Biology didactics

Planning and work aids

General didactics and subject didactics

There may be naturally talented people who develop good teaching from the gut. However, even if this ability is present, it is very often limited to certain areas of teaching (e.g. in which one has a lot of previous experience or outstanding professional competence).

Beyond the scope of this natural aptitude, knowledge from general didactics and subject-specific didactics can be used for various planning fields (decision fields!) when planning lessons. These aids can make the planning process more structured and efficient. Teaching and learning processes can be divided into different phases.

1st hour entry

Assistance from "General didactics"

"The introduction to the lesson should - with the direct or indirect help of the teacher - open up the pupils to the subject and the subject to the pupils" (H. Meyer 1987 Vol. II, p.123). [...] An introduction to a lesson should motivate pupils." (from A. Riedl, Grundlagen der Didaktik). Constructivist didactics, for example, provides a possible approach that subject didactics can take up: e.g. the cognitive conflict!

Further sources on general didactics:

 

Assistance from subject didactics

Subject-specific didactics is able to look at problems that arise when finding a teaching approach against a subject-specific background and find solutions. It can also categorize according to subject-specific principles, which makes it possible to provide approaches for generalizing assistance in planning the introduction.

2nd development phase

Assistance from "general didactics"

In the development phase, the teacher uses certain "methods" and "organizational and social forms" (the link illustrates the "definition problems") to design the learning process and the "learning path". General didactics comments on the fundamental advantages and disadvantages of individual forms. As a rule, it cannot say which form should be used in a specific lesson, as the decision must be adapted to the subject in question. One of the reasons for this is that both the conditional fields (or framework conditions) and the decision fields are subject-specific. This is not least due to the fact that the "subject-specific working methods" vary, which is why subject-specific didactics must also offer solutions here. Approaches from learning theory didactics ("Berlin Model") help to structure the learning process.

Assistance from subject didactics

In principle, the use of subject-specific working methods is helpful and desirable. From a methodological point of view, they provide a learning path as well as suitable organizational and social forms. In addition, their use is essential for achieving certain formal, affective and psychomotor learning objectives. Appropriate working methods for certain lesson content are almost self-evident when subject-specific skills are present.

3. securing phase

Assistance from the "General didactics"

The basic tasks of a backup and the associated requirements can be taken from the general didactics. It does not offer any subject-specific features.

Assistance from subject-specific didactics

This is where subject-specific working methods come into play. For example, drawings of microscopic specimens or corresponding photos can serve as a backup. It may also be possible to use specimens themselves or collected originals (cf. herbarium) as a backup. General didactics can offer little in the way of planning in this direction; subject-specific didactic knowledge is required here. There are subject-specific possibilities in biology that go beyond a mnemonic or a collage. However, it is often possible to adapt "general recipes" from didactics to the subject being taught.

Tools

Teaching/learning mini-world: BeiBringBasar

The BeiBringBasar concept offers advantages that cannot be used in other courses at the university or in the second phase of teacher training: direct student contact and a setting for a teaching-learning laboratory to investigate the impact of changes to teaching materials and concepts.

  • Development of 15-minute teaching-learning sequences for student groups of 3-4 students, which can be carried out at a table.
  • Short written feedback from learners after 20 minutes
  • Switch to the next stand
  • While the pupils go through 6 different teaching-learning units within one morning, the student teachers have the opportunity to flexibly test experiences from previous runs or alternative plans with a new group of pupils.

Experiments & hypotheses

The planning of biology lessons is often based on the natural science of biology (see standard procedures). Therefore, corresponding scientific structures can be found in the BU: deduction & induction, hypothesis formation & testing as well as experiments and trials.
Clarification of the terminology before planning is helpful for meaningful implementation, so here is an attempt at a summary.

Scientific hypotheses

Scientific hypotheses must fulfill at least 2 conditions:

  1. they must be free of contradictions and clearly formulated
  2. they must be verifiable and, if necessary, refutable
    There must be facts/results that confirm the hypothesis, but also facts/results that refute it (falsifiers). At the same time, the terms and concepts appearing in the formulation must be operationalizable, i.e. they must be ascertainable by observation.
  3. they must be formulated in the sense of a synthetic statement

The following characteristics must also be present:

  • they make statements about relationships or are answers to problems

There are different types of hypotheses; a basic distinction is made (e.g. Hussy & Möller) between

  • Causal hypotheses (e.g. the more - the more, if - then)
  • functional hypotheses (e.g. x has the function f in the system S)

The experimental requirements and investigation options for testing these two types of hypothesis do not differ in their structure, but they do differ in the interpretation of the results and the necessary controls or comparisons (cf. R. Kötter, Notes on experimental culture).

pdf-Tools:

  • pdf24: creates and separates or merges pdfs, installation as printer(inst. version)
  • pdf-Creator: virtual printer, creates a pdf from anything by "printing" (inst. version)
  • PDFTKBuilder: separates and merges pdf documents(portable version)
  • pdfXChangeViewer: creates annotations, graphics etc. in pdfs(inst. version)

XLS-Sheet

T-Test

Prerequisites:

  • at least interval scaling
  • Normally distributed data: test e.g. with Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, significant Levene test usually sufficient

SPSS analysis

  • Test for normal distribution (for selection of parametric or non-parametric tests): Statistik Guru | Deskript. Anal. -> Exploratory data analysis -> Normal distribution diagram with tests -> provides Shapiro Wilk and Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests
  • Attention: Filters may not be displayed!
  • Analyze --> Compare mean values
  • T-test for independent samples allows comparison of 2 groups using a "filter" or assignment variable
  • Cronbach's alpha --> Analyze --> Reliability
  • Select data --> Data --> Select cases --> If ... Enter condition | (SEX = 1 & ALTER < 26) | (Sex=2 & ALTER >=25) | Link | Link
  • Calculatemean value or new variable: Transform --> Calculate variable, enter numerical expression or function here
  • Correlation analyses do not work with strings (small a in the colored balls) in data view Change 2nd column and recode
  • Effect size (unpaired T-test, not in SPSS) Cohen's d for paired T-tests
  • Factor analysis Statistics Guru; evaluation and parameters
  • Error bars MathGuru

Material on augmented reality

HP Reveal app:

HP Reveal Studio:

Trigger, overlay and instructions:

  • zip with templates and how-to for Ishihara in the workshop
  • zip with templates for the Alzheimer Workshop(WIS) & HowTo.pdf (Attention: link is studio.aurasma.com)
  • zip with templates Weilburg & HowTo.pdf & Android apk of the Alzheimer's case

Photometry:

Lesson outline - The written lesson plan

Checklist for a good draft (certainly incomplete!)

  1. Check the formulated lesson topic! Is the wording OK and in line with the definition, does it fit the content and the objectives?
  2. Check the specified objectives: Are they formulated correctly? Do they go beyond a mere description of activities? Can their "development" be found in at least one phase of the lesson plan? Are they checked somewhere or is their content secured? For review purposes, assign the learning objectives (LOs) to the individual phases/steps that are to be aimed for or achieved. It must be possible to reproduce all the specified learning objectives in the lesson. At the same time, all teaching steps (and media) must serve a learning objective.
  3. Is the factual analysis sufficient/not too extensive? Are sources cited?
  4. Is the significance of the subject matter sufficiently explained in terms of content? Are the different levels of educational objectives highlighted (personal, social, professional level/objectives/significance)? What do I lay the foundations for and contribute to in terms of individual and social development and subject-specific education with the subject matter?
  5. Does the didactics consider the advantages and disadvantages of different phenomena, contexts and approaches, taking into account the "simplicity" and mindset as well as the possibilities of the students?
  6. Do you work out a "path of knowledge" in the didactics, consider and name possible problems of knowledge and highlight solutions/help of a content-related/logical nature?
  7. Do you show in the methodology what advantages the selected media and methods offer in solving the problems discussed in the didactics or on the learning path itself?
  8. Is the work material aligned with your didactic goals and considerations?
  9. Are the work instructions and/or tasks - also on the ABs - clearly formulated?
  10. Are the tasks conducive to achieving a learning objective or partial learning objective? Can you assign a role/meaning/function to individual tasks in the development of content and knowledge on the learning path?
  11. Does the design of the materials in terms of layout take into account the laws of perception?
  12. Are optional tasks provided for particularly fast learners? Can the content developed in the process be made available to everyone at a later date and possibly integrated into the BU?

Didactic journals & research publications

Journals on biology education

Collections

Books

  • Fundamentals of Didactics
    Alfred Riedl; Steiner, Edition: 1 (October 2004)
  • Biologieunterricht heute: Eine moderne Fachdidaktik
    Killermann; Auer; Edition: 12th, revised and updated edition. (October 2009)(Amazon)
  • Biologiedidaktik - Grundlagen und Methoden
    Berck; Quelle & Meyer; Edition: 3rd, corr. u. überarb. A. (June 2005)
  • Biologie-Didaktik: Praxishandbuch für die Sekundarstufe 1 und 2
    Spörhase-Eichmann, Cornelsen Verlag Scriptor (September 2004)
  • Fachdidaktik Biologie
    Gropengießer, Eschenhagen, Kattmann; Aulis Verlag Deubner; Edition: 8th, revised edition. (December 2006)
  • Theories in Biology Didactics Research - A Handbook for Teacher Training Students and Doctoral Candidates,
    Dirk Krüger and Helmut Vogt, Springer-Lehrbuch, 2007, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-68166-3, Springer-Link
  • Presenting in science and research,
    B. Hey 2011 Springer, 2011, DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-14587-2_4

Individual publications:

Evaluation & good teaching

Extracurricular places of learning

  • State examination paper on extracurricular places of learning(link Hessischer Bildungsserver) | local
  • Hamburg framework for learning at extracurricular learning venues | local

Accompanying material for the events

Various information offers on the Internet

Didactic location

This term does not refer to a spatial, but rather a temporal, localization in the lesson (or series of lessons). Based on the phasing (articulation) of a lesson, a worksheet or an experiment is located in a specific phase of the lesson and thus pursues a very specific didactic objective. In the "introduction" as a didactic place, for example, a problem should be created or curiosity aroused. In the "elaboration" phase, the aim is to solve the problem posed for the first time. An AB that is used in this phase must therefore either be "question-developing" or make the solution accessible to the students by means of an experiment. To achieve this, a certain amount of information content must be guaranteed. An AB used at the end of the lesson with questions that are answered using existing knowledge from the lesson or that summarize acquired relationships serves as a "backup" (or learning objective check).

Ultimately, the didactic location is often understood as a temporal teaching phase, although it is not the time but the didactic objective being pursued that is important. For example, there may be several phases of development or backup in one lesson. The didactic location, i.e. ultimately the purpose of use, therefore places certain conditions on the media used.