This experiment is for advanced students.
One of my best teaching tools for science developed from a brain freeze one afternoon in class. I went to the board to draw the chlorophyll wheel and drew a complete blank.
“Let’s say I forgot how to draw the wheel.” I turned to the class, marker in hand, and scanned the room. Puzzled faces, the blank faces I expected, but, what was that? A few smiles scattered about the room.
As I pulled out and some volunteered info, we got into that wheel. They also found that it was easier to know what to do next than to have me tell them to find it in their book and be prepared…I was coming back to them. Students frantically finding the wheel in their biology books so they were armed when I came to them.
It was a great experience, and my lectures were a lot more fun and interactive from then on.
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Next, I started designing labs that way. Pre-reading was suggested, but they never read for homework…everybody knows that. But they soon found out why they should start reading ahead.
They came in for their lab.
There were a lot of lab supplies out on the counter. I had put all the supplies they would need on the counter. In addition, I put an equal number of supplies out that had nothing to do with the experiment. A problem was written at the top of the board such as, “We need to extract chlorophyll from the leaves on the counter.” And that was it. No lab book, they were on their own.
I gave a short lecture to bait their brains into remembering something and turned them loose. It took a couple of weeks, but I gained so much with them. Many more were reading at home to prepare for the lab, because they didn’t want to sit around trying to figure things out from scratch. They already had an idea on how to do the lab when they came on lab day. If they did not finish in the class time allotted, it was too bad. They could make up the lab later, but most just took the bad grade.
Many more students were motivated beyond my wildest expectations. Many students that were working hard to stay on the bottom started to feel a little peer pressure to help out. Students enjoyed the discovery…..they enjoyed the labs. No more cookie cutter labs for us.
Perhaps some labs in your curriculum could be designed to work this way as a way to provide more advanced learning in the sciences?
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