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December 2008 Issue—Theme: Activities and Investigations

Featuring:

"Life" in Movies: Biology in Popular Cinema—Popular movies with biology themes are potentially valuable tools for teachers at all levels. This paper offers some strategies and examples for effectively converting the enthusiasm that students have for cinema into learning science and further developing their ability to discover science in their everyday lives.

The Art of Physics: Using Cartooning to Illustrate Newton's Laws of Motion—This article describes cartooning as an alternative activity for a 9th grade Physical Science class, in which students demonstrate understanding of Newton's laws of motion through cooperative learning and differentiated instruction.

Lighting the Way through Scientific Discourse—This article describes a thought-provoking lesson used in the author's classroom—various arrangements of lamp-battery circuits—that helped students develop the motivation and competence to participate in scientific discourse for knowledge construction. Students explored through experimentation and discourse concepts about voltage, current, resistance, and Ohm's law (although this exact scientific terminology was not used). The discourse encouraged students to become deeply engaged in the process of making sense of their own observations and ideas.

Maximize Student Attention and Engagement: Using Energizers in the Science Classroom—Keeping students engaged and attentive in the science classroom is a key factor in their learning. Using neuroscience research on how the brain focuses, teachers can utilize specific strategies to maximize student engagement and attention.

Don't Understand Mitosis? Make a Movie!—This article presents a model-based lesson that incorporates technology and hands-on creativity in order to help students conceptualize complex biological processes: mitosis and meosis.

Increasing Student Involvement in Learning—In this article, the four characteristics of active learning (engaging with content, social interaction, considering prior understandings, and connecting ideas) are used to describe active learning in the classroom. The authors present three commonly used classroom techniques (bell work, worksheets, and labs) that they have converted from passive to active learning strategies.

Changing Misconceptions—Misconceptions, or inaccurate information, can be difficult to recognize and even more difficult to correct. During student-centered learning activities, students actively engage in their own learning both in a group and on their own. While students work, it can be difficult for a teacher to know if they fully understand the concepts being presented to them. A teacher may not become aware of students' true ideas until they express themselves on a written summative exam, and then, it is often too late to correct them before moving on to the next topic. To help uncover students' individual learning needs and levels of understanding, the author takes a different approach to this growing problem in her classes; she has students write reflections on their learning before, during, and after instruction.

(Titles and content subject to change)