Your questions answered
David Martindill, author of our new teacher’s resource, offers his answers and advice to the questions you raised in his webinar on teaching Cambridge IGCSE™ Biology
David explains how to actively and effectively undertake teaching Cambridge IGCSE™ Biology at home.
David is a practising teacher who hosts workshops for teachers and school leaders around the world. He has written teaching and learning materials and offers regular online courses for international teachers. David holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and a Masters in Education from the University of Cambridge, specialising in practical science.
Teaching Cambridge IGCSE™ Biology
Active biology at home
Despite being fact-led, learning biology requires the construction of meaning for abstract ideas. Active learning, or ‘learning by doing,’ is a key part of this journey. It provides learner-centred opportunities with the teacher as a facilitator, rather than as an instructor. This enables one-to-one interactions, which in a remote setting can take place using breakout rooms or via email, to provide real-time formative assessment and encouragement.
How is active learning possible during home-based learning?
Encourage your learners to:
1. bring biological mechanisms to life. Our subject is full of ‘stories,’ containing sequential steps that occur in a specific sequence. Think about the cardiac cycle or the menstrual cycle, or how enzymes catalyse reactions. The same is true of the process of meiosis or phagocytosis, or the pupil reflex and accommodation. Learners could construct a paper-based flip-book to show how these processes occur. If they have access to computer equipment, they could create a digital animation instead.
2. use their own bodies as investigative specimens. A significant focus of biology is the human body. Why not encourage your learners to explore their own? Get them to ask a family member or friend to draw their outline in chalk on the floor outside. Can they draw organs and add labels to illustrate the digestive, respiratory, endocrine, or excretory system? Encourage learners to carry out an investigation into heart or breathing rate before and after exercise. Or perhaps they could even classify their own teeth using a hand-held mirror.
3. make models from items they find around the house. Keep learners busy with creative pursuits to bring their biology studies to life. Simple three-dimensional models of different types of cell can be made by drawing organelles on one side of a piece of paper, and then scrunching it up. This could be used as the basis of a guessing game with others. Alternatively, encourage learners to use items of household waste or packaging to construct a model of a wind- or insect-pollinated flower, or even a working model lung. Instructions are widely available online.
Practical biology at home
One of the most valuable learning strategies in biology education is practical work. But can this still be achieved if learners are at home? Ecological investigations are perhaps the most feasible option, assuming learners can venture outside. Classification of local organisms is a useful activity, using downloadable survey sheets and ID guides. Learners could also make a living dichotomous key using leaves.
There are fewer accessible laboratory-style activities that learners can undertake safely without direct supervision, however. The following suggestions are provided with some reminders of what good practical work looks like. As with all hands-on science, it is important to focus learners’ minds on why they are doing something, not simply on what they are doing.
Why not:
1. encourage learners to use their mobile phone. These make ideal data collection and analysis devices. They can be used to record photos of germinating mung beans and to direct a time-lapse video to illustrate the effect of plant tropisms. Open-ended, independent work such as this helps to develop research skills, to promote greater interest.
2. produce scaffolded instructions for learners. Encourage learners to investigate the effect of osmosis, using salt solutions and plant tissues found in their kitchen cupboard. Provide a planning support sheet, containing spaces for them to qualify the independent, dependent and standardised variables. Give sentence starters or endings to help less confident learners evaluate a method. ‘Thinking up’ as well as ‘thinking through’ new information is incredibly important for a deeper understanding of practical scenarios such as these.
3. flip the classroom in advance of live online discussions. Give notice to learners of a simple practical task that they should attempt before the lesson. Inform them, that they should bring along their data for live analysis and collective explanation as a group. Learners should make a prediction about the task before carrying it out, and then record their observations or measurements. This could be applied, for example, to a dissection of a flower, common to your local area, to investigate the organs of plant reproduction. If they are confronted with unexpected, or memorable observations during or after the task, learners will be forced to reflect upon and revise any preconceived expectations.
Developing key learning behaviours for home-based biology
Let’s not forget that being in school offers more than an educator’s presence and laboratory access. Learners’ mastery of language and their development of interpersonal skills, among many others, benefit daily from their interactions with peers in a physical educational environment.
How can these other key skills be nurtured during home-based learning?
Help your learners to:
1. consider how they learn biology, not what they are learning. Rather than simply reading their coursebook or browsing through online tutorials, can they tally count every mention of a key term or idea, or predict how sentences will end? Get them to try converting information contained in text into a biological diagram, or transfer a photograph into a list of observations. Can they craft questions for which phrases and words they encounter could be the answers, or sketch Venn diagrams to compare different factors or biological structures? Being creative in this way forces learners to think deeper, rather than passively receive. It keeps learners motivated for longer because it gives them ownership of the learning process. Provide plenty of help to them as they develop these skills. For example, modelling the thinking process is useful for many learners, especially in response to synoptic and higher-order tasks in biology.
2. talk about biology with their peers. Learning doesn’t have to be lonely. In fact, learners who talk about new information as they encounter it can make the fastest progress. Creating dialogue with another is a very important educational tool. To help your learners with this, provide interesting or controversial prompts for them to discuss. Can they think of as many examples as possible of the importance of shapes fitting together in biology? Which is the most important organ in the body? What might be possible if we had chlorophyll in our skin? Could they work with others to collaboratively complete an essay online, or produce a ‘perfect’ response to an exam-style question? Otherwise, set them the simple task of asking a family member to listen to what they have to say after a lesson – does the listener understand the topic from their vocal description or explanation? Encourage parents and siblings to ask your learners questions. Can they answer them?
3. stay positive. We must remember that remote learning is still a new experience for most. It continues to present many challenges for many. During your efforts to help your learners develop their biology, don’t overlook the importance of being mindful of their biological wellbeing. As a popular educational slogan says: “they must Maslow before they can Bloom!”
You can find out about our resources for Cambridge IGCSE Biology on our science hub page.
