Mitosis and Meiosis Lesson Plan Evaluation Rubric

Below is a link to a Evaluation Rubric for a presentation in the Mitosis and Meiosis Lesson Plan that was written in ED 605.  Students were split into groups of three or four and asked to make a presentation on either Mitosis or Meiosis using Prezi, PowerPoint, Glogster, etc.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/14YbdHGx4m9yyC4ZwIikzpNmkWi0Yv7ydBHh1oWb_Gtc/edit?usp=sharing

Standardized Testing Reflection

I have been taking standardized tests my whole life.  I started by taking MSAs (Maryland State Assessments) and HSAs (Maryland High School assessments).  The MSAs were given every year from third to eighth grade to measure reading and math achievement.  The HSAs were given for Algebra I (which I took in 7^th grade), Biology (9^th grade), American Government (9^th grade), and English (10^th grade).  It is mandatory to pass the HSAs in order to graduate from high school in Maryland.  These standardized tests measure the progress of both the school and the student.  (MSDE, 2003).  I took the SATs during my junior year of high school, as well as many AP (Advanced Placement) exams my junior and senior year.  I took the two separate English APs, AP Statistics, AP Calculus AB, AP U.S. History, AP Calculus BC, Physics C: Mechanics, and Physics C: Electricity and Magnetism.  Recently, I have taken the PRAXIS II in Mathematics.

Having taken so many standardized tests, I have often wondered how effective they were in evaluating my learning.  Despite the intentions of the test makers, I do not believe that many, if any, of these exams successfully demonstrated my “evidence of learning.”  Popham (2014) discusses evidence of student learning as “evidence in the form of student performance on classroom tests.”  Most of the tests that I took focused on more on how well I could memorize and recall information and not on my understanding of the topic.  I think that the SATs and the HSAs were rather ineffective in measuring my understanding.  The AP exams had a lot of writing and places to explain my reasoning, and therefore I feel as though they were more effective in correctly measuring my performance.

I think that standardized testing was made to measure student progress on a “fair” playing field.  It ended up being shaped into what it is today because it is currently being used to assess schools.  (D’Agostino, Welsh, & Corson, 2007)  Currently, a teacher’s competence is being determined by how well their students perform on standardized tests.  (Popham, 2014)  School funding is often heavily influenced on the school’s overall performance on standardized testing.  It isn’t necessarily a way to evaluate students and show evidence of student learning, it is a way to evaluate the teachers and the schools.  When I was younger and taking standardized tests, I often wondered if my scores would truly affect me or just the school five years down the road.  I think that the Common Core Standards are trying to bring the focus of teaching and standardized testing back to how the students are performing and emphasizing student learning and not on the teachers.  By holding students to the same standards, students will learn more effectively and be more prepared for their lives.  Common Core has changed some of the standards in hopes to do that.  While it is only implemented in Mathematics and English, I am speculating that Common Core will be introduced to the sciences shortly.

References:

D‘Agostino, J. V., Welsh, M. E., & Corson, N. M. (2007). Instructional sensitivity of a state’s standards-based assessment. Educational Assessment, 12(1), 1-22.

Maryland State Department of Education (2003). Testing Content and Data.  Retrieved from  http://www.marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/testing/testing_overview.htm?WBCMODE=PresentationUnpublished%252%25%25%25%3E%25

Popham, W. James. (2014). Classroom assessment: what teachers need to know. Pearson Education, Inc.

Grouping Students

Grouping students is a difficult task in the classroom.  There are many methods for doing so and some are more effective than others.  There are teachers that allow students to pick their own groups.  This is almost always an ineffective method, as students will generally choose their friends and be very distracted.  The two main grouping strategies are heterogeneous and homogeneous groups.  Both groupings can be effective in different situations.

Homogeneous groups are pairings of similar students.  This can be helpful when students are beginning to apply their learning to projects.  At this point, I would place students who were struggling together so that I could focus some extra attention on them.  Higher ability students will be able to accomplish more of their own tasks on their own without my help.

Heterogeneous groups would be beneficial during brainstorming activities.  With different background knowledge and experiences, a heterogeneous group would be able to bring a variety of perspectives to the task.  If students all had the same background, new ideas would not be introduced to the group.

Another benefit of heterogeneous groups is that peer learning is introduced.  By pairing a struggling student with a student who excels, it could go one of two ways.  First, the struggling student could learn from the other student.  This can help the teacher who may not have time to assist all of the struggling students in the class.  The other option is that the struggling student does not do any work and it all falls on the high ability student.  It is not “fair” for the high ability student to get a lower grade because of another student.  Having peer evaluations would discourage students from slacking off.  Pairing heterogeneous groups together could also develop reading and writing skills.  By doing paired reading, students will be able to practice their literacy skills.

For my ED 605 unit, I would vary the grouping of the students.  This would eliminate possible conflicts that would arise if a group member did not put forth the effort that the rest of the group did.

Framing our Reading Part 4: Vocabulary and Concept Development

Concept	Text Link	Rationale for Choosing	Text Frame (s)	Strategies Used (and Resource)
Biodiversity	Studying how climate affects biodiversity	This article discusses the changes in biodiversity due to climate.	Concept/Definition	Power Notes (Buehl)
Bacteria	How a bacteria cell recognizes its own DNA	This article describes a bacteria cell's replication and how it identifies its DNA from an enemy cell. This article draws on past knowledge and relates bacteria cells to Biology and the real world.	Goal/Action/Outcome Making Connections	K-W-L (McLaughlin and Buehl)
Atoms	How many gold atoms make gold metal?	This article combines math, biology, chemistry, and engineering to show how new discoveries can revolutionize technology.  This article explores nanometer-sized pieces of gold and their electronic changes.  This can help make new discoveries in bioimaging and sensing.	Concept/definition  Compare/contrast	Connection Stems (McLaughlin)

For this week in Framing our Reading, my partner Samantha and I were to revisit the previous three weeks’ articles and choose a key term from each of the articles.  We chose Biodiversity from the most recent article, Bacteria from Week 2, and Atom from the first week.  Now that we chose the terms, we each decided on a graphic organizer to teach these terms.

The graphic organizer that I chose was the semantic map (McLaughlin, 2015).  McLaughlin suggest using Semantic Maps to “activate prior knowledge, introduce content-specific vocabulary, and organize information about a topic.”  Semantic Maps are simple to both use and teach.  The steps for completing a map is as follows:

1)    Pick a word you don’t know from the text.

2)    Write this word in the middle of a piece of paper and draw an ellipse around it.

3)    Make a list of words and phrases related to the target word.

4)    Group items from the list into categories.  Connect this category to the target word and list the items from the list under the category.

An example of biodiversity for two of the terms is shown in the picture above.  I like that there is a lot of brainstorming involved in this type of graphic organizer.  I also like that it encourages students to think outside of the box and make connections to previous knowledge.  I am not a pro at using this graphic organizer, as I would much rather make a list like I did with the Power notes from week 3.  I sometimes found it difficult to come up with an appropriate category and would have preferred if the categories were given to me.  I don’t believe this graphic organizer works with all types of vocab, but I believe that it is an extremely useful tool for visual learners.  I also like that there is not much necessary planning involved and a teacher can quickly tell students to make a Semantic Map for a vocabulary word that might come up in the middle of a lesson.

To see these words being used with a different graphic organizer, check out my partner Samantha’s blog post.

Work Cited

Buehl, D., (2014) Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, 4^th ed. International Reading Association.

Weizmann Institute of Science. (2015, April 13). How a bacterial cell recognizes its own DNA.ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 18, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150413130825.htm

Uppsala Universitet. (2015, April 16). Studying how climate affects biodiversity. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 20, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150416132038.htm

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Comprehending Content Area Text. In Content area reading: Teaching and learning for college and career readiness (2nd ed., pp. 57-62). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Suomen Akatemia (Academy of Finland). (2015, April 10). How many gold atoms make gold metal?. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 11, 2015 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150410083516.htm