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Hello, Through discussions here, the NSTA new teacher academy discussions, and the AP Bio discussion board plus my evaluations from my principal; I have recived the message about greatly reducing time spent in lecture/homework and increasing time spent discussion/project based learning. I've always done labs/projects/activities etc but I have been afraid to not also lecture. My principal basically sent the message that lecture should be rare. I mostly buy into it. In my environmental science class I have almost eliminated lecture and have seen success in the students (failed no one 1st quarter). They are juniors and seniors. In my AP class they basically revolted and begged for power point lecture, I've seen grade increases since I've compromised and brought it back (lecture half the period/activity other half). With AP I am a first time teacher so I just may not be very good at teaching without lecture in that class. In my regular Biology class (freshman, plus anyone who has not passed bio yet) I thought they would most benifit from the project based idea. I am not finding success. I am new at this so maybe I am still not doing it right. Here is a summary of my recent lesson: Day 1 and 2 cell organelle scavenger hunt on cellsalive.com, day 3 and 4 group project- cell city (with the option for more creative ideas- ended up with cell castle, cell country, and cell circus also) not an original idea but drawing pictures of cities using the cell as a city analogy (golgi is the post office, vesicles are the mail carriers). They got into it and they got creative. They all took turns presenting their cities and how it was like the cell. I thought I was having success. Then today I did a real easy formative assessment. I through a picture on the board of an animal cell and called on people to come up an label an organelle and say its job in the cell. Few could label any organelles without their books help (not part of the cell city assignment but was part of the scavenger hunt one). Even fewer could describe the jobs. I asked the whole class, "can anyone tell me what the nucleus does in the cell" one volunteer said it was the power house. When I a explained that was the mitochondria and asked for a second attempt...silence. I have a pretty talkative class willing to raise their hand. One or two may be the type to know the answer and not speak up but most will try. I am afraid we spend 4 days going through the motions and it wasn't valuable. What did I do wrong? I spent the rest of today helping them label the cell and describe the functions. I almost feel like it is what I should have done all along, but I feel like thats what I am not supposed to be doing. Advice anyone. Nicole

Hi Nicole, If it makes you feel any better, I did the same activity with my students and got the same results you did. Although the idea of creating an analogy has merit, I found it did not teach the cell organelles. I had better luck when I designed a memory game about cells. Student had to match up a picture and name to the organelle to a card that stated its function. I teach 7th grade, so I think the analogy lesson was too abstract for them.

Nicole wrote, 'In my AP class they basically revolted and begged for power point lecture, I've seen grade increases since I've compromised and brought it back (lecture half the period/activity other half). With AP I am a first time teacher so I just may not be very good at teaching without lecture in that class.'

Hi Nicole,
You are doing the right thing by weaning your students off of lecture. Guided activities will allow them to better understand the massive amounts of information you need to cover in order to prepare them for the AP test. You will find that guided activities will also allow for better retention as well. I might suggest an NSTA resource that I have been using in my biology classes. It is called Lecture Free Teaching by Bonnie S. Wood.

Try not to be so hard on yourself. When one first starts teaching a new course, you teach like you were taught. Pick a couple of units that you would like to make activity based and focus on them. Every year you teach the course continue to do this and your course will be completely activity based in no time.

You may still have students that still prefer learning through lecture. You can post your lecture/powerpoint online. Students can download the file and view it as 'homework' as for the next day's activity. Powerpoint and many presentation-like programs give you the option of recording your lecture for later playback. I used this feature and it is amazing.

Hi Nicole, I would also second many of Ruth's comments, especially about not being so hard on yourself and focusing on one or two topics at first and expanding each year. Remember that Rome wasn't built in a day either. I found great success by dubbing my lectures as "optional." I would have students working in groups but would offer optional lectures for additional help. The neat thing was that students who usually hated lectures still wouldn't come, but would remain in their seats and try to "sneak" and listen. In optional lectures, I sat down with students in a corner of the room and had more of a discussion about what we were learning. Students really liked it and my lectures were much more interactive - and students seemed to be more comfortable asking for me to cover specific information for them. Thanks for posting your concerns - make sure to let us know how it goes! Kendra

In my regular bio class I have been much more focused on converting to project based learning. I was happy to see that even though our review day didn't seem to go well but our test results leaned more toward the ABC range. AP is a whole other animal for me. The AP discussion board is well aware of my frustrations. I have tried a compromise with them at this point were we lecture half the period and do either discussion questions, or a project the other half (excluding lab days or major project days). Part of my problem is there is so much material to cover that my bachelors in zoology didn't cover much of it. So I have trouble coming up with creative ways to have discussion or valuable projects for materials I am just teaching myself. I am good with the power point because writing the power points have been the best way for me to learn the material. My environmental class runs very well with projec based learning. Maybe I am more willing to let go in that class because there is no test at the end. With regular bio we get judged on how our students perform on that end of course assessment. So even though I am trying it is hard to let go and trust them to do the work and learn the material.

I don't know if you have heard of the "flipped classroom," but that is a model where the teacher makes podcasts/videos of their lectures and the kids watch them at home. Class time is spent on application...although it takes time to make the videos, it certainly frees up a lot of class time for project based learning, experiments, and other higher order thinking activities. You can find information at http://flippedclassroom.com/

Nicole, I perfectly understand what you're going through. I am currently with a cohort here in our county pioneering PBL on STEM subjects. We have NASA and NCTAF to support us in this endeavor, and our task is to smoothly transition from traditional teaching to student driven learning. I know within my heart that child-centered learning is the way, but there's always this resistance in me that they may be robbed of the content with this shift. However, the secret I have discovered was in the gradual transitioning. And this should not go without much preparation at first. I got most of the ideas from the Montessori learning philosophy, that if student will have to discover within the environment, the environment should have much to offer. If you used to offer them the information, this time, you have to make it all available in the resources you have within the classroom, media center, computer lab, the school garden, etc. The environment becomes the classroom, and instead of arraying to them the ideas and concepts and them just react and reason, they will search for the facts with guide questions, and some communications with them ahead of time what to expect and what to come up with, and them making up for the details. Project Based learning is just an overarching learning approach that can pull other approaches into it: collaborative learning, discovery learning, deductive reasoning, thematic approach, or anything child-centered. I really hope that what I have shared will help.

Have you thought about Flipping your classroom. Its just something to consider. Your students would need access to technology. Here is a great piece from the New York Times. Basically, students learn the content outside of the classroom by themselves and come into the classroom prepared to collaborate doing labs, projects, discussions.... Here is the link to the New York Times article: Five Ways to Flip Your Classroom With The New York Times

"Have you thought about Flipping your classroom. Its just something to consider. Your students would need access to technology. Here is a great piece from the New York Times. Basically, students learn the content outside of the classroom by themselves and come into the classroom prepared to collaborate doing labs, projects, discussions.... Here is the link to the New York Times article: Five Ways to Flip Your Classroom With The New York Times" Eresha, This is really what I wanted to say. It is just making the students search for the concepts and ideas themselves. Technologies are more predictable, and less error than us explaining things to them. A lot of times they read and learn better with computers, ipad, iphone, or just watching TV.

I am a big proponent of the flipped classroom. Although not widely embraced in my county as of yet, I discovered that using this model in my classroom increased scholar interactions with one another. I was able to work with small groups, serving as a 'guide on the side' instead of the 'sage on the stage'. As a learning coach, I could walk around the room and ask questions, while encouraging the scholars to be more responsible for their own thinking and learning. My scholars were eager to help one another instead of relying on me. On our county's benchmark assessment for first quarter, my classes scored higher overall than any other classes in our area of the district (about ten schools). My scholars all have iPads, so this past quarter, I posted information to our class Edmodo site (free to enroll). I uploaded PowerPoint presentations, reading assignments for the completion of graphic organizers, etc. Once the scholars came to class, they immediately began their laboratory investigation or Advancement Via Individual Determination (A.V.I.D.) activity. I was generally in awe the first time I saw the scholars actively engage in the learning without any prompting from me. I still have a ways to go to truly have a flipped classroom, but I think I'm off to a great start...and my administration and my parents are onboard with the changes I'm making in the classroom.

Hi Nicole - Great start on your Lecture-Free Classroom! I agree with other posts, don't be so hard on yourself. Changing your teaching methods is a process. Try easing up and revising just one lesson or one unit at a time. Work it into your curriculum over time. Reflect on the changes and their success and then add more if you wish. I'm not entirely surprised that your AP students balked at a lecture free learning environment, however, as you are fighting years of conditioning for these students that "lecture is best". They are used to being given a great deal of science content information directly by their teachers. As high achieving students taking an accelearated course they are probably most comfortable with the lecture format at this point in time. I think your compromise with the AP students is wonderful. It will push them a bit out of their learning comfort zone, yet provide enough lecture to reassure them. By the way, there is an AP Biology Lab Manual available for purchase from the College Board, so don't feel that you have to create a whole bunch of new labs and activities from the ground up. You will probably have better luck changing the culture of learning with the younger students - Intro Biology and your Environmental Science students. Great idea to focus your teaching practice changes on this group. Then when those Intro Biology students get to AP Biology, they will be ready for a Lecture Free Classroom :-) Regarding the problems with the Cell Biology unit.... Don't beat yourself up. Cell Biology is probably one of the most difficult conceptual units in Introductory Biology. Students always struggle with Cell Biology - Structure and Function, no matter the teaching format. My Biology class this year had their worst test scores by far on the Cell Biology Unit and I tried all types of creative approaches to teaching this material (as I knew it would be challenging). Another interesting discussion thread would be how to overcome the student roadblocks to learning Cell Biology...... :-) Dorothy Ginnett

Hi everyone. I just realized that one of the things that suffer in the learning behavior of a student in a lecture driven classroom is their reading ability. The lecturer can make the students read explicitly all the time, but the learner is actually not given enough practice to use what they learn in their reading classes, where they have to search for context clues together, find main ideas, look for premises and conclusions, which are only practiced a lot when there is more of actual research oriented instruction. This is one of the strong components of a project based learning set-up. This prepares them more to independent study approach, which is pretty much what is expected of them when they go to college and university.

Thanks for your comments. I still am looking at the flipped classroom idea. I haven't made up my mind on it one way or another yet. I know its a huge trend right now and I have also read many success stories. I am apprehensive do to the fact that we are encourged to provide less homework because they just aren't working at home. So if they won't work at home on homework- what will make them watch lecture video's at home? I have started a lesson in environmental on forest management. On Monday I asked them to read section 1 for homework to prepare for tuesdays lesson. Tuesday's in class work was a directed disscussion about what is a renewable resource, and then problems with renewable resources (water replenishes itself but we require clean water)Tuesdays homework was to read section 1 if you hadn't read it yet. Wed- they were asked to reread (assuming they had read the lesson for homework)the section about management strategies, they were to then work as a group and pick the strategy the found most effective, pretend they were managers of a national forest and design a management plan using the strategy they liked best. Thurs. we presented those management plans to each other. Then when we finsihed presentations, I gave them a pop group quiz. Two questions- what are the goals of each strategy and what is a disadvantage to each(didn't talk about as a class only found if you read). No each day I asked them to read section 1. They were able to successfuly define their strategy. Some could define other strategies because they listened to the groups present. Very few could list the disadvantages because very few read the section. So if I can't get them to read one section in a week. How can we get them to prepare themselves for class in a flipped classroom situation? These are juniors/seniors. I don't want to have to resport to reading together in class. Don't get me wrong. These kids are my success story at this point. They were just my example. I had no failures in 60 students (2 sections) for the semester. This is a first for me!

Hi Nicole, You certainly sound frustrated. While flipping your classroom may not be the answer or ensure kids do homework, it would be an interesting experiment to try it a few times. Kids might be more likely to watch a video because they may prefer to learn in that manner. A website that you might like that addresses some of the pros and cons of flipping is http://flipped-learning.com/?page_id=2

I do agree with you Patricia. Thanks for the link too. It's looks great.

Thanks everyone!

Great insight that I too agree with. I've been a teacher now for 13 years and coming from such a transition in the way that education has been and is heading towards, I began with lots of teacher led lessons and worksheets to very few teacher led-type lessons and more inquiry based learning. I too found that I have more students engaged and interested in science (boy, do the intermediate levels students verbalize this, never leaving you to guess) and even better, I've become more excited, passionate and even have fun now WITH my students as we learn together through our experiences. Inquiry-based learning allows students the opportunity to learn as they actually EXPERIENCE things first hand or at least it allows them to confirm or revise their thoughts, beliefs and/or misconceptions. Retention of information is also greatly increased as students have an easier time remember an activity rather than memorizing terms and defintions. I found that when they lead, often the things we take forever trying to explain to them (the implied and intangibles) come to life within the process without us even having to intentionally plan on targeting them. I'm still not there yet, as I have tons of areas that I can improve as far as manipulating my teacher led vs. student led time, however, I also need to share that with my experience, there is a HUGE difference between discussion and "lectures". Discussion with my students help those without the background knowledge to build somewhat of a "picture" as well as it allows for misconceptions and misunderstandings to be addressed and clarified. Discussion also opens doors for open communication. Lectures on the other hand is one way communication, usually boring, and quite confusing and students usually never remember the information.

Excellent post Rochelle.

I have considered flipping my Bio course to allow more time in class for hands on investigations and reinforcement. What seems to be fairly common roadblock for my students and often comes up in my professional learning community is that my students do not all have easily available internet access. I have considered burning DVDs with the lectures and having them available for checkout. Is this a common problem or am I manufacturing these roadblocks in my mind?

It is not uncommon, Eric. I work in a title 9 school. 30-35% of our students are on free/reduced lunch. Many of these students do not have internet access or a computer at home. The library is open until 4:30, but many of these kids also have to go home to babysit or work right after school. You need to know how much access your students have to the internet resources you would provide before you can hold them responsible for using them at home.

I hate lecturing, and utilize it only as a last resort when there really isn't any other choice. The success of project based learning relies on students completing at least some background work outside of class (either watching podcasts, reading background materials, etc.). I teach freshmen (Physical Science) and Marine Science (mostly juniors and seniors), and the main problem I've run into is the fact that many of them won't do the preparation work (watch the podcasts, read the text, do the background research) ahead of time. This makes it difficult to do the activities and projects. It's frustrating! I've had more success with my Freshmen (I'm guessing because they don't know what to expect in high school, so they are more willing to buy in to the idea), but little success with my Marine Science classes. I ended up with half the class failing in my Marine Science classes at one point because many of them flat-out refused to do the projects (even though they had class time to work on it) or simply did the bare minimums and ended up with D's and F's because the quality was poor. I gave in and resorted to more lecture-based lessons than I'd really like with this class, but felt that I didn't really have any other choice. Any ideas on how to solve the student-apathy side of the issue?

I’m a huge proponent for Project-Based Learning! My high school experience that I encountered while in Oregon did just this. I learned the most from taking classes, which were heavy in Project-Based Learning. Let me share with you some of the classes I took! Located in Eugene, Oregon my high school taught me so many things in the classes I took. For example, my Child Psychology classes allowed us to learn theory from lectures and through books, however, it allowed us to practice what we learned while working in our school’s very own preschool. I vividly remember working with an autism boy, who held a special place in my heart. For my Science class, we were given the task to come up with problems within our school’s community and generate a plan to solve the issue of our choice. My group and I tested the water quality at a nearby stream adjacent to our school. Prior to doing our study we had to come up with a hypothesis and devise a plan to test the water quality. We used our scientific observations, noted our findings, and came up with our solution. Because our findings concluded that there were various chemicals found in the water quality samples, we teamed with the local university science department students to devise a plan on what could be done to lessen the amount of chemicals in the water. As an effort to make the community aware of the polluted stream, we made signs and posters to get the word out and created a clean-up. After a few months had gone by, we collected more samples and noticed the stream was indeed cleaner because of our collective efforts. We were extremely pleased and I must say, this was one of many memorable teachable moments!

Mary, Where do you live? Do you live near the ocean? Or somewhere students can go on fieldtrips to learn about marine life first hand? I've taken a marine biology class while in Oregon, and we did fieldtrips to learn firsthand about species and their environments. You try and locate somewhere to take them, bring in marine life into the class, or take virtual fieldtrips to make the class more interesting. Hopefully, they'll feel more of a connection of the importance of this subject matter. This is just an idea worth considering.

Hi All, I have thoroughly enjoyed reading through this discussion. I agree with much of the advice given. I had never heard about “Flipped Classrooms” and have become very interested in the concept. I too have a hard time getting my students to complete homework at home and my biggest pet peeve it seems is “chasing” kids for their late work and having them show up to science without doing the work, especially since it is not much that is required of them. I teach 6th grade science in a low income area on Oahu, and many of my kids don’t have technology available to them. I wonder if something like this could work in our area? We don’t let text books go home for fear of never seeing them again… Not sure what would happen if students were allowed to occasionally take an Ipad home? It would be an interesting experiment to conduct. I have been trying to do more and more project based learning in my classroom, but struggle with the limited amount of time I have students each week. Thank you for sharing your ideas. It has been enlightening and given me new ideas to “chew” on. Nikki

I guess I should clarify - I love project based learning! I also teach Freshmen Physical Science, and a lot of the lessons I teach are project based and for the most part, my students do well and really seem to learn better from these kinds of learning experiences. I've had students look at real world applications of energy issues, then apply that learning by writing testimony of their own choice to our local legislators on bills that are currently being debated that are related to those energy issues. I may try a similar approach with my Marine Science classes when we hit some of the human impacts issues later this year. @Jill - I live on O'ahu and I agree wholeheartedly that field trips are a great hook to get kids fired up and really into the subject. I've tried taking kids on field trips, and for those that turn in the permission forms and go, it's a great experience! My last field trip was great - the only issue was that only a little over half of my students returned field trip permission forms to go, so the rest missed out on the experience. More than half of the students are taking Marine Science not because they're interested in the subject, but because they perceive it as an "easier" science credit than Chemistry or Physics and are looking to simply pass - when the students come in the first day of school and ask "hey Miss, I still earn the credit for the class if I get a D, right?" and more than half the class enthusiastically agrees with the question, I know that I'm fighting an uphill motivation battle. I end up differentiating lessons when feasible to accommodate this (assign projects, but have an alternative that's more traditional lecture/text based that students can do instead of or in addition-to), but that sometimes gets crazy to keep track of when it comes to grading. I know that project based lessons lead to much richer learning experiences, but if the students refuse to engage in those lessons, it gets really frustrating.

Mary, I understand your concern. I agree it can get frustrating if students don't have the desire to learn the subject/content. I'm not sure of your student body and don't know how to remedy the situation. In regards of not having all students turn in their fieldtrip permission forms, you could take them on virtual fieldtrips. This way all students can go on the fieldtrip. Let me do some digging and see if there's websites that specifically deal with Marine Biology. I know that there's one for a fishpond on O'ahu that I took.

Hi Everyone! I am so glad that I happened upon this discussion thread. I do agree with most of what has been said about the merits of project based learning versus lecturing only. I teach fourth graders so I must admit that students at this age actually benefit from both methods of learning. I do find that the students are much more engaged with the learning taking place if they are doing it through project based learning; however, the students at my grade level need the lecture prior to the project in order to understand the basic foundation of the science content being taught. I am intrigued with the idea of a "Flipped Classroom" however, I know there are certain "conditions" that need to be met on the students' part if this method of instruction is to be successful (i.e., access to the internet, time, etc...). I can see how this may be a more successful approach with high school students. However, learning about flipped classrooms is enlightening for me as a teacher of lower grade students, as it keeps me up to date with current models of teaching that are going on at the secondary level.