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Susan Dorfman's picture

The story of four atoms

I was disappointed to have missed so much of Paul B.'s model lesson; however, from what I did experience, it was engaging. His enthusiams for the topic was infectious. Putting myself in the persona of my students, I would have enjoyed the experience. Although, the pre-survey would have caused some of my students to panic and want help with the work, "is this what you mean?" type outbursts, the survey yielded information both to the teacher and the students. The teacher could make assumptions about a starting point and the students would be ready to learn info they did not know or could not remember. Interest was established. The handouts were helpful, the progression , logical. Although I understand the risks of the free association parameters of the story line, I know that my students would have as much fun as Joyce and I did including the vocabulary and the concepts into an interesting setting that delighted us, and hopefully, our colleagues. In my teaching, I frequently stop to make analogies to help students with concepts. Although I do not anthropomorphize living and non-living matter, I do use situations in the lives of my students to create similarities between their lives and the concepts under discussion. When I ask the students to use story telling as a vehicle for understanding, they use narrative, poetry, and rap to express themselves. The exercise helps them to remember the technical vocabulary. I grade the efforts on understanding shown of the concepts and marvel at their abilty to put the processes in their own creative terms. I should mention that the free association storytelling approach is one I use with Grade 7 biology students. I would not use this same approach with my AP Biology students. The stories the seniors tell are steeped in the reality of the science. 

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