'Conor mc gregor...is he a scientist?'

Week 7                        Class 21                        40 minutes

Correcting homework: The students were asked to write a scientific report of their investigations of the biomolecules in different foods. I asked the students to nominate themselves as Green (I have no blanks) - 3 students choose this colour, orange (I have blanks and I was not sure of parts of the homework- 14 students choose this colour) and red (I found the homework really difficult, I have many blanks or I do not have the homework done - 5 students chose this colour). I paired the three Greens with the three red students who choose red, they had completed the homework but they found it difficult).  I recorded homework not done for the other two Reds and I followed school procedures for no homework. The oranges paired with another orange, and they had to 'ask three, before they asked me' to try and close the gaps in their homework. This part of the class lasted about ten minutes. 

Task 1: Review of the homework
We recorded the strengths and weaknesses of the homework on the A0 whiteboard and one student summarised theses on the main whiteboard at the front. I explained Peer Assessment to the class and we discussed how it may benefit learning to assess the work of a peer. The students were asked to roam the room and put a wish for improvement on the reports, mainly based on the content we had summarised onto the main whiteboard. This worked well but there were a few things I would change. Firstly, the students did not read the wishes of other pupils and the wishes repeated themselves. We agreed as a class that this was not beneficial and that we would read comments when peer assessing in future. Secondly, comments not related to the assessment were beginning to appear on the work. I addressed this by class discussion. What is the purpose of the peer assessment? Would it benefit learning if we do not write comments for improvement? What is the purpose of science class? What is your role in the learning and development of your peers? The students agreed that comments that progress the work of another in a supportive manner is the only acceptable form of feedback.  The 'Ask Three, before you ask Me' worked really well with this class and it reduced their reliance on the teacher as the main source of information. It encouraged students to collaborate and work together as a first port of call, rather than calling on the teacher first. 

Task 2: The biography of biologists
The students remained in the same pairs from Task 1. This worked well as they were mixed ability- green with red, and oranges with oranges. I gave a handout with 8 biographies of biologists. Each biography had 5 - 6 sentences about the main achievements of the scientists and a photograph of the scientist. I asked the students to pick one scientist and to create a silent mime that the other students could guess who they were miming - similar to a game of charades. The students really enjoyed this and they were very quick to work together to create a mime. They quickly started asking me, 'can we practice?' This surprised me as with other presentations they were not as confident. I think I will do more silent mimes/presentations to get them comfortable standing up in front of the class, as some students were really struggling with speaking in front of the class. There were some funny/interesting comments when I handed out the sheet:

Is Conor McGregor a scientist? (when they saw Gregor Mendel!!)
Is Edward Jennifer a boy or a girl? 

Each group presented their mimes and they other students had to guess which scientist they were miming. This was great fun and very well presented by all students. They really enjoyed it. 

Homework: Using your research skills, choose a scientist from the page and create an interview with a biologist of your choice. The interview must have at least six questions. The answers must be at least two sentences long. Record the interview in your scrapbook. Based on the information, create a mime so that other students can guess which scientist you interviewed. 


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