biologist's+thoughts+7

Link back to inside the mind of the biol guru biologist's thoughts 6 biologist's thoughts 8 biologist's thoughts 9 biologist's thoughts 10

Period 0, what can I say other than I started the lesson with 3 out of 17! Not good enough as far as I am concerned. Any way, those few that were their benefited from a discussion of a practise exam question. 40min went by so quick, I had planned a number of different tasks. The one learning activity (bingo where they create their own cards) looked like it might be really useful with this group. I had to rush it in the end but it did get them to think about key terms that had been covered in previous lessons. Anyway, the next couple of lessons are the crucial ones for this part of the course. The aim is to have them develop an overall understanding of specific immune response without being confused by all the intracacies and fine detail, and there is plenty of it. So, will they do the right thing and read the course notes prior to the lesson? Will they ask themselves questions to probe their understanding of the notes prior to the lesson? Will they read the textbook as well to compare what I wrote with what is written by others? Will they check the study design to see what is mentioned in there about the specific immune response? Will they start to be damn more serious about their learning of this subject? Off course, I know some are but I also know that too many aren't.
 * Lesson 35 (Monday 4th May 2009) **

I was really looking forward to today's lesson, as I had prepared an introductory presentation (that involved music/animation and key text) for them on the specific immune response. Hmmm... I wonder what they thought of the presentation itself. Even though it took a number of hours of preparation time for just 5 minutes of presentation, in my view it is always worth it. As long as I have been able to hook them in and find an entry point for them to the concept being covered. Anyway, I hoped the presentation would not only interest them but also allow me to do a follow up activity to get them to really think about what they had observed. And it seemed to work really well. Maybe some of them might let me know at the bottom of this post. The follow up activity was the crucial bit for me. Setting it up into three distinct foci I think allowed them to probe what they got out of the presentation (in a manageable and convenient way) but it also gave me an idea of what information wasn't clearly conveyed. Giving them the chance to initially go solo and then discuss in a small group really sits well with this class. Upon reflecting now, I think I should have given them more time to do this BUT this time factor keeps getting in the way. And as it turned out I only just managed to cover what I wanted to for the humoral response. I still had a couple of activities I wanted to do to reinforce the concepts covered. But at least I now have the beginning to the next lesson. If today's lesson really had an impact on them and they have gone and done the homework then I will see this pretty clearly when they do the activity next lesson. I had to curb some of the questions today, I am going to have to make it clearer that unless it directly relates to trying to understand the concept being covered they will need to wait til outside of class or even better, post it on this wiki, where time is not an issue.
 * Lesson 36 (Tuesday 5th May 2009) **

**Lesson 37 (Friday 8th May 2009)** The aim of today's lesson was to cover the cell-mediated immune response and highlight the integrative nature of the immune response. Based on the questions asked, it seemed that at least some of them were beginning to make better sense of the specific immune response. Although, I could tell by some of the faces that the new terminology (and there is heaps of it) was confusing them. I can't stress to them enough that the fine detail is not what matters but rather having a clear overall picture. The handout I gave them is designed to do this and I will devote some of the next lesson to seeing how they went with it. There is no doubt that showing them animations really helps them make a connection with the theory. Visualising cells and the processes is crucial if they are to really get the esssence of what is going on. I ended the lesson in a different manner today. It just so happens that a recent "Mythbusters" episode had an interesting section on temperature regulation (about 15min) which was worth showing, simply to get them to think back to homeostasis. I wonder how they are going with their revision of the whole course. I have set up two tasks (on this wiki) for them to do that I hope at least some of them will use. In fact I think I will get them all to do the checklist one. How can I possibly use future revision lessons effectively if they (and I) don't know what areas need the most attention. Hmmm....thinking back on the lesson, I just feel like there was no closure to it (maybe it was showing the episode). I really needed to get them to do something other than listen, watch and ask questions. I guess the homework will get them to do this anyway.

**Lesson 38 (Monday 11th May 2009)** The main focus of this lesson was getting across how we can acquire immunity. After a brief explanation of the four different types, I set up an activity that utilised the IWB. They had to copy a flow chart from the board and label it using relevant terms, fill in gaps an incorporate where the different ways of acquiring immunity fitted in. The students repsonded well, I allowed them to work with someone else. Anyway, it allowed me to have individual students come up to the board and suggest one "answer". Having about a dozen different things that need placing/inserting meant that almost everyone had to get up out of their seat and provide an input. What worked really well was the fact that a student could only go up once. Having a class "answer" also allowed then to compare it with their own. And off course, they were curious to see what the answer was, which I had hidden behind a shade on the IWB. Before revealing the answer, I allowed for discussion and this is the really importaant part, as it meant they had to justify why they placed something where they did. It didn't surprise me that the class got the answer totally correct! Well done on their behalf. It is this sort of activity that I think has really benfits in the classroom and the IWB makes it possible. What I forgot to do was to get each student intially say why they were placing something where they were. Oh well, next time.

**Lesson 39 (Tuesday 12th May 2009)** Felt a little underprepared for today's lesson, mainly from deciding what order to cover the last part of the course. Anyway, it was interesting because there would have been several occasions where I decided to do something on the spur of the moment. And that is what I will focus on here. For instance, at the beginning of the lesson I was going to start talking about plant defences and instead I got them to do a worksheet on it first. Why not get them to analyse text and make sense of concepts first? We ended up going through the questions and their responses were accurate. It also allowed me to further expand on ideas and give my own spin on the topic (which is only a very small section of course). Now that I think about the lesson, I made a concerted effort to get more student input into ideas before I covered them, such as the next two concepts of antigenic mimicry and antigenic variation. As it turned out, I was able to get more of the students involved in answering questions. This was a really good aspect of the lesson, highlighted by a few of the students that rarely contribute putting forward ideas. Hmmm....no real exciting activities for this lesson yet I think it went well. Those that had made sense of reading course notes prior to the lesson had their ideas confirmed and the rest felt like these were manageable concepts (and they are really, just extensions of what we have already covered). The last comment I will make is about the spur-of-the-moment activity I got them to do. In pairs they had 10 min to create 5 questions that they felt represented the most important parts of the the immune response section. Even though the activity has value, they would not have known that one reason for me setting it was to give myself a little thinking time about what to do next. Why did I choose this activity and not another? I think it popped into my mind quickly and I knew that no preparation on my behalf was needed. I really think it is only through being a PEEL-type teacher and the continual reflection of my teaching that allows me the flexibility and confidence to take these sorts of risks. The activity worked well and having now looked at their questions they have done an excellent job (and in only 10min!). And the bonus is that they now have a valuable set of questions to try and answer which I have typed up and posted on this wiki.

The aim of today's lesson was to pretty much try and finish the course. As a result there was no time for any activties, other than me lecture and plenty of questions and discussion. The animations really were useful today. It was clear from those that got involved in the discussion that they were grasping the concepts. But far too many of them were quiet and I could see on their faces that there were doubts. But what can i do, if they don't ask the question that the need to. I hope they come and see me after they go over the theory from today for homework. I also felt that some of them were struggling with the fact that there was still more stuff that they had to try and learn and only a few weeks to the exam. Oh well, next week is all about the last SAC but the good thing is that it will help them be more confident with this last section of the course (and all that terminology).
 * Lesson 40 (Friday 15th May 2009) **