Monthly Archives: October 2012
Quick Tips for Socrative Space Race
Try out Socrative!
Update Feb 2014: Added cards for beta.socrative.com space races.
I really like the Socrative Space Races and quizzes as a formative or pre-assessment tool. When set up and managed well, they lead to competition with a spirit of collaboration. It is the most user-friendly free clicker-type system I have tried so far.
These labels might help organise the races in your class and to avoid issues with confusion over who is controlling the rocket (sometimes there are clashes). You could hand out the cards to groups of students, make stands for tables with the rockets on, use them as stickers for a shared iPad or have multiple sets printed and laminated to be handed out as a ‘flexible grouping‘ tool.
If you can’t access the GoogleSlides presentation above, here are the cards as images:
……….o0O0o……….
Update Feb 2014: Added cards for beta.socrative.com space races.
Forces & Motion
As our G10 class get working on the Forces and Change in Motion unit, I thought it was time to update the resources to take advantage of the Stratos jump and try out GoogleDocs* and presentations embedded into WordPress.
This task was designed based on student feedback from the last unit test. Some students wanted more (!) test-like situations and practice with the criterion, so I put this together. Prior to this lesson we had some short discussion on prior knowledge on forces (based on sports day situations) and free body diagrams. The rest they were learning as they went along. It was more engaging than I expected – lots of reaching for whiteboards, cooperative arguments and research.
The presentation for the unit is first, with the stimulus video next and the task below.
Note: interestingly the GPresentation embedded fine, but the embedded GDoc lost its formatting.
Hank blossoms with Plant Science
Crash Course & SciShow Hanks’s last couple of videos have been on Plant Science: transport and reproduction. Head on over to the main Plant Science AHL page for the topic for the presentations and resources.
Red Bull Stratos – Jumping from the Edge of Space
Felix Baumgartner is ready to jump! Follow the live feed below, or on the Red Bull Stratos website. His aim is to jump from the edge of space, breaking the sound barrier in freefall. Whoo!
Here’s a CGI simulation of what’s expected:
Three World-Changing Biology Experiments
A quick overview of three experiments that helped advance Biology:
- Pasteur’s swan-neck flask, disproving spontaneous generation
- Hershey-Chase blender experiment
- Miller-Urey experiment
Unit Planner Sample: The Nature of Biology
I’ve been trying to do a bit of Autumn cleaning on the site, as well as working on planners and curriculum jobs as MYPCo here at school. As a result, I’ve done a lot of reading of new IB documents (Concept-based learning, Approaches to Teaching and Learning etc) and review of older or more fundamental ones (Principles to Practice and so on).
Anyway, taking all this into consideration, I figured the unit planner was due an update and wanted to make one more useful for Biology. Here is an example:
For more (and a blank template), head over to the Unit Planning page. This is not an official IB product, so please treat it with due diligence.
i-Biology 