{"id":42,"date":"2012-12-09T00:38:40","date_gmt":"2012-12-09T05:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/?p=42"},"modified":"2012-12-09T00:40:15","modified_gmt":"2012-12-09T05:40:15","slug":"personalized-learning-round-table-discussions-in-biology-a-new-summative-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/2012\/12\/09\/personalized-learning-round-table-discussions-in-biology-a-new-summative-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Personalized Learning: Round table discussions in Biology, a new summative project"},"content":{"rendered":"
During our F2F I wanted to learn more about personalizing my lessons, and felt really conflicted. \u00a0How do I personalize the educational experience for my students in a completely impersonal program! \u00a0The IB\u00a0Diploma\u00a0program requires students to write a final exam worth 74% of the student’s final grade, hence traditionally in my Bio class, all final assessments are written and based on previous IB style questions. \u00a0This format helps students learn how to answer these types of questions when they sit down for their final exam set by the IB organization. \u00a0The rigidity of the program has always been a major stumbling block for me.<\/div>\n
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\u00a0How do I make their high school Biology experience more engaging? \u00a0I know differentiated instruction is not really getting to the root of making education personal to the students. \u00a0Sure, lessons and assessments can be differentiated by\u00a0achievement\u00a0levels, interest, multiple\u00a0intelligence\u00a0 etc. but these\u00a0strategies\u00a0don’t really give students the\u00a0autonomy\u00a0of making their learning impactful and personal. \u00a0To learn more: I found this great guide to understanding more about\u00a0PERSONALIZED LEARNING<\/a>.<\/div>\n
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I recently had a discussion with a friend who teaches 3rd year Biology seminar courses at U of T, she mentioned that students have a difficult time in her class. This conversation along with my discussions during F2F in November inspired me to try something new in this upcoming unit in Gr. 12 Biology. Instead of the traditional test, students will lead a round-table discussion based on a Ecological topic of their choice. \u00a0We will work on IB specific questions in formative assessments only, so they still get exposure to them. \u00a0To start,\u00a0I selected 5 topics in the syllabus and gathered a collection of articles for students to choose from. \u00a0Students were provided with a rubric and guidelines for our discussion based on the Harkness table <\/a>approach. \u00a0Students will still be going through the IB syllabus and learning the info in our classes, then we will sit down all together to have our Harkness table discussions at the end of the unit.<\/div>\n
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I am excited to go on this journey with my students. So far the feedback as been really positive.<\/div>\n
“So we get to talk about a topic we are interested in?”<\/div>\n
“I suck at tests but I’m great at talking! YES!”<\/div>\n
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This week, students are going through the articles and looking for a topic of interest, they are also combing through the syllabus to see how the topic of their choice will relate to the information we learn in class. \u00a0Although I know i could leave it very open-ended and student orientated during the next month, I will be giving short lessons about specific topics in Ecology so they can incorporate the information in their discussions. \u00a0I can already see students getting involved in taking down notes that they will need to refer to for their own discussions.<\/div>\n
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I’m sure many of you have done roundtable\u00a0discussions\u00a0as a summative assessment before. I would love to hear any tips\/strategies\u00a0you used to help keep students on-track during discussions, and to ensure students all have a chance to participate. \u00a0I was thinking of giving students 10 paper clips each, and as they make comments on other people’s topics, they keep track of their participation by moving their paper clips in front of them. \u00a0Any other tips would be greatly appreciated.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During our F2F I wanted to learn more about personalizing my lessons, and felt really conflicted. \u00a0How do I personalize the educational experience for my students in a completely impersonal program! \u00a0The IB\u00a0Diploma\u00a0program requires students to write a final exam worth 74% of the student’s final grade, hence traditionally in my Bio class, all final … Continue reading “Personalized Learning: Round table discussions in Biology, a new summative project”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-action-plan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cohort21.com\/ritapak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}