To understand p-values, you must discern a critical aspect: how confidently you can interpret data. You must see how the relationship between the means and their data spread can vary, and how this affects your…
Advising students how to study is complex. Learning is messy, with ups and downs. Sudden insights may punctuate periods of seemingly little change. But when students are working for themselves without our guidance (i.e. at…
Teaching about natural selection gives a mechanism for how species change but it doesn’t directly address how one species can diverge into two. Speciation, then, needs its own lesson. This post shows you how I’ve…
Stock and flow models lend themselves to most concepts in biology, but population ecology is an iconic case, and a good place to begin. The model reflects Malthus’ original ideas, those that influenced Darwin. In…
Variation theory isn’t a theory of how memories are stored. Nor is it a theory of how learning can be impeded (like cognitive load theory); it doesn’t tell you what to avoid doing. Crucially, it…
As the content (sweating, shivering, & vasodilation) is relatively concrete, I could just tell my students their effects in isolation. For example, shivering causes heat gain when body temperature decreases. This alone is probably enough…
Reading great books is the only shortcut to improving subject knowledge. Here, I compile a selection of books that have helped me develop as a teacher and are accessibly written. It isn’t a complete list…
After coming across two interesting journal papers I thought they would make excellent case studies for my students. Let me introduce, and share, them with you. The first case study deals with indicator species and…
What is the cause of osmosis? Typically, with my students of 14-16 years old (GCSE courses), I don’t delve into the mechanism. It’s the pattern that matters most at this stage. But as students progress…
What are the most important factors for teacher sustainability? I’m sure there are many: behaviour, planning time, teaching hours, pay, etc. I’ll look at just two factors that, together, provide a rough rule for deciding…
For years, I toiled with quiz questions in my biology courses (AKA core questions). I used quiz questions as starter quizzes, to summarise key points of an explanation, as homework, and for cover work. It…
Cell respiration and its relationship to photosynthesis is one of the fundamental ideas of biology. Its ubiquitous presence in the secondary curriculum is well deserved, but do these equations cause additional problems for a more…
Mendelian genetics is ubiquitous in secondary school biology curricula, and the Punnet square is iconic to genetics. Think about the common examples of traits that you have seen in biology curricula to show Mendelian genetics….
Explanation in biology is said to be split between two big questions: the how and the why. So what do these mean? The idea started with Ernst Mayr. In the 1960s Mayr published his ideas…
It seems intuitive to everyone that we’re determined by our genetics and our environment. Our environment determines the language we speak. Our genetics causes us to look like our parents. Many times (we often teach),…