Your Thoughts on Teaching Style

[Jason Maas-Baldwin]

Hello all. I am a first year AP Bio teacher. In fact, this is my first year teaching biology period. I have been confounded by the debate on whether to lecture from PowerPOint, write notes on the board, or have students learn the material themselves through the book and online tutorials (Hippocampus) and just quiz them on the material in class. There are great PowerPoints out there but I see the students disconnect from the material when it is presented in such a robust format. Writing from notes on the board seems to be the best way to assure the students get all the bullet points but this takes enormous amounts of time and you lose capacity to use visuals. I've leaned a lot towards to the self-learning model this year but I sometimes feel disconnected from my students by doing so. I've ended up using a combination of all 3 methods depdening on the material and time constraints. Any thoughts?

In case you missed it on the AP listserve, there is a great blog on using PowerPoints at http://blog.carolynworks.com/?p=154 Check it out. Feeling challenged...

[malcolm chrystal]

you ar e not alone! i tend to stick to lecture/notes style. I find that my students disconnect easily way too often and I need them to be "doing" something when i present new material. Somewhere along the line they decided that bio was the easier science and they don't appreciate the amount of work they need to do to get the A they think they deserve!!

[Michael Doyle]

I'm still wrestling with this--I literally take down my SMART Board to make more board space, then use the projector to flip up some images.

I'm not even sure the professional images are any more useful than my scribbly diagrams.

This is my 4th year teaching, 1st year teaching AP Biology--I was surprised at how passive many of my students are. I'd like to provide a rigorous course for the few that are truly interested, but run into resistance from the students who took the course because they "had to take a science."

[David Knuffke]

Hey Hey,

I weighed in on the list-serve, but I'll do it again here. My preference is to create notes as a class on the board during instruction and to use the slideware to project images with captions, movies and audio. That's about it. I have a real aversion to more than about 10 words on a Powerpoint slide.

[Debra Garcia]

I know that given my time constraints, I can't teach them everything they need to know by May. I finally had that realization last year and it helped me change my approach. As with intro bio, my main goal for my students is that they become more scientifically literate in the area of biology, except at a more advanced level for AP. My teaching of AP is still "evolving". I definitely do things differently than what I did when I first started in which I mostly went the lecture route because I was so worried about covering everything that I couldn't see any other way. Now I use more of a variety of methods to help students accomplish learning outcomes- lecture, readings, writing, discussion, labs, modeling, self-study. Several of my students told me that they liked the mixed bag approach- that they are getting the information in multiple ways but that I also require them to take an active role in achieving understanding.

Anytime I do ppts, it's only for 10-15 minutes max and usually involves discussing diagrams or some other images. I actually have my students time me and they enjoy that (one mentioned it on my evaluation). I do use more images, animations, and movies than I had in the past as well. And like David, I try to avoid too many words per slide.

[Paula Courtemanche]

I do a combo of a few things. I do use powerpoints, some from the Campbell book that I modify - some I make myself. I also have a Moodle site for the kids to do interactive class/homework assignments. It's great to link an assignment to a virtual or interactive lab and have them respond. They also post to class discussion forums and can reply to each other. I can set up quizzes but haven't yet.

Another tool I use is from the University of Texas at Ausin (QUEST). This was a free (soon to be a small fee) site set up by college profs who wanted their students to do assignments on line, which is corrected, and to keep track of class progress (kind of like the Moodle site). But, they use multiple choice questions from most of the text books. I can set up an assignment and choose the questions I want from their bank, with a due date and time. They see it in an Adobe format which they can print if they like. Then they post their answers and see immediately if they get it right. They can try again but with a point deduction for every try. I get a summary of each students' grades. It's great multiple choice practice. They seem to like it, and they can do their homework on their phone :)

[malcolm chrystal]

ooh! i am liking this. just set up my uta id!!
need time t explore!
thanks paula.

[Jen]

Jason,
First - feel your pain. Starting out teaching is hard enough, but AP is an entirely different monster!
I wouldn't suggest doing this everyday, but incorporating something I call "whiteboarding" is a good use of time to have the kids applying concepts, rather than being passive. There are times that I won't even go over the information before they whiteboard, and they must work together to solve a problem given what they already know. It's using old information in a new way - but it helps kids make those critical connections to remember and retain more information. Plus, it's less work for me :) and it gets the kids active in class. Here's a link to a teacher tube video I made of my ninth graders last year:
http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=108160&title=Stud...
You'll have to sit through a 30 second ad first (sorry) - I was a little lax on my normal procedures on this, and since we were filming, they didn't really like it too much, but it gives the idea of what we do. They draw a problem from me on a slip, solve it, present the information, and must answer audience questions. Those students in the audience who ASK an on-topic question or perhaps catch an error on the board are awarded one bonus point on the next test/lab. The group presenting gets NO points for answering - that's their job. If anyone answers one of MY questions (including presenting group) they get a point - ONLY one of mine. It helps encourage class discussion, keeps them focused, and they also don't want to look "dumb" so they will rely on each other and learn to work collaboratively. Often, I will "let" them be wrong on their boards and learn from their mistake (many times they catch it AS they are presenting) - when they determine their own error, they remember NOT to do it again.
It takes some trust - both towards you and towards the students from you - and a classroom environment that encourages collaboration/group work as well as being a "safe" place to make mistakes - respectful. I'm going to upload a file of some whiteboard problems that I have used in the past, and I do make these myself but it's worth the time.
The Evolution Selection boards are for directional/disruptive/stabilizing selection scenarios.
The intro DNA replication boards I used BEFORE we got into any information re: leading/lagging strand synthesis or replication forks with replication.
The repressor file deals with inducible/repressible operons.
***The redox boards are self-explanatory (I do these before we get into ps/respiration) and I have used a scaled-down version of these with my honors. I also use "molecule X" where "X" can represent a "generic" molecule (much like algebra) so we don't bog down too much in details.
***The entropy boards I use before we get to enzymes/energy.
**I'll post the others in the Lesson Plans forum***