ClickBiology

A Level Biology: Interesting article on scientific studies

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This article from Science, debating current research revealing links between Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and viruses, does a good job of highlighting how the scientific community self-regulates. It discusses research protocols such as sample selection and demographics, faults such as contamination and bias linked to commercial interests. I think it makes a good up to date discussion of how scientific studies are carried out and the need to produce clear and detailed articles. It is an easy read too and I highly recommend it:

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Attacked Again

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IGCSE Biology: Plant reproduction resources

Hi again.

I tried a little experiment and designed a module that students worked through an interactive PowerPoint presentation and filled in a booklet of worksheets. The presentation was made available via the VLE initially and set up as a PowerPoint Show and set in kiosk mode so that they could only work through it in sequence.

The students were all quite excited by this approach and were keen to get started. Unfortunately our internet connection at school had problems and was quite slow, and as the presentation is quite a big one, it took ages to download. In the end they just saved the actual PowerPoint presentation to their memory sticks and launched it from there. The module took at least a week of lessons and some homework. I also ran through a simpler “teacher version” in review lessons as well.

I am not totally sure how well this module went. There were a few technical difficulties which took the shine off it a little. For example the hyperlinks worked fine on my computer but mysteriously chose not to work on other computers. Equally not all computers prompted to activate the macros automatically so I had to give instructions how to do this (see below for the instruction I placed on the VLE for the students). For some reason the brighter kids seemed more disparaging than those less academically able (and I though it would be the other way round). One student, who is lovely and has ADHD (but has it under control) really liked the module and he seemed much happier learning this way at his own speed and being able to review things at will.

I am still not entirely sure of the efficacy of this mode of delivery (and I had to resist the temptation to then teach it again more formally) and of course I did intermingle the lessons with short practical activities eg. dissecting a bean seed (’cos we know how to really rock it in Biology!!). One little error is that I forgot to add the nectary to the flower diagrams (I will get round to redoing it eventually) but the kids loved spotting the mistake so that wasn’t a total disaster.

The PowerPoint presentation for students has information slides, multiple choice questions (which have macros to show the answers and are formative), some audio links for additional explanation and links to short video clips. The clips do need to checking before each session as they can disappear from time to time.There is also a “Homepage” that hyperlinks to sections throughout the presentation and the clickbiology icon links on each page links back to this homepage.

I have added the student self-study presentation and the worksheet below. The teachers presentation is also added. If you try it out, let me know what you think.

Here are the instruction I gave to the students:

Plant reproduction

Click on the PowerPoint show. It should ask you to enable macros, if so click yes. If it does not prompt you to enable macros then download the PowerPoint presentation, once it is loaded click on Tools then Macro, next click on Security. Click on the medium setting, the presentation, close it down, re-open it and it should then prompt you to enable Macros. If this does not work then repeat the steps but click on the save low security setting.

NOTE: These are over 7mb so will take some time, it may speed things up in future if you save the presentation to a memory stick rather than downloading each time

Work through each section of the presentation. Ensure that you read each slide carefully, watch any video or listen to audio explanations and do the written activities in your booklets.

Links to the presentation resources are here:

student self-study presentation:

plant-reproduction

Worksheets:

plant_reproduction

teacher presentation:

plant-reproduction-teacher

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GCSE Science podcasts for revision and general listening

My daughter got an iPod Touch for Christmas and I have to say I now want one my self. All of her friends have also received ipods and this has made me think about doing some podcasting for downloading onto ipods, as well as the videos I am developing. I am not alone in considering podcasts for my students as this is also a topic in the TES Science forums. I have come across some excellent audio files via the trusty GCSE Bitesize website and, although they do not match exactly with IGCSE, are an excellent resource. Biology, Chemistry and Physics collections are available and they are well presented. They are run by a group lnown as The Naked Scientists and there are further excellent podcasts available from their own website and may be useful for A level students also. Both links are available below (and are also available on my Links page).

Revision GCSE podcasts from the BBC and Naked Scientists

The Naked Scientists Podcasts

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Great site to get interactive PowerPoint templates

I came across an excellent open source video by Kevin Culpepper which teaches you how to make an interactive matching game in PowerPoint. If you have read my previous post, 13 top tips for teachers, about the use of PowerPoint and how one should limit the use of information slides to, at the very most, 5 in a row and to always incorporate interactive slides then you will see why I am keen on this site. Kevin has provided many templates for games that you can modify and use within your resources and also has videos to show you how to make them yourselves. I intend to have a go at few myself so keep an eye out for some customised matching games etc. Certainly worth having a look so click on the link below:

Culpepper Online

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Fantastic new A Level revision guides and also IGCSE workbook now available

Every so often I have a wander through Amazon to see what is available. I am amazed at the explosion of textbooks available, particularly for IGCSE. For example I havejust discovered that there is a workbook to match Mary Jones new, and extremely good, textbook. I certainly will be ordering it.
There are more A Level text books also being produced for the new specification, especially two sets of revision guides both of which I recommend. I have created an E-Store that has all the relevant textbooks for Cambridge IGCSE and also Edexcel A Level. I will add other categories for other exam boards soon.
In the meantime please have a browse through my E-Store. If you fancy buying book or two that would be great. The order will go through Amazon and will not affect your purchase price if you go through me. However I do receive a small amount of money for each book purchase through my E-Store (all going towards my daughters college fund). If you can get your school to do bulk orders through me that would be absolutely wonderful!

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