Module 4
Hello class,
For this module I decided to switch gears and talk about the most important unit in my biology class, genetics. Really, everything I teach in biology is rooted in genetics and understanding basic DNA structure and function is critical to understanding the entire course. When searching for an Open-Educational Resource for genetics that met my needs for our districts curriculum I stumbled upon this website:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
The website is from the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center and might be one of the best ready-made online resource I have ever stumbled across. When evaluating an online resource the most important criteria it must meet for me is how closely it matches the performance expectations for our unit. As part of the district curriculum writing team, we chose to use the new Next Gen Science Standards (NGSS) to write our new curriculum. This one website does an excellent job of covering the four performance expectations for the genetics unit. Secondly, the website must be engaging for the students. I am a firm believer that if the high school student doesn't enjoy learning the content, they won't remember the content beyond the unit exam. Utah's genetics website is built on animations, interactive webquests, games, and videos that really engage the student with the material. Lastly, because of the diversity of learners in my co-taught classroom, does this resource differentiate for different learners. This website excels at differentiation providing multiple ways to teach topics as well as helpful guides, prompts, and hints to get every student through the animations and webquests.
I believe incorporating the Utah Genetics Learning Center as a resource for our curriculum will really help students. I could see using it as both part of the curriculum as well as an excellent reference to give to students who are struggling and need additional exposure to the material. It also does a great job of catering to different learning styles, as well as different learning levels. I could also see it as a tool to give to parents to help their student or even an opportunity to participate with the material with their student. Because of this, I will be incorporating this website into my curriculum more next year.
For all the websites that are out there for genetics, one "gap" I have had a hard time filling is how to fill in a proper pedigree for the different patterns of inheritance. Because of this, and knowing that many students struggle with this concept and could use the extra help, I have decided to create a screencast explaining how to approach these types of problems. I have decided to try the free trial version of Screencast-o-matic. I chose this tool because I will be able to use resources I already have in place, but utilize screencast to make it available online to students as well as provide an extra review opportunity when studying for an exam. I found the tool pretty easily, as it was the third option of a google search. The previous two seemed more cumbersome, and this one appears to be easy to use. As a mentioned above, this is an area of my curriculum that students struggle with according to item analysis on their exams, so this should provide an extra opportunity for students to revisit or preview the material.
Thank you,
Jim
For this module I decided to switch gears and talk about the most important unit in my biology class, genetics. Really, everything I teach in biology is rooted in genetics and understanding basic DNA structure and function is critical to understanding the entire course. When searching for an Open-Educational Resource for genetics that met my needs for our districts curriculum I stumbled upon this website:
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/
The website is from the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center and might be one of the best ready-made online resource I have ever stumbled across. When evaluating an online resource the most important criteria it must meet for me is how closely it matches the performance expectations for our unit. As part of the district curriculum writing team, we chose to use the new Next Gen Science Standards (NGSS) to write our new curriculum. This one website does an excellent job of covering the four performance expectations for the genetics unit. Secondly, the website must be engaging for the students. I am a firm believer that if the high school student doesn't enjoy learning the content, they won't remember the content beyond the unit exam. Utah's genetics website is built on animations, interactive webquests, games, and videos that really engage the student with the material. Lastly, because of the diversity of learners in my co-taught classroom, does this resource differentiate for different learners. This website excels at differentiation providing multiple ways to teach topics as well as helpful guides, prompts, and hints to get every student through the animations and webquests.
I believe incorporating the Utah Genetics Learning Center as a resource for our curriculum will really help students. I could see using it as both part of the curriculum as well as an excellent reference to give to students who are struggling and need additional exposure to the material. It also does a great job of catering to different learning styles, as well as different learning levels. I could also see it as a tool to give to parents to help their student or even an opportunity to participate with the material with their student. Because of this, I will be incorporating this website into my curriculum more next year.
For all the websites that are out there for genetics, one "gap" I have had a hard time filling is how to fill in a proper pedigree for the different patterns of inheritance. Because of this, and knowing that many students struggle with this concept and could use the extra help, I have decided to create a screencast explaining how to approach these types of problems. I have decided to try the free trial version of Screencast-o-matic. I chose this tool because I will be able to use resources I already have in place, but utilize screencast to make it available online to students as well as provide an extra review opportunity when studying for an exam. I found the tool pretty easily, as it was the third option of a google search. The previous two seemed more cumbersome, and this one appears to be easy to use. As a mentioned above, this is an area of my curriculum that students struggle with according to item analysis on their exams, so this should provide an extra opportunity for students to revisit or preview the material.
Thank you,
Jim
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