We were in Boulder, Colorado over the holidays staying with our son, his wife and our little granddaughter. They have a pastel calico cat named Tuolumne – you know - a cat that used to be the “child” before a human one came along. They keep their cat indoors, protected from the bears and cougars which have been seen in Boulder. But the cat is determined to get out so they will let her into the back yard when they are working there. My son was outside with Tuolumne one afternoon when I went into the living room to tell my daughter-in-law something. At that moment I spied through the window an absolutely exquisite red fox running from the side of the house into the back yard. I interrupted myself and ran to the window to watch this beautiful animal. But my daughter-in-law, shouted “Tuolumne is out,” and ran outside to save her cat. As I watched the fox head to the rear of the play house, I worried that the cat was behind the playhouse and would soon be a fox dinner. But just at this moment, I saw Tuolumne race from the side of the house, chasing that fox out of her yard as fast as she could! It was quite an unexpected sight – a 10 pound house cat chasing a large, beautiful, red fox.
I tucked this story away in my mind to tell my students in North Carolina. I collect stories. I love to watch my students settle back with interest when I start telling some tale about nature that I have experienced or read. And I get a particular chuckle when they think they have tricked me into deviating from a lesson and telling a story. What my students don’t know is that my deviations are very calculated – almost always!
Stories can help excite students over a lesson. Just recently, I was launching a two-week project on Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Now, this is NOT a topic that typically causes great excitement in a 14 or 15 year old. I could just imagine the yawns and groans. But I started with a couple of stories. In 1998, it was reported that 7 children were born without eyes in Ontario, Canada. The parents suspect fungicides, although this has not been scientifically validated. Ironically, in 1980, I met a woman who had a little son born without eyes. She was a chemist and in her research to get answers, she began to suspect an aphid spray that she had used during the critical point in embryological development. And in 2002 in New Zealand, a farmer used a tractor to block a gate so that a regional council could not get in to spray a fungicide in a nearby drain. The farmer blamed the fungicide for his calves who were born without eyes. My students were fascinated by the idea that chemicals could possibly cause such defects in development. We talked about other possibilities such as genetic mutations and we discussed the type of research that would be needed to try and discover what might have caused the cases of anophthalmia in Canada.
And then I told the story of Agent Orange, the herbicide used during the Vietnam War. I knew someone who died from cancer who had served in Vietnam and had been heavily exposed to Agent Orange. At that time, the government was denying any connection. However, just recently, military researchers have conceded that exposure to Agent Orange has increased the risk of prostate and skin cancer. This story led to a lively discussion of everything from the purpose of Agent Orange, to the reasons for government denial, to the slow process of research and the need to carefully and scientifically investigate hypotheses.
By the time I had introduced their research project related to IPM, they were bubbling with interest. They are prepared to call various institutions to find out what pesticides the institutions use. They will research various pesticides and the pests, themselves. They will present their findings to their classmates and write letters to the institutions that they investigate. Once again, the power of stories was confirmed! My students are eager to proceed.
………..I don’t know when I will use the fox story. Maybe I will use it when we discuss animal behavior – always a popular unit. Maybe I will save it for a day when there are a few minutes left at the end of class. I know many of my students will have their own stories to tell – and I will save some of those stories for next year’s students. Maybe this is one of the secrets of teaching – knowing the right stories to tell!
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Monday, January 03, 2005
Finding Answers to Questions
Last spring, I made a life-changing decision—I decided to become a fly fisherman. I have been fly fishing off and on for about five years but I had been fighting making a commitment to this new avocation. I was afraid of the time and resources that I’d have to commit in order to fulfill this passion. I’m not sure of the exact moment but I’m sure that it was in the spring along an Ozark trout stream. While I’m born and bred a prairie biologist, I do revel in the beauty of spring in the Ozarks.
There is real substance to the mystique of fly fishing—skills and knowledge that can take a lifetime to master but the rewards, while subtle, are great. For a biologist, I can think of few avocations with as much reward. As Norm Maclean explains in A River Runs Through It, “It’s not fly fishing if you are not trying to find answers to questions.” So, this essay is not really about fly fishing—it is about trying to find answers to questions…...
In the hands of an expert, the fly rod is a thing of beauty and nothing looks so easy as casting flies with a fly rod. Of course, the key here is “in the hands of an expert.” For most novices, mastering the fly rod is the first of the skills needed for fly fishing and it is anything but easy. I’m not aware of any physical activity that looks so easy but turns out so hard to master. Fly casting is extremely sensitive to little nuanced differences in timing and balance. Of course, I was sure that I could teach myself how to cast a fly rod by just reading about it and I was correct up to a point. I was able to acquire enough skill with the rod to catch a few fish and get my fly into the water but in four years of trying I never felt that I had acquired the casting skill that I thought I should have. I would cast great for a short time and then inexplicably would be unable to put my fly anywhere near it’s intended target. I seldom felt smooth and in harmony with the rod; I was always fighting it. Moreover, after fishing for an hour or two, instead of my casting improving, I usually found that my casting deteriorated to the point that I would have to quit. I don’t think I have ever had a passion that wasn’t “easy.” I struggled.
Finally, I swallowed my pride and attended a free fly casting clinic, last spring. There, I received a little impartial observation and advice. Later, that week, while fishing at our neighborhood pond, I found myself falling back into my old habits. But this time it was different. This time, I was able to successfully evaluate my technique, reflect and correct it. Later, I told my wife that despite not catching any fish, I had had one my best days of fly fishing, ever.
I was not anywhere close to becoming an expert fly caster but I knew what it would take to become one. I knew I was on to something—the feeling of mastering my frustrations was truly liberating. I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time—not since I was a child. As my wife says, “As adults we employ many different strategies when learning new material—forgetting what it was like when we struggled earlier in life.” It was empowering—and it was an epiphany.
Suddenly I had a greater empathy to how my students must feel when they are trying to learn biology. It’s not that they are not trying—my students just haven’t quite gotten to the point that they can evaluate and analyze their own learning strategies so that they can be efficient learners. I spent 4 years flailing away at the water with little improvement—I wasn’t correctly evaluating my technique. Likewise, my students often frustratingly apply the same study habits and skills they acquired earlier in their careers—not understanding why these same strategies are not working now. Earlier in their learning careers most of their learning could best be characterized as recall and memorization. These strategies simply do not work well if you are trying to understand biology at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Application, evaluation and synthesis require completely different strategies. Meaningful learning involves higher level learning.
To meet my students’ needs, I kept trying to find analogies, interesting discrepant events, engaging projects such as the Monarch Watch and any number of other strategies to make biology interesting and accessible for all students. These were, by any measure, successful strategies but something fundamental was still missing. My fly fishing epiphany confirmed what I have been suspecting for the last half dozen years—students need help to develop effective learning strategies for themselves. One of our first goals in curriculum design should be to prioritize embedded formative assessment so that students can develop and evaluate their own learning strategies. For now I will point out that for our students a critical component of this assessment is that it should be non-threatening. That means it should be anonymous and non-graded. Most formative assessment is targeted to informing curriculum delivery but I think the most fruitful use provides empirical data to help students inquire into their own higher level learning.
For me, and I suspect most biology teachers, biology as a subject has always been inviting and easy to learn. I am passionate about biology. This passion drives my teaching—my desire is to share this wonder for my students. But this passion can be blinding. My students respond to my passion for biology and I always assumed that they would eventually discover their own individual strategies for learning—just like I assumed that I could learn to fly cast on my own. What I learned on the pond is that my students have just been flailing at the water, hoping for an occasional good cast and like me they need some guidance to find more effective strategies to evaluate their own learning. Teaching, like flyfishing, is not teaching unless you are trying to find answers to questions…
BW
There is real substance to the mystique of fly fishing—skills and knowledge that can take a lifetime to master but the rewards, while subtle, are great. For a biologist, I can think of few avocations with as much reward. As Norm Maclean explains in A River Runs Through It, “It’s not fly fishing if you are not trying to find answers to questions.” So, this essay is not really about fly fishing—it is about trying to find answers to questions…...
In the hands of an expert, the fly rod is a thing of beauty and nothing looks so easy as casting flies with a fly rod. Of course, the key here is “in the hands of an expert.” For most novices, mastering the fly rod is the first of the skills needed for fly fishing and it is anything but easy. I’m not aware of any physical activity that looks so easy but turns out so hard to master. Fly casting is extremely sensitive to little nuanced differences in timing and balance. Of course, I was sure that I could teach myself how to cast a fly rod by just reading about it and I was correct up to a point. I was able to acquire enough skill with the rod to catch a few fish and get my fly into the water but in four years of trying I never felt that I had acquired the casting skill that I thought I should have. I would cast great for a short time and then inexplicably would be unable to put my fly anywhere near it’s intended target. I seldom felt smooth and in harmony with the rod; I was always fighting it. Moreover, after fishing for an hour or two, instead of my casting improving, I usually found that my casting deteriorated to the point that I would have to quit. I don’t think I have ever had a passion that wasn’t “easy.” I struggled.
Finally, I swallowed my pride and attended a free fly casting clinic, last spring. There, I received a little impartial observation and advice. Later, that week, while fishing at our neighborhood pond, I found myself falling back into my old habits. But this time it was different. This time, I was able to successfully evaluate my technique, reflect and correct it. Later, I told my wife that despite not catching any fish, I had had one my best days of fly fishing, ever.
I was not anywhere close to becoming an expert fly caster but I knew what it would take to become one. I knew I was on to something—the feeling of mastering my frustrations was truly liberating. I hadn’t had that feeling in a long time—not since I was a child. As my wife says, “As adults we employ many different strategies when learning new material—forgetting what it was like when we struggled earlier in life.” It was empowering—and it was an epiphany.
Suddenly I had a greater empathy to how my students must feel when they are trying to learn biology. It’s not that they are not trying—my students just haven’t quite gotten to the point that they can evaluate and analyze their own learning strategies so that they can be efficient learners. I spent 4 years flailing away at the water with little improvement—I wasn’t correctly evaluating my technique. Likewise, my students often frustratingly apply the same study habits and skills they acquired earlier in their careers—not understanding why these same strategies are not working now. Earlier in their learning careers most of their learning could best be characterized as recall and memorization. These strategies simply do not work well if you are trying to understand biology at the higher levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. Application, evaluation and synthesis require completely different strategies. Meaningful learning involves higher level learning.
To meet my students’ needs, I kept trying to find analogies, interesting discrepant events, engaging projects such as the Monarch Watch and any number of other strategies to make biology interesting and accessible for all students. These were, by any measure, successful strategies but something fundamental was still missing. My fly fishing epiphany confirmed what I have been suspecting for the last half dozen years—students need help to develop effective learning strategies for themselves. One of our first goals in curriculum design should be to prioritize embedded formative assessment so that students can develop and evaluate their own learning strategies. For now I will point out that for our students a critical component of this assessment is that it should be non-threatening. That means it should be anonymous and non-graded. Most formative assessment is targeted to informing curriculum delivery but I think the most fruitful use provides empirical data to help students inquire into their own higher level learning.
For me, and I suspect most biology teachers, biology as a subject has always been inviting and easy to learn. I am passionate about biology. This passion drives my teaching—my desire is to share this wonder for my students. But this passion can be blinding. My students respond to my passion for biology and I always assumed that they would eventually discover their own individual strategies for learning—just like I assumed that I could learn to fly cast on my own. What I learned on the pond is that my students have just been flailing at the water, hoping for an occasional good cast and like me they need some guidance to find more effective strategies to evaluate their own learning. Teaching, like flyfishing, is not teaching unless you are trying to find answers to questions…
BW
Introduction
Welcome to the "Teaching Biology" blog. While it is difficult to predict how this blog will evolve, at this beginning, the vision is to provide a repository of shared experiences and reflections for the biology teaching community. Biology teachers face more controversey than probably any other field of secondary education. Biology teachers face the additional challenge that no other content area (except current events) changes so rapidly in fundamental ways. This "Age of Biology" makes biology teaching truly exciting but the current political and educational climates make effective teaching a real challenge.
I have been teaching biology for more than 25 years and I've been very fortunate in my career in that I've been a part of a number of innovative curriculum projects (i.e. The Monarch Watch, Wisconsin FastPlants, The GENE project, the GLOBE project, the Global Lab project, and several others.) Working to improve biology education for not just my own students but for other teachers and their students as well is very rewarding.
I'm starting this blog to share some of the insights that come from a life-long passion of teaching biology and to respond to the ever changing landscape of biology and biology education. Knowing full well, that my time is limited (as well as my experiences), I've invited friends (who also happen to be vetern biology teachers) from around the country (or world) and from diverse schools to contribute on this blog. Hopefully, this blog will take on a life of its own and become a valued resource for the next generation of biology teachers.
Brad Williamson
I have been teaching biology for more than 25 years and I've been very fortunate in my career in that I've been a part of a number of innovative curriculum projects (i.e. The Monarch Watch, Wisconsin FastPlants, The GENE project, the GLOBE project, the Global Lab project, and several others.) Working to improve biology education for not just my own students but for other teachers and their students as well is very rewarding.
I'm starting this blog to share some of the insights that come from a life-long passion of teaching biology and to respond to the ever changing landscape of biology and biology education. Knowing full well, that my time is limited (as well as my experiences), I've invited friends (who also happen to be vetern biology teachers) from around the country (or world) and from diverse schools to contribute on this blog. Hopefully, this blog will take on a life of its own and become a valued resource for the next generation of biology teachers.
Brad Williamson
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