Category Archives: assessment

Evolution Project

Check out this evolution research project! You students will choose an organism and research it’s evolutionary history.

This aligns perfectly with all of the Next Generation Science Standards for evolution by natural selection.

The evolution worksheet can be downloaded below.

The worksheet serves as a guide for students as they research the evolutionary history of the organism. There is also a rubric that can be downloaded in the members area of USBT.

Tips for Using this Evolution Activity

My student have produced some amazing presentations using this evolution research project.

BEWARE: One of the most challenging aspects of the assignment for the students is going to citing evidence for a specific type of speciation that occurred with their organism.

I always tell my students to use a phylogenetic tree to help them identify the divergence between two species. I have them research the type of speciation that occurred between those two organisms.

Evolution Worksheet

Your students will need to dig in and do real research on their organisms.

First, students will identify the organism by the Genus and Species name.

Next, your students will answer a series of questions about the evolution organism they chose to research.

Evolution Research Questions

What are some of the most recent common ancestors of the organism you are researching?
Search for the phylogenetic tree or a cladogram of the organism.
Analyze the phylogenetic and include a discussion about the shared characteristic in your presentation.
HS-LS4-1. What evidence supports your organism having the common ancestors you describe above?
HS-LS4-3 What advantageous heritable trait(s) does the organism have that has resulted in organisms with the trait to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait?
Identify and cite evidence for one type of speciation that occurred in the evolutionary history of your organism.
HSLS 4-5 Based on your research what types of selective or environmental pressures does/did your organism face?
HS-LS2-8 Does the organism you researched engage in a group or individual behavior that increases the chances for the individual or species to survive and reproduce?
What types genetic variation exist in individuals in the species due to mutation and sexual reproduction?
What competition exists/ed for limited resources for your organism?
What makes your organism better able to survive and reproduce in the environment.
HS-LS4-4. Construct an explanation based on evidence from your research for how natural selection leads to adaptations of populations in your organism.

After completing their research, students will build a presentation. I give my students options for the type of presentation that they can do.

Some of my students even implemented a green screen for recording their videos!

You can access the rubric and editable versions of this assignment inside the USBT community.

You can also access everything we have ever created, a FULL BIOLOGY CURRICULUM! all in one, nice, organized place with instructions on how to use it.

#biologyteaching #teachingevolution @USBioTeaching

assessment, Inquiry Lab, Lab, Lab Report

How to Teach Scientific Writing in Biology

February 17, 2019 Brad Grey 2 Comments

Teaching Students to Write Scientific Articles and Lab Reports

The importance of being able to understand and explain in clear language the meaning of fundamental scientific concepts is central to science literacy. One study examining factors that influenced student success in scientific writing found that the only accurate predictor was prior scientific writing experience.

Students need practice, and it is up to science instructors to require students to write in their classes and to seek the best ways to teach them to write effectively.

Other studies have demonstrated that an explicit focus on building students’ scientific writing abilities also improves students’ critical thinking skills, their ability to read and understand scientific literature, and their overall success in the biology curriculum. Thus, for multiple reasons, there is a real need for practical tools to facilitate scientific writing instruction.

Click here to download the lab report rubric and template

Students make the most progress in their writing when assignments are broken into small chunks. When discussing any research study, it is essential to understand the purpose, the process, and the findings.

A successful ‘Results’ section weaves together all three of these aspects, so it is a good place to start. Have students work in pairs or small groups and read the ‘Results’ paragraph of a published article. They will then answer the following five questions:

1) WHY? was the experiment performed. What question was it trying to answer?

2) HOW? was the question approached; what was actually done? Summarizing the procedure helps students make connections between their experimental question and the data. The details of the procedure should be sufficient to interpret the data, but not as detailed as in the Materials and Methods section.

3)WHERE? In which table or figure are the data shown? For example, “As shown in Table 2…” or at the end of a sentence (Figure3).

4) WHAT? A full description of the actual results of the experiment is next. This is not a list of all the data, but it should describe overall trends over time and differences between samples at each time point.

5) So? This is a discussion; based on the results, what is the answer to the original question? In scientific writing, it’s important to connect the WHAT? (what you observed in the experiment) to the SO?, ie. the original question the experiment was trying to answer. From there, the conclusion could go on to compare the data from this study to other published data from similar studies, and then to a proposal for further follow-up experiments or a suggestion of the broader implications of the results.

Once students have thoroughly dissected the article, assess them by having each student write a ‘Results’ section for an experiment they have performed in class. You can click here to download the Mealworm Lab! Once they master ‘Results’, other sections can be introduced in similar fashion.

References:

1.Jerde CL, Taper ML. 2004. Preparing undergraduates for professional writing: evidence supporting the benefits of scientific writing within the biology curriculum. J Coll Sci Teach. 33:33-36.

2. Libarkin J, Ording G. 2012. The utility of writing assignments in undergraduate bioscience. CBE Life Sci Educ. 11:39-46.

3. Quitadamo IJ, Kurtz MJ. 2007. Learning to improve: using writing to increase critical thinking performance in general biology education. CBE Life Sci Educ. 6:140-154.

4.Brownell SE, Price JV, Steinman L. 2013. A writing-intensive course improves biology undergraduates’ perception and confidence of their abilities to read scientific literature and communicate science. Adv Physiol Educ. 37:70-79.

#biologyteaching #scientificwriting

assessment, Prefixes and Suffixes, Vocabulary

How to Use Quizlet to Make Printable Biology Vocab Quizzes

June 27, 2018 Brad Grey Leave a comment

Biology Vocabulary Building

It is no secret that Biology content is HEAVY with content vocabulary. For our students, it is like learning a foreign language.

Save Time

I love to use Quizlet for vocabulary building. It is a huge time saver for Biology Teachers and my Biology students love it.

In addition to Quizlet Live, a team base vocabulary game, students have a lot of other options to choose from as well.

Students can choose to Learn, Matching, Flash Cards, Spelling and even the Gravity Game.

Engage Students

In addition, teachers can use their flash card sets to create quizzes for their students. The quizzes are customizable and take less than a minute to create and print.

Bonus:

Each time you create the quiz it creates a new version! You can allow your student to take it as many time as they need in order to achieve mastery and each time with a different quiz.

I created a video to show you have to create the printable quizzes. So, even if you are not a 1-1 school, Quizlet still has benefit for you!

For more vocabulary development check out our 90 prefixes and suffixes with our 9 quizzes with QUIZLETS!

Gain Instant Access to all of Our Quizlets and Full Biology Curriculum

#quizlet #ntchat #teaching #classroom #mlearning #scichat #biologyteaching #biology

assessment

Biology Teamwork Assessment: Peers Evaluate Each Other!

April 14, 2018 Brad Grey Leave a comment

Peer Collaboration Evaluation Tool

Using our “Peer Collaboration Evaluation Tool,” you will be able to help students be more consciences of how well they work with other team members.

As part of a State wide STEM competition I had to take my student to a variety of local businesses, government agencies, hospitals and organizations to help gather some insight about the needs for the community.

As a result of that experience there was a common response I receive to the question: What skills do you need our students to have when coming to you out of high school or college?

For every person I posed the question, all of their responses were:

“THEY NEED TO BE ABLE TO WORK WELL WITH THE TEAM”

Reflect on your grade book right know.

How are you assessing your student’s ability to work as team?

Do your students know they are not easy to work with?

Are they able to do almost no work and still get the same grade as the whole group because they are good at pretending to be involved?

Student can no longer sit back and let everyone else work for them!

Using this google form tool your student can now evaluate each other!

Here is a quick video that shows you what the tool can do!

The Google Form That Your Students Will See (Below)

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The best part of this that the tool will keep track of all of the responses for as long as you want. You can even use it across disciplines.

The tool takes your students’ scores from their peers and automatically gives you the average of all of their scores as a percentage, average of all of their total scores and the average of all of their individual scores.

All you need to do as a teacher, is set up a place for students to fill out the Peer Collaboration Evaluation Form using a computer, Ipad or other device with internet access.

How to Implement the Peer Collaboration Evaluation Tool in the Classroom

This tool can be used with any type of partner, lab or collaborative group work.

To use google forms you must first have a google account (gmail is a google account). Create one here if you do not have one yet.

You get free storage and a whole host of other excellent tools like forms and it is completely free.

Once you have an account and get logged in, click on the waffle (circled in red) on the top right of your screen.

Next, click on “Drive”. This takes you to your Google Drive . This is where your storage space is located and where your tool will be located after your receive it in your email and click “make a copy” (see below)

After clicking on make a copy, you will land on the screen pictured below.

This screen (above) is the raw calculations spreadsheet. This is were your data will populate as your students begin to rank each other.

To go to the live form, click on “go to live form” under the “Form” menu. This will take you to the live form that can be shared with your students.

The best part of the forms is that it collects the data from all of your students and puts it into a single spreadsheet that can then be sorted and easily added into your grade book.

Check out the video on how the use this tool!

assessment, Closure, Warm Up

A Quick Exit Activity

June 28, 2017 Brad Grey Leave a comment

In this exit activity, teachers can assess or pre-assess their students comfort level as they walk out of the door.

For this simple exit activity or pre-assessment activity all the teacher needs to do is draw and label the graph on the board.

The students are then able to walk up and place their “sticky note” in the column that represents how comfortable they are.

That quick the teacher has a graph of what would likely represent the distribution of scores if a quiz or test was given that day. Of course this all depends on the honesty of the students so encourage them to answer honestly.

To get more biology activities sent to you regularly sign up here.

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Category Archives: assessment

Evolution Research Project