B.+ONE+All+KeriQueries+Considered

1. Why did you choose this lesson? Brief summary or original lesson plan design/goals of lesson. As you may already know from working closely with me, I chose to do parts of several lessons rather than a single lesson. I did this because I wanted to be as realistic as possible about the incrementalism needed given my schedule of varied courses; in other words, not only do I want to create lessons that keep the best parts of the old, I want to give them new life and at the same time ensure that I can roll out a new facet of many lessons, not just one redone, immediately.

This particular lesson is about **Symbiosis in Biology** 1 at the high school level prior to sophomores taking the Biology 10 MCAS, one of three assessments on which a passing score is required to get a Massachusetts high school diploma--along with local requirements. Symbiosis is a key concept under the standard of Ecology and includes at least three iterations that are "stepped," that is: different in degree but similar in that each actually is symbiosis (depedency)-- from the best kind to the worst; each defines a different kind of relationship between two species of organisms as these exist in nature.

These concepts are important first because they are almost ubiquitous in the natural world, because they are keys to ecological outlook for our planet, and finally because they really are on the MCAS themselves. Did I mention they are also interesting but often confusing to my students who are enrolled in Bio 1a and 2a (both CP but alternative courses) due to the defined phenomenon's similarities. They must be taught, however, to showcase their differences: mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

The original lesson plan has as its primary goal: //**SWBAT (Students will be able to) apply their knowledge and understanding of the three forms oft symbiosis to a variety of ecological organisms and their interactions with other species**//. The lesson begins with the information /knowledge base and later leads to the ability to apply understandings. Students are asked to be deductive in their reasoning while they broaden their knowledge of various habitats and of kingdoms-through-species, sometimes throughout the world. Their knowledge will include specific examples. Essentially //**the goals of my lesson plan are the same in the old and new lessons; the __methodology__ has changed.**//

The part of the lesson that is pertinent in this single redesign is the introduction of the concepts and the need for recursiveness, so that students internalize the definitions and can make judgments needed to apply these to all forms of symbiosis that occur in nature. //**This part of the old plan was offered through visuals plus teacher explanations and reading about each to supplement and offer review; both the tools of visualization and the means to gain repetittion are different in the new version, as both old and new versions are accompanied by teacher -student interaction and explanation. The visual component used in the past was more usual, i.e., slides, book- pictures, and the like**//.

In addition, within the old lesson, a symbolic series including plusses (+), neutral forms (0) and minuses (-) was the norm and not particularly visually memorable especially for students who are not skilled at math and/or dislike it. Also in the old version, repetition of the above live lesson or merely reading about it/ notes (or created items such as the ubiquitous, but not always effective flash card) were virtually the only ways to offer the recursive practice with these concepts and vocabulary. Of note, such recursive methods did not promote the **application** portion of the lesson--a crucial piece. The new methodology is designed to make it easy to accomplish that piece permitting students to more easily step upward in __[|Bloom's Taxonomy]__ of learning!

2. Define new lesson plan design/goals of lesson. The goal of his part of the lesson plan is the same as above; however, the tools used for visualization of concepts and the symbols used to define the divergences in the relationships. So too are the mechanisms for repetition. The chosen tools are three separate Prezis, carefully designed to meet the needs of a range of students who also demand differentiation, and have varying attention spans. See below.

3. Which tool or tools did you choose to incorporate into this lesson to potentially improve it? As noted three simple Prezis were created to meet the needs of students both in terms of explanation/introduction with and without teacher talk, and in order to provide repetition in the future.

4. Why did you choose this tool(s)? These tools have the ability to be both highly visual as well as visually stimulating through movement. Further, they can be viewed over and over and students can actually do the different narrations for them, so they can be used in other lessons too and in different ways. They also are great for putting on assignment type wikis so that students who are not verbal but visual can go over these concepts and review them as if they were in the classroom; finally, I plan to use them as jump off points for my students to make their own Prezis (when and if that is possible) using different organism examples—and possibly changing the “symbols for positive, neutral, and negativeeffect.) For further explanation of these needed symbols see definitions of [|Mutualism, Commensalism, and Parasitism] . As noted above they have the ability to be used in differentiated instruction, and in multimodality learning situations. They are also colorful and exciting if viewed on autoplay fullscreen--highly sensory, which, again, as noted in the introduction is a brain-compatible positive strategy for memorization.

5. What standards were you using to guide your decision on this? NETS? I was using Mass High School Biology Standard: Ecology Standards(6) and...NETS standards.

MASSACHUSETTS HIGH SCHOOL BIOLOGY CURRICULAR FRAMEWORK STANDARDS--6. Ecology, SPECIFICALLY:

6.3 … Describe how relationships among organisms (predation, parasitism, competition, commensalism, mutualism) add to the complexity of biological communities.

6 and 7. Do you feel this will improve your teaching and student learning If so, why? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Yes it will. As noted in #4, the lesson is far more portable (goes outside the classroom,as needed) and more stable (all at once!) and has multiple uses including initial and recursive functions. They are multisensory, and thus more memorable, and they lend themselves to manipulation by students who may change them and offer other examples or c visuals to be able to apply their knowledge and still come away with a great product without a huge outlay of time. These kinds of Prezis can be exciting tools that can be created in short periods and thus they also help students “summarize" important parts of information given. . . . If student efficacy is improved and teacher time is saved simultaneously, that clearly appears to meet the definition of improved education (mutualistically! For teacher and student both ++!).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">In addition to the above, it will improve my teaching as it offers me more ways to reach students, more choice getting multisensory stimuli to students and differentiated materials and response products from students (Web 2.0 tools can be used as response/practice vehicles in follow up lessons). These tools will improve student learning as they can be used in the mutliple ways explained above, plus these tools can easily be changed to become more complex or simpler, better interms of communciations (as needed for different audiences-or levels of students, and to bolster indivualized and [|differentiated learning]. Finally, these are intended to be used in tandem with other methodologies; thus they are additive.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">NB: The full or at least the latter part of this answer to 6-7 (above) may well be true for every part of all lessons I have changed throughout this Wiki--not just this one.