This week as the students were learning about macromolucules I decided to do something a little different to get students outside on a beautiful day. I thought it would be fun to have students create sidewalk chalk drawings of macromolecules instead of doing a poster. The students loved this activity. I even saw other students who were not in a Biology class posing and taking pictures with the designs after school.
One of my favorite units to teach is on macromolecules. When I introduce this topic I use this macromolecule graphic organizer to help students organize the information.
Click Here to Get your Macromolecule Graphic Organizer
After introducing this concept I use one of my hands-on biochemistry boxing activities that I created and have for sale on Teachers Pay Teacher (4 Star rating!). I have several different activities that I use with the lesson. You can get the lesson plan (and others) and printable boxes free by signing up here. You will be emailed a link to the biochemistry boxing activity lesson plan and receive weekly post updates . The lesson plan includes: -5 printable boxes and instructions for 3 games/activities. -Score Cards -Biochemistry Boxing Answer Key -Macromolecule organizer – graphic organizer. -4 exit tickets -detailed lesson plans for 5-7 (50 min classes) days of instruction.
You will also get access to my printable cell organelle boxing activity and my lab report rubric and guide. Enjoy!
How to Differentiate Instruction for Gifted Students in Biology
One challenge that many teachers face is differentiated instruction for gifted and talented students. To have a classroom that is truly differentiated teachers need to address the learning need of all students. To do this, the gifted and talented students also need to remain engaged and challenged in the curriculum. One way to address this is with the use of a Compacting Plan. For a compacting plan the teacher examine their current curriculum and identifies content or skills that can be accelerated or eliminated after conducting a pre-assessment. When I complete a compacting plan I am sure to open the opportunity up to all of my students if they are able to achieve a certain score on the pre-assessment. It prevents accusations of being unfair and they may be some students who surprise you. After determining what students are eligible you present them with the compacting plan. I have attached an example of a compacting plan that I have developed for the unit on cells a topic that many students are exposed to in middle school. Check out my sample compacting plan on cells here.
Please comment below on strategies that you use to differentiate instruction for gifted and talented students.
In this weeks free worksheet I wanted to share with you a graphing worksheet. We all know our students need more time and practice graphing.
In this graphing worksheet students watch the videos on graphing from Paul Anderson at Bozeman Science. Students follow along in the video and answer questions on the Graphing Worksheet that I created to go along with the videos. Students create their own graph and compare it to the one in the video and record their differences.
This activity is a great way to introduce graphing to your students. Sometimes as teachers we just expect that students come to us with these skills but we need to teach it to them or at least remind them of the proper way to set up and read a graph.
On the first day of school our student were shown a video about titled “What Students Really Need To Hear.” This may be a good video to include in your first day biology activities as a bell ringer. It is motivational video that can hopefully help encourage your students to get off to a great start.
