I've got my own little education experiment going. Since I have eight classes of varying levels and I have to teach the same material to every one, I figured this would be a good opportunity to experiment. My Portuguese and teaching abilities are at the level where I can write down for a lesson plan "Separate into groups, label drawings on board", instead of a page and a half of in-detail directions.
I'm teaching meiosis right now, which is the process of cell division which produces gametes, like sperm and eggs. I already taught mitosis, which is cell division that happens in every other cell in plants and in our bodies. The two are very similar, but have important differences.
Meiosis has eight phases, so I took the ordeal of presenting these phases and understanding what they mean, as the variable in my experiment. The students already have written descriptions of each phase, but haven't yet seen the drawings which are crucial to understanding how the DNA becomes replicated.
So I came up with four ideas on introducing the material to try out with two turmas each. The first is to simply go phase by phase, asking for volunteers to draw the phase from the descriptions in their notebooks. The second is a slight variation where I split the class into groups and they write all eight phases in their groups, then share the correct responses, correcting errors along the way. The third is to draw all eight phases on the board, but out of order. In pairs, the students confer and then make the correct order. The last is to break the students up into groups, giving each group a set of drawings on paper. They have to put these drawings in order and label them.
Today, I did all but the last one for the first time. So far, the second approach has been most successful, but it was with my best group during the first period. One group finished very quickly and had the correct answers, so I told them they were going to teach the rest of the class how they had done it. They got up in front of everyone, and with my prodding, explained every step and drew it on the board.
I'm also doing a "practical" that involves playing around with plants and soil. It's fun mixing things up and bringing students out of the classroom.
Peace
John
