biologist's+thoughts+8

Link back to inside the mind of the biol guru biologist's thoughts 6 biologist's thoughts 7 biologist's thoughts 9 biologist's thoughts 10

**Lesson 41 (Tuesday 19th May 2009)** Today's lesson was all about them working on their SAC. Not much to say here as they worked well. The key thing for me is in how I get them to do this SAC. With 17 in the class, going through oral presentations one at a time is just not an effective use of time for me and makes it difficult to assess. So, I am very interested in how they cope with the use of technology to complete their presentations. Off course, it will be interesting to watch 17 5min movie presentations on various aspects of the immune response. One of the real benefits of this task though is that they will be able to listen to each others audio files, so this hopefully becomes a fantastic revision resource and learning tool for them.

**Lesson 42 (Wednesday 20th May 2009)** Guest speaker gave a revision session for the upcoming exam. It is important that they hear biology explanations from soneone other than me. I think many found it really useful, at least that is what the ones I asked said. At this point I have decided to allow them to use Friday's lesson to complete the SAC if they need to. Hopefully out school network does not fail us in this time of need. Their use of the wiki has been great. It allows me to see their progress and the thinking that they are doing in working towards their final presentation.

**Lesson 43 (Friday 22nd May 2009)** Well I am glad today is over. All have submitted their immune SAC and I feel a sense of excitement about spending the weekend watching their "movies". They have worked well on the task but more importantly they have had to think deeply about the immune response. The negative at this stage was the technology. I assumed that they would be proficient in this area. I thought I had given them clear advice about the production side of things. Anyway, looking back now I have no doubts that I should have got them familiar with this earlier in the year. Although, the nature of this task only came to me just before the end of term 1. What I am thinking now is, should I get them to do this more often for unit 4? The thing is that they can do this off their own bat anyway. Instead of writing revision notes they could be creating their own audio files on a topic/concept. And if they don't like the sound of their voice (which applies to most of us I would think), they could pair up with someone and get them to record the audio of a summary they have done. Hmmm... don't know how long it will take for me to assess all their work but the stress of getting it all done in a week is definitely building up.

Not much to say about today's lesson. Spoke about the upcoming exam and some of the things to keep in mind. They must realise that they need to have confidence in their knowledge (however much that may be). Lesson was pretty much them going through exam questions, I dealt with any particular questions that were raised. Tomorrow's trial exam will be very useful for me. I need them to experience a bit of pressure but it will also give me a better idea of how they cope with a full on year 12 biology exam.
 * Lesson 44 (Monday 25th May 2009) **

Their first go at doing a trial exam under formal conditions. I don't have really high expectations here. Many have got other things to worry about (such as SACs and even a uni exam). Also doing it p7 and 8 doesn't help their ability to concentrate. But they need the experience. The idea is to get them use to answering questions under some sort of pressure. It will also highlight to them areas that still need some attention. Already marked the multiple choice section and it was not done that well. The class only averaged 16/25. But these trial exams are not a true indication. From previous years they can expect to improve their performance by at least 10-20%. And I am confident thtat next week's practise exam will already reveal improvement.
 * Lesson 45 (Tuesday 26th May 2009) **