V+.Patel

So far, I have given students from my SBI3U course an opportunity to respond to the images taken from //Evaluating// //Techologies// resource document from the stepwiser website. Please see the attached file that describes the instructions the students were given.
 * Friday October 12:**

Since it was an unusual week (the colleges/universities fair was held on Thursday October 11 and more than half of my students went to a field trip on Friday October 12), I decided to begin the activity on Friday and continue on Monday October 15.

The activity involves several parts as outlined below:
 * 1) students' responses to the images (displayed on 11x17 paper; one image per paper; all papers were taped throughout the classroom). They had to respond freely on the paper itself quietly as only student was allowed to be at a given station. This allowed for concentrated individual reflection. The students were quite engaged (no one was talking and all were writing).
 * 2) individual student response to his/her image (either selected from an envelope or self-chosen), to be uploaded on Moodle by this Wednesday October 17.
 * 3) students' responses to their peers' viewpoints using a discussion forum I created on Moodle, to be completed by this Friday October 19.

As for the changes I made to the original design of the acitivity, I decided to use a discussion forum in lieu of a collaborative wiki. Reasons are two-fold. I have used a collaborative wiki last year and therefore, I wanted to try something different. I have never set up a discussion forum using Moodle, so the challenging opportunity presented itself. Also, I feel a discussion forum would be a quicker way for students to reply to their peers' posts. I did a test run to see how it would work out and have created instruction files on how to create a discussion post and how to reply to an existing post. I look forward to reading all posts. I do intend to give students an opportunity to ask questions in class on Wednesday since that is when they must upload their individual reponse to their image. Students are already familiar with how to upload an assignment using their Moodle account as they have done that before but now, I need to ensure that they can also post and reply to discussion items. Secondly, a collaborative wiki may not be the best way to reply to other students' responses. It has real value when all members would like to revise one web-based document.


 * Monday October 15:** It became clear to me that continuing the activity on day 2 was not as productive as it was on day 1 (students who had completed the activity on Friday seemed to disrupt those who had been absent. Also, a number of students took that opportunity to seek clarification on other assignments they had and to discuss Moodle-related issues. If I were to do the activity again, I would not limit students to visiting at least 5 stations as some wrote faster (ideas came quicker) than others did. It would place a time limit. Some students asked if they had to write their name next to your reflection. I think it would have increased student participation if they were held accountable to their actions by way of writing their names down. I did not want them to feel that I was judging them in any way and wanted to encourage them to be freely expressive (no holds bar!), so they were told not to write their names as the activity was intended to access their preconceived notions, allow them to see other student's viewpoints, and to allow those viewpoints to trigger other ones. I did tell them that the goal of the exercise was to expose them to other students' viewpoints so as to faciliate their own thinking surrounding the issues. It helped on Friday but not so much on Monday. Before they did the in-class activity, I read an article on the usage of technology and how that can lead to digital brain damage. This article provided students a structure as a basis for their ownimage-generated reflections.

Each small group was identified by the colour of the paper the reading material was photocopied onto, for a total of 4 different groups (4 different techniques). Every student was given the reading material. So, there were //blue, green, pink// and //yellow// groups. Once they completed their same-coloured group-based work, they had to form new groups containing only one representative of each //colour//, such that all groups would then have one //blue//, one //green//, one //pink// and one //yellow// representative. Such groups can only be formed from either the left or right side of the class, depending on where they were placed initially. I found this to be quite useful because I could quickly tell whether the groups were correctly constructed (and they were). Students had no difficulty as they knew where to go. In the newly constructed group, each student shared his/her own work (summarized on legal-sized sheet) based on the technique they were assigned to. I really enjoyed this activity and I believe the students did too. They were fully engaged, were on task and eager to communicate with other students. I did find that some students ended up going to the opposite side of the classroom rather than staying on the same side. If I were to do this again, I would ensure that the left-situated students did not come together with the right-situated students. All in all, the work got done and students were explaining the techniques/controversies to other students, so it was a real learning experience for them. Students did spend more time on their individual responses and felt a bit rushed at the end, so I would need to work on managing time more effectively by giving them a strict time limit to complete each component of the task. I did specify how much time to spend on each part but they needed more time and I allowed it. Some groups did complete everything during class time but some groups had to come back at the beginning of lunch to complete it.
 * Tuesday October 16:** Another activity I had my students participate in was a cooperative learning activity (jigsaw + placemat structure) centering around techniques used to extract stem cells and controversial issues tied to each technique.I accessed this activity from the Action Bioscience site found in the stepwiser wikispace. I divided the class in half such that each large group had 4 smaller groups of 3 students each. Each student in a group received the following:
 * 1) one white letter-sized sheet with specific questions to answer individually after reading the handout silently. This allowed each student to be accountable for his own learning and have something to contribute once the group begun its discussions.
 * 2) one white legal-sized sheet: each group had to collaboratively (placemat) fill in the section that related only to the technique they were assigned (How is it done? Origin of stem cell. Points of controversy. These were to be filled in the respective boxes of the table corresponding to their technique. On the other side of the sheet were 4 boxes and they had to diagram the technique based on what they read about it.
 * 3) one coloured sheet: one side contained a description of the technique with a diagram; the other side was a news article related to a real-life application of it. Both sides contained controversial issues.

Students were assigned to conduct current stem cell research by searching for and reviewing an article. For details, please see page 75 of the uploaded pdf file. This is due on Monday October 22nd.

From Larry: Varsha, you said you were starting a unit on Animal Structure and Function. Here are some general ideas about how you might integrate STEPWISE into it.
 * 1) Get students to express/discuss etc their pre-conceived notions about STSE issues relating to the unit….given this is, essentially, animal/human physiology, I suspect you could get them to discuss pros and cons of various products and services relating to human health and nutrition…e.g. Diet pills, stomach pain relief pills, fast foods (causing problems with digestion, heart disease, diabetes, etc)…They should, of course, also, discuss various stakeholders. They could, then, conduct secondary research on their topics and be asked to develop some simple action(s), such as development of posters or ppt slide shows….that maybe play in some public place?…
 * 2) You should show students one or two examples of actions people have taken to address one or more STSE issues about animal/human physiology. Just showing them a couple of videos about an issue could work….but, you could extend this to maybe one of the case methods….here. Again, I think the [|Action BioScience site] might help. I also think it would help if we could brainstorm some mini-cases – like those attached (Krstovic….)
 * 3) You should guide students through research-informed actions on STSE issues of their choice relating to animal physiology…To do this, you may first have to teach them about correlational studies and experiments. Again, the module has examples of this. For example, students in a grade 11 class were guided through projects in which they measured people's heart rate or blood pressure against various variables, such as how frequently they visit fast food restaurants. They also did some secondary research about their topic (e.g. Junk foods) - and then all groups produced pamphlets (like the one attached (Seliotis..) – and like the ones Tine showed us last meeting.
 * 4) Eventually, if you feel your students are ready, they may conduct self-directed research-informed action projects on STSE issues of their choice; but, this may not occur until another unit…?

I clicked on the aforementioned links you suggested, Dr. Bencze, but what I found most interesting and relevant was some of the activities described in the Skills Apprenticeship pdf file posted on the Stepwiser wiki. Today, I introduced correlational studies by reading an excerpt from an article entitled "In praise of fat" (by Jennifer Graham,Optimyz July/August 2012) I found in a magazine. Ancel Keys used government funding to conduct a study to prove his theory that //fat makes you fat//. Out of the 22 countries he visited, he only used data collected from 7 countries as only those countries supported his viewpoint. He failed to notice the correlation evident in countries (like France) that had high fat diets also had low obesity rates. I chose to use this example as way of stressing the importance of using a large sample size (not ignoring any portion of it that refuted one's thinking) to make valid correlations. I then introduced another correlational study that might look at the relationship between hours of time spent in daycare and level of aggression demonstrated in children who enter kindergarten. Any correlation found between these two variables does not automatically mean that a naturally changing variable (i.e. daycare hours) causes a definitive effect on another variable (i.e. level of aggression) as other variables must be factord in that could potentially influence the relationship you are investigating. A correlational study must aim at keeping other variables that might affect the relationship to be investigated constant (e.g. children from same ethnic background, living in same area, watching same amount of T.V, at least comparable amount of it, viewing similar programs on T.V. etc.). I then went on to introducing the basic differences between an experimental study and a correlational study. Student were informed of the fact that scientists can manpulate variables in a controlled way (one variable at a time while other variables are kept constant) to see what effect changing one manipulated variable has on another variable. Students were asked to compare dependent and independent variables. I got differing responses as they forgot which one is manipulated to see its effect on the other variable. I then discussed how it is unethical to manipulate certain variables in society (e.g. giving narcotics to subjects to see its effect on amount of sleep subjects experienced). Hence, the need to study effect of a naturally changing variable on another variable, i.e. correlational study. Pages 20, 27,24, 25, 19, and 26 from the Skills Apprenticeship pdf document produced by Dr. Lawrence Bencze were completed by students working in small groups. Students enjoyed discussing connections they think might exist between **possible** //cause and// **possible** //result// variables. The operative word here is //possible//(not definitive)//.// As a follow-up assignment, students will be asked to write a reaction paper wherein they respond to two correlational studies. Specific questions are posed. Please see attached Word file entitled "Correlation Does Not Equal Causation" where the description of the assignment is detailed.This assignment is due Friday December 21st.
 * Tuesday December 11th:**