning in the classroom, with a particular emphasis on how this area of pedagogy can be utilised in small groups when reviewing their practical investigation portfolio work. IGCSE Science investigations pose real challenges to students, not least interpreting the skills criteria. The approach to this is simple, but he employs a very deliberate structure. Firstly, a laboratory practical is carried out in small groups. One report is written by each group, following the assessment criteria of the Department. Printed reports are collected and redistributed, so that each group marks one different to its own following the criteria (as they understand them). The graded reports are then given back to the groups that wrote them and both the grading and graded groups discuss the reason for the grades given. This reinforces understanding of the criteria. At the end of the activity, the graded reports are collected and remarks about the students’ grading are written. Finally, there is a useful starter at the beginning of the following lesson where consolidated feedback is provided. Alan is using this method frequently with his IGCSE years and has noted how carefully selected group structure ensures that students are achieving a better understanding of the practical criteria. More able students facilitate the understanding of the less able, and so there are clearly aspects of differentiation happening in these small learning groups too. So Alan encourages a good deal of autonomy to these groups, and yet he is always close at hand to guide and direct the tenor of their discussion.

Alan utilises a similar strategy when opening new topics, again establishing small groups to research topic themes, which are then presented under the scrutiny of other groups. His IGCSE sets have benefitted from this very student-centred approach, and the younger ones seem to embrace this opportunity with particular enthusiasm. Alan found it interesting to note how the students enjoy sharing their discoveries with their peers. Clearing this is a strategy, which if well managed, certainly motivates his students.

Nicola opted to join the Learning Spaces collaborative group. It presents challenges in the C Block though, simply because our furniture is essentially fixed. However, it is a particularly exciting one to explore; I recall chatting to the Headmaster shortly after his arrival at Markham, and listening to his thoughts on learning spaces, and now of course, we all have the June Colloquim to look forward too, where specialists in this field will present their own expert insight into the matter.

One strategy Nicola has recently used was to set a ‘Problems Solved Here’ desk. At this set aside desk, Post Its were provided, and at strategic points in the lesson, students were able to visit the desk and write down any questions they had, and then other students were also able to read and post responses to these. I thought this was a really exciting idea, because I felt that it might remove some of the inhibition students have when they are seeking advice but are too shy to ask for this advice in public. It also might make some students feel that they are participating more actively in lessons by lending support to other students who are struggling. She trialled the strategy once with her S4, but they didn’t seem very enamoured with the idea, and were more inclined to answer each other’s questions anyway, but on a more informal basis. She feels that this could work more effectively with the P6/S1 groups, because they are taught by one teacher throughout the year, rather than rotating through different subject specialist teachers as the IGCSE students do, and it could therefore become part of a regular routine.