Biology teaching resources (11-18)
I don't have slide decks to share as I teach by drawing diagrams . Most of the resources here are curricular plans, question banks, or...
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Teaching Biology
By: Christian Moore-Anderson
Author of: Difference Maker | Biology Made Real
Post Categories: How I Teach | Pedagogy & Theory | Biology Education
How I teach the role of fungi in ecosystems as autonomous organisms
The role of individual organisms is vital to understanding ecosystem functions. Often, the organism—and how it goes about its life—is...
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How I teach the meaning of the nervous system using variation theory
The nervous system is a great topic for exploring who we are and what we can do. It's also great for explaining experience. But to do...
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How I teach enzymes with a stock and flow model
What are enzymes? For students that's a strange word. So, firstly, we'd better have a look. To do so, my favourite animation is one of...
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How I teach the lac operon with a model and variation theory
The lac operon is a classic of genetics and is common in biology curricula. Yet, students can sometimes find it difficult. I want to show...
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How I teach the monogenic disorder PKU with a model and some history of eugenics
If you're teaching Mendelian genetics, monogenic disorders are on the cards. But which ones are good examples? The IB has once again...
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How I teach the relationship between photosynthesis & respiration in plants
The relationship between photosynthesis and respiration—within an individual plant—isn't easy for students. Often I find, they've been...
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How I teach natural selection exemplified in Endler's experiments
The peppered moth of industrial England—and the Galapagos finches on Daphne Major during the 1976 drought—are common examples used for...
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Should management mandate precise teaching activities? Probably not.
Often, people seem to discuss schools as centres for optimising students' learning and teachers' teaching. However, I want to share a...
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Difference Maker: Enacting Systems Theory in Biology Teaching
Free first chapter here . Laying down a new path in biology teaching , this book explains how to enact a learning environment where...
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How I teach the nitrogen cycle with a system dynamics model
Teaching the nitrogen cycle is one of my favourite lessons. There's so much to connect to: history and everyday life. But, students also...
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What's the purpose of rehearsal (during lessons)?
Recently the idea of "rehearsal" has appeared in UK-based educational blogs. But there appears to be confusion. What's it for? Here are...
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Evidence-based educational movements are actually games
Around 2012ish, a new movement rode into the UK (school) educational scene. It came with the banner of "evidence-based", to counter the...
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How I teach the meaning of (statistical) p-values using variation theory
A principle of variation theory is identifying the aspect you really want students to discern, and then varying it. Importantly, when you...
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Helping students develop study skills: a simple model.
Advising students how to study is complex. Learning is messy, with ups and downs. Sudden insights may punctuate periods of seemingly...
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How I teach thermoregulation with a stock and flow model
How to teach mammalian thermoregulation with a system dynamics model.
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How I teach osmosis with a stock and flow model
How to help students understand osmosis by building a stock and flow diagram with them.
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What the variation theory (of learning) is and isn't. A brief introduction.
Many people who have brief encounters with variation theory come away with the idea that it is about employing examples and non-examples...
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How I co-construct a stock and flow model with students: Population size
After reading about stock and flow diagrams in my book, many people have asked for more details about how I actually go about building...
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Why endothermy should be an explicit part of the biology curriculum
During my training year I had to teach a Year 8 class (12 year-olds) the physics topic of heat. I began with a common question for the...
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My thoughts on the new IB Biology syllabus—plus some free resources
Summer is ending and the new syllabus is rolling out. I just spent a few months developing my resources for the entire course and I want...
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The ups & downs of my experience with retrieval practice
For years I've toiled with quiz questions in my biology courses (AKA core questions). I've used quiz questions as starter quizzes, to...
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Subject Knowledge: Great books for biology teachers
There is only one short cut to improving subject knowledge—reading great books. In this post I compile a selection of the books that have...
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How I introduce the digestive system
Where should a topic on the digestive system begin, let's say, for a GCSE class (ages 14-16)? Should it be with the general structure of...
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Biology Made Real: Ways of teaching that inspire meaning-making
Download chapter 1 here Summary This outstanding book... deserves to be very widely read. I hope it makes a major contribution to how...
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Case studies I've made to share for A-level, IB, and AP biology: Indicator species & life strategies
After coming across two interesting journal papers I thought they would make excellent case studies for my students. Let me introduce,...
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How should we teach the mechanism of osmosis?
What is the cause of osmosis? Typically, with my students of 14-16 years old (GCSE courses), I don't delve into the mechanism. It's the...
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A simple model for teacher sustainability and growth
What are the most important factors for teacher sustainability? I'm sure there are many. Student behaviour, planning time, teaching...
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Upgrading formative assessment: The questions that actually lead to responsive teaching
Short answer questions are currently ubiquitous in UK secondary biology education. They work well for providing objectivity. This gives...
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How I transitioned from Powerpoint-led lessons to drawing under a visualiser
The Powerpoint years Creating presentations were great for organising my thinking while I planned, I could include: Exactly the right...
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How I teach about speciation
Two recent meta-analyses have both found that for conceptual knowledge (not procedural knowledge) problem-solving before teaching is more...
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Reading the organism: Studying the whole to give meaning to the parts
This preprint was vastly improved and made into Chapter 5 of my book . This is a brief summary of my new (preprint) paper in which: I...
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How I teach blood glucose homeostasis with a stock and flow model
Glucose homeostasis—What will happen? On the surface we have the learning of the component parts of the human body that function as a...
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Why a teacher's philosophy matters as much as their pedagogy
A thought experiment: Scenario 1: Two pedagogy-passionate colleagues (of the same subject) are being observed by a non-specialist. The...
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A taxonomy for feedback: a shared understanding of learning in biology
They say that feedback is not about improving the work, but about improving the learner. Yet, what aspect of the learner? Their knowledge...
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Unifying & discerning organisms through a diagram: Making meaning of life
Whilst reading through a rather old book called Life Cycles by Peter Calow (1978), I came across a diagram that instantly struck me as...
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Putting nature back into secondary biology education: a framework for integration
This is a summary of my paper here in the Journal of Biological Education , whose ideas have been vastly advanced and presented in my...
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Embedding natural selection throughout the biology curriculum
In lower secondary science education, chemistry and physics curricula seem to focus on developing robust explanatory models, such as the...
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How I teach SA:V in biology & where some explanations fall short
In this post I will explain where I think many typical explanations fall short on the concept of surface area to volume ratio (SA:V) in...
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Why Ebbinghaus' forgetting curve isn't useful for teaching
Ebbinghau's forgetting curve has seen a resurgence in popularity. While I agree that knowledge is essential for domain specific...
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Concept maps for homework with my IB biology (KS5) course: How I did it, and what I learnt
Update I like concept maps, I think they're a valuable tool, but students do need training and I found that they also need motivation....
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How excessive use of the respiration equation can cause problems:
Cell respiration and its relationship to photosynthesis is one of the fundamental concepts of biology. It sits up high in the hierarchy...
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On life as a flow: making meaning in secondary biology education
I once approached a physics teacher to lend me his expertise and opinion on my sequence of lessons for Gravity, Mass, and Weight. His...
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Teaching variables: Does X affect Y?
While the scientific method doesn't exist , experimental methodology remains an important concept for secondary science education. It is,...
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Beyond the scientific method: Philosophy in the biology curriculum
During my teacher training we had to write a masters' level essay on the implementation of the How Science Works component of the English...
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Beyond description: Begin your biology curriculum with autopoiesis
When beginning secondary education in science the physicist may discuss energy, or forces, possibly even motion, the chemist may discuss...
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The scales of curriculum planning: why sequence isn't king.
In the UK, the knowledge curriculum seems to be enjoying high levels of popularity. The pendulum has swung (and rightly so) away from...
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Inheritance via 'Nature and Nurture'? Is it time to change what we teach?
During my training year as a teacher I taught one lesson that went really well with a bottom set science class. It generated a lot of...
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Contextualising biological components: Cellulose, an example
Cellulose is an incredibly important component of cell walls, plant cells, plants, and whole ecosystems. However, cellulose can only be a...
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Making systemic interactions explicit in biology lessons: diagrammatic representations
Biological systems are highly complex and non-linear. Students will struggle to see the wood for the trees unless the multitude of...
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