Category Archives: IBDP Biology
Conceptual Learning in IB Biology
If you’re an IB Biology teacher here’s a challenge (or perhaps not):
- List and describe the four basic biological concepts that run through the discipline of Biology.
Got it? Here they are (highlight to see):
- Structure & Function
- Universality versus Diversity
- Equilibrium within Systems
- Evolution
They are on page 40 on the subject guide.
Teachers in MYP schools will be well aware of the concept-based nature of the Next Chapter as it arrives, but in reality it may already be here in our classes. How many times do we ask students how the knowledge we have gathered in a lesson or sequence connects to other knowledge, looking for commonalities and themes? This, in a simple way, is teaching for conceptual understanding*. We want students to be able to recognise concepts in new content – the universal nature of the genetic code and the diversity it facilitates; adaptations to maintain homeostasis (equilibrium) within living systems, the relationships we see between structure and function in all living systems and the process of evolution by natural selection that underpins them all.
I want to make it a personal goal this year to be more explicit in the learning of the big ideas of Biology: the concepts. We’ll start this week with a group task for students to try to connect these concepts to their latent understandings of Biology and we’ll build from there.
Some ideas for teaching the concepts in Biology:
- Jigsaw tasks for students in different groups as we review a unit: one group for each concept who need to explain how the content of the unit feeds into that one conceptual understanding.
- Connect-extend-challenge (a visible thinking routine**). As we build a body of biological knowledge students can reflect and review based on how this connects to each of the four concepts, how they might extend their understanding with deeper questions and what they have found challenging in the unit/ lesson.
- Concept walls: spaces in different parts of the classroom where students might pin their thoughts on the topic (or post post-its).
If you have more ideas for how to use the concepts of biology to strengthen students’ understanding, please share!
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Further Reading
* ‘Teaching the Disciplines – Nurturing big Ideas for Deeper Understanding’ is an excellent document from the MYP section of the OCC. Read the section on the sciences.
**Harvard’s Project Zero has a fantastic set of thinking routines to make thinking visible. Try them out!
What are we really learning from practical work?
As we study science, a lot of our time and resources are devoted to implementing an engaging practical scheme of work. Are we really making the most educational use of this time, these resources and the opportunities that we have?
Teachers all over the world use experiments and demonstrations to engage students in the concept being taught. But does this actually improve student learning? Two recent videos have got me thinking about this issue, and before you read on you should watch them both.
The first is from UK science teacher & communicator Alom Shaha (@alomshaha), half the brains behind the sciencedemo.org website. The video was produced for the Nuffield Foundation’s new Practical Work for Learning resource. He refers to a number of research papers in the video, and is also one of the leaders of the #SciTeachJC (science teachers journal club) twitter discussion group.
Do you recognise those labs and how do you use them? Do the labs we do really help us teach the concepts we intend them to, and how can we rethink (or at least evaluate) our use of labs.
The second video is from US Chemistry teacher Tom Stelling (@ChemistTom), on his “vRant” about students asking to “blow something up” and the dangers of ‘wow’ demos as distraction rather than education.
https://twitter.com/ChemistTom/status/332685283105587200
Note: this post rambles a bit from here on. If you want to know more, please read on. Otherwise, all the good bits were in Alom & Tom’s videos.
Personal GoogleSites: A Learning Project in #IBBio
Personal GoogleSite: Click to view an example.
Although i-Biology hosts all my content resources, the main class resource students are working with is a personal GoogleSite to track their progress and reflection. Click here to find out more about how it works.
“Changing Crops for a Changing Climate” Mark Lynas & a Nature Special on GMOs
Here is Mark Lynas at Cornell University, with his speech “Time to call out the anti-GMO conspiracy theory.” It runs almost half an hour, though he does have a transcript of the speech on his blog. The connections to IB Biology Genetics & Genetic Engineering here are obvious.
What should be noted for background is Lynas’ own story. In the 1990’s he was a prominent anti-GMO activist, but has recently apologised and is now on a mission to right the wrongs he feels he has done. It has not been easy, and has generated lots of controversy.
“Allowing anti-GMO activists to dictate policymaking on biotechnology is like putting homeopaths in charge of the health service, or asking anti-vaccine campaigners to take the lead in eradicating polio.”
Powerful and provocative stuff – and a great stimulus for discussion and debate. Lynas refers to a lot of studies, claims and organisations in this speech. Students could follow this up with finding out more about each of them.
We might never be able to get students to the absolute truth on GMOs – we may find it difficult ourselves – but it is useful to give some insight into just how delicate the balancing act can be and how cloudy the discussions of ethics in science can get. The issues around GMOs are complex: scientific, political, ethical, economical, environmental. They are far more complex than a couple of short assessment statements in a Biology syllabus can really do justice.
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Rise of the Superweeds. Click-through to the Nature Special.
Also recently, a very useful Nature special edition on GM Crops: the Promise & Reality. Look in for some in-depth articles and case-studies, including the true, the false and the still unknown on GM crops.
Nature articles often have presentations of data that can be used for data-based question practice (such as the one to the right – click through to see). Follow the patterns of the DBQ’s and make up your own questions based on different articles:
- Identify…
- Describe the trend in…
- Calculate the difference in…
- Compare…
- Suggest reasons for…
- Evaluate…
Are you replacing sleep with food? DBQ practice.
https://twitter.com/scicurious/status/327240402367307776
I came across this through Ed Yong’s weekly linklist, but @SciCurious often writes really interesting posts (Neurotic Physiology) on neurobiology. This one is particularly relevant to #IBBio students for a few reasons. First, you guys are up way too late, way too often. Second, it connects directly to our course – read this blog post (based on this paper), especially students working on option A: Nutrition, or anyone reviewing hormonal control.
Click for the graphs & article at the Neurotic Physiology blog.
Finally it is ripe for data-based question practice.
These graphs click-through to the originals posted at SciCurious’s blog. Here are some DBQ-style questions you might ask:
- Calculate the difference in post-dinner snack energy intake between having a ‘normal’ 9h sleep and the sleep-deprived 5h condition.
- Compare the trend in energy expenditure throughout the day between 9h sleep and 5h sleep.
- Describe the difference between 9h sleep and 5h in terms of eating patterns.
- Evaluate the hypothesis that “when we sleep less, we eat more” based on the data provided and information in the article.
- Explain the role of the appetite control centre of the brain on appetite, and suggest how it is affected by the conditions of the experiment.
Appetite Control: from the Wellcome Trust (‘The Anatomy of Appetite’ explainer page here).
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So there you go – you learned something.
Get to bed. And leave the snacks in the fridge.
Thrift Shop Parody: TCA (Kreb’s) Cycle Rap
Pitched just a little over HL, but very well done and super catchy, here’s Wilson Lam’s Thrift Shop Parody:
Related, of course, is Tom McFadden’s Oxidate It Or Love It:
And if all that’s too musical, here’s Hank:
Definedly… maybe? Get the definitions right in your review.
Nail down those definitions
Define is a ‘simple’ objective 1 command term… but you must be precise in your answers.
Definitions are also a great start to review and build into deeper explanation of the concepts.
- Quiz yourself on the definitions, check your answers. This Sortable Syllabus might help.
- Pay attention to the markschemes – what is the importance of the underlined terms and why can’t you get marks without them?
- ‘Unpack’ the definition into its component parts – what is the relevance of each and how does it lead to more in-depth explanation of the concept?
Here’s a quiz for the define assessment statements in the SL Core and for the two options my class did this year. It’s a GoogleDoc – here’s the link.
Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre: quick review & course connections
The Book
There’s a good chance that you’d not be here to read this without the pharmaceutical industry designing and manufacturing the vaccines and medications you’ve used during your life – but how much do we know about where they come from?
In this thoughtful, well-researched and instructive book, Ben Goldacre* (doctor, evidence-based medicine proponent and author of Bad Science) outlines how Big Pharma works, but also what the issues are and how they can be fixed. He has a TEDMED Talk on the premise of the book (below) and takes care no to write a ‘hatchet-job’ on the industry, but to shine a light on the current state of clinical research and marketing.
I recommend the book to IB Biology and IB Chemistry students and teachers – read a copy before the next teaching cycle begins – as there are many sections of direct relevance to our courses that could be used as lesson ideas or real-world contexts for what we’re learning. It would make a great addition to the reading list for students, especially those intending to pursue medical, biochemistry or pharmaceutical careers.
In each chapter, Goldacre identifies a problem and gives a clear account of why it is a problem, using systematic reviews of academic literature and specific case studies to highlight each point. He makes it clear to the reader why these problems actually are problems, but also offers concrete advice or proposals on how to solve them.
Some highlights for the IB Biology course
Click & Go
Chapter 1 gets stuck in with statistical analysis and why systematic reviews of literature, meta-analyses and careful work with data are so important. It introduces the work of the Cochrane Collaboration and works through a neat illustration of the importance of considering all the data as more studies are carried out. The Cochrane Collaboration’s logo is itself a fascinating story, and you could model this in class with a simple set of investigations in the early stages of the course (see some ideas on the Statistical Analysis page).This video is very useful – from the Testing Treatments page.
The ideas and issues come thick and fast for the rest of the book.
As you read it, you will see many potential connections to the course, as well as to Theory of Knowledge. Here are just a few ideas that might spark discussion in class:
- What is the problem with missing trial data and publishing only favourable results?
- What does this publication bias do the reliability of the information we use to make decisions?
- How are drugs designed and tested (this is super interesting, going from in-vitro and animal testing to stage 1, 2 and 3 human trials, and has an obvious link to the IB Animal Experimentation Policy).
- What are the ethical issues with human testing, in particular the ideal/ representative nature of the patients used and the incentives they receive?
- What is the impact of outsourcing trials to other countries that might have different ethical codes?
- What are the ethical issues of randomising and controlling trials with humans, particularly in cases where there is a known drug that helps compared to a new drug?
- What are the roles of drugs regulators on medicine and are they working?
- How should trials be designed to give more valid and reliable data (for example, comparing the ‘new’ drug against the current best alternative vs placebo)?
- How could we use nationwide health records to conduct larger, simpler trials to determine which treatments really are most effective?
- How do the many branches of pharmaceutical marketing affect decision-making and how can we recognise and mitigate for this?
- How can we fix it all to keep medical innovation going whilst generating reliable, cost-effective data and drugs?
TED Talk: What doctors don’t know about the drugs they prescribe
*Yeah, I know I’m a bit of a fanboy and have featured him on here a lot, but with this and Bad Science, he has produced a lot of useful content to connect to our classes.
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