First let's make it clear: There is no wrong order to teach biology. There are many curriculum schemes and each is justifiable by the teacher using it.
Usually when AP Biology teachers first start out teaching the course they follow the order of the chapters in the textbook they are using -- you seem to have enough to deal with just keeping your head above water on the content and the labs, who can possibly handle mixing up the units! And all the textbooks seem to organize the course the same way -- by domains of scale: Biomolecules, Cells, Organisms, Populations, Communities, Ecosystems, Biosphere. But many of us have broken away from this organization scheme in a variety of ways for a whole range of reasons. Let's hear from teachers about how they teach their course and why they use their unique organization scheme...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Like many of you, when I started teaching AP Biology years ago, I organized it by domains of scale as it is in the textbooks. But I became disenchanted with this system because I felt it didn't integrate the concepts with the application of the concepts in living systems. I wanted to teach about how the nephron & the small intestines utilize diffusion & osmosis right after the students learn about those cellular processes, rather than waiting for months to get from cells to body systems. I also strongly believe in starting the course with evolution since this overarching concept drives the understanding throughout the class.
In the last years I have taken this even further and settled on a new paradigm that I have detailed in my blog post at NABT's BioBlog: Reframing Biology.
Please check it out.
Post a Comment