Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday-
The cell cycle pre-assessment test was given to both classes today. The students were very reluctant to take the test
because they “didn’t have time to study”, “I did prepare them” and they “didn’t
know anything about the stupid cell cycle.” They had to be reassured about fifteen times that this test would not affect
their grades in any way. They complained the entire time. They were given 15 minutes to answer 11 multiple choice questions.
After the test was over, we had them comment on the experience (Student Comments):
In the Experimental Group (Class B), I (Donniell) explained the culminating assessment (Alien abduction), then we began the 5E lesson on Understanding the
Cell Cycle. The class was broken up into six groups of three and one group of four. The consensus from the students was “this
is hard”, however, five of the seven groups had little to no trouble completing the task successfully. The other two
groups needed a lot of redirection. They were being distracted by each other’s personal conversations about “interesting”
things that happened outside the school’s walls. They were bored and could care less about the lesson or the cell cycle.
Also, many of the students weren’t noticing the things that we needed them to notice. For example, the cell has a circle
in it (the nucleus) in the first picture (Prophase) but not in the second (Metaphase). Jennifer and I agreed that our lesson
needed more. Possibly a few guiding questions to focus the students and help them to discover every detail. Nevertheless,
I would say that the lessons for this class were successful and the Venn diagram activity was essential to student comprehension.
In the Control Group (Class A), I also explained the culminating assessment followed by 50 minutes of notes and lecturing. I also went over the answers
to a few questions. Unfortunately, we weren’t able to complete the Rally Robin and Venn diagram on Wednesday because
of discipline problems.
Thursday-
The vocabulary assessment took longer than expected. Each class is a total of 80 minutes. Five minutes before the end
of the period, no one in either class had completed the task. I decided that the students had not gained enough knowledge
about the topic, therefore we stopped the assessment. No grades were given. We’ll try again another day.
Friday-
Students in neither class had begun working on their projects for the culminating assessment. As a result, the experimental
group was given the entire 80 minute period to do project work. The control group, on the other hand, watched a demonstration
of crossing over, completed their Venn diagram activity without the Rally Robin and then started working on their projects.
Monday and Tuesday-
Students worked on group projects and presentations for the entire 80 minutes.
Wednesday-
The school principal decided to change the bell scheduled for the day which only allowed me to be present for the experimental
groups presentations. As a result, only the students in the experimental group were able to present their work. I, as well
as the students themselved, evaluated each group using a rubric. The students in the control group continued to work on their
projects for an additional day with a substitute.
Thursday-
The students in the experimental group attempted completing the vocabulary assessment for the second time. The second
time was much better than the first. The first group to complete the task with 100% of the words correctly defined completed
the assessment in 40 minutes. However, the last group to finish stayed four minutes longer than the allotted 80 minutes of
class time and then gave up. Staying any longer would have impeded too much of there lunch time and getting to lunch to hang
out with friends is so much more important than completing a biology assessment correctly (in the mind of a 14 year old anyway).
The sixth and seventh groups both ended the task with 37% of the words correctly defined. In addition, the last two groups
to finish were also the two groups who were identified earlier as needing a lot of redirection.
The students in the control group presented while I and their peers evaluated them based on the rubric.
Friday-
The experimental group took the cell cycle post-assessment test. The
control group finished up their presentations and took the vocabulary assessment again. Due to time constraints, the
control group did not have as much time to complete the vocabulary assessment as the experimental group. However,
the team to receive the highest score worked for 60 minutes and defined 93% of the words correctly (28 out of 30 words). The
team to receive the lowest score also worked for 60 minutes and defined 27% of the words correctly (9 out of 30 words).
Monday-
The control group took the cell cycle post-assessment test. We once again asked
the students to make comments. (Student Comments) We tabulated and/or graphed all collected data.
