In this post, I explain how I've taught enzyme kinetics without slides or worksheets to 14-year-olds. This lesson followed another on enzyme structure and function, which you can find here . You can read about the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint here . Enzymes are abstract; invisible entities that appear to do work. As with anything in biology, meaning stems from relating what students learn to how it affects action in our world. This involves relating enzymes to how

The nephron is a tricky concept for many students but it doesn't have to be. In this post, I explain how I've taught it recently, without any slides, to 16-year-olds. You can read about the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint here . 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated version of this article on my new website here: https://christianmooreanderson.com/how-i-teach-kidney-ultrafiltration/

Oxygen dissociation curves are difficult for students. I often find that difficulty comes from trying to visualise the mechanism through a graph. In this post, I'll show you how I've built a model of the system with a class, which we cna then translate into a graph. Firstly, I began with two stocks and their flows. I labelled the stocks, situated them in a capillary (note the two red lines) and asked the students what the flows represented. They agreed that the first flows re

Teaching about natural selection gives a mechanism for how species change but it doesn't directly address how one species can diverge into two. Speciation, then, needs its own lesson. This post shows you how I've taught it my IB biology (16–18) students. Speciation—what will happen? I didn't just tell students about speciation because meaning can't be transmitted. Instead, I provoked them with a difference; some variation. Below is the drawing I produced to begin the lesson.

The role of individual organisms is vital to understanding ecosystem functions. Often, the organism—and how it goes about its life—is left in the background as students are taught about abstract energy flows and nutrient cycles. Students are familiar with their own role in consuming and the growth of plants. Fungi, however, are typically more elusive. To begin understanding nutrient cycling, students need to explore the lives of fungi themselves and how those lives fit into t

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 that, it needs to be given meaning, and that comes through seeing how the nervous system could be different. 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated version of this article on my new website here: https://christianmooreanderson.com/how-i-teach-the-nervous-system/

Here's how I taught about enzymes recently with students 14–16 using just diagrams and dialogue . You can read about the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint here . 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 lactase by biointeractive . Not only is the animation nice, but it's a context that is familiar to students. 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updat

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 you how I've taught it using diagrams and dialogue . You can read about the benefits of teaching without PowerPoint here . I began by discussing the structure of the lac operon. This lesson came after several in which we'd considered the complexity of eukaryotic genomes. This included introns and vast regions of "non-coding" DNA. Yet bacter

If you're teaching Mendelian genetics, monogenic disorders are on the cards. But which ones are good examples? The IB has once again decided on PKU (phenylketonuria). In this post, I'll show you how I teach it to my 16-18 year olds. 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated version of this article on my new website here: https://christianmooreanderson.com/how-i-teach-pku-with-a-history-of-eugenics/

The relationship between photosynthesis and respiration—within an individual plant—isn't easy for students. Often I find, they've been bombarded with the respiration equation to have them memorise it, yet still don't fully grasp its meaning . Then photosynthesis comes along and when they're shown that the equation is the reverse of respiration, it's just like you've reversed the word order of a peculiar sentence. The meaning of that reversion isn't clear. A stock and flow di

The peppered moth of industrial England—and the Galapagos finches on Daphne Major during the 1976 drought—are common examples used for teaching natural selection. What unites them is their method: observational work. John Endler's work, however, gives us insight into natural selection through experimental methods. Like the observational work just mentioned, his experiments showed the rapidity of natural selection when pressures change abruptly. Endler also pioneered evolutio

The nitrogen cycle is one of my favourite lessons. There's so much to connect to: history and everyday life. But, students need a clear model to understand what's going on, lest it be abstract and meaningless. I'll show you two models. One for 16–18 and one for 14–18. In this post, I describe how I built the model in a lesson with my 16–18 year olds, while the model for 14–18 can be found at the end. 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated vers

To understand p-values, you must discern a critical aspect: how confident you can interpret data. You must see how the relationship between the means and their data spread can vary, and how this affects your confidence in interpretation. This post is about getting students to distinguish the meaning of p-values. I begin by drawing a representation of sampling. This is a key concept, but students are often familiar with it due to the exams they sit. 🚨 Update: I've moved to a

How to teach mammalian thermoregulation with a system dynamics model.

How to help students understand osmosis by building a stock and flow diagram with them.

🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated version of this article on my new website here: https://christianmooreanderson.com/how-i-teach-population-size-controls/

I co-construct meaning with students through diagrams and dialogue, so I don't have any slide decks to share. Learn how to teach this way...

The fundamental insight to the digestive system is how it functions to meet the needs of the whole organism. To address this, we must...

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 pattern that matters most at this stage. But as students progress to my IB biology course (16-18 years old) and explanations lean more on molecular details, the mechanism becomes more important. In conjunction with the bigger pattern (i.e. water potential) what should we teach as the mechanistic cause? 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You

The Powerpoint years Creating presentations were great for organising my thinking while I planned, I could include: Exactly the right picture that I wanted, in the order that I thought was best. Questions that I had thought up, and add mark schemes. Again, at the right moment of the lesson. Notes to myself on something to say, or something to watch at the right point. I could develop them over years and not worry about forgetting my thoughts, and sequence or reorder lessons e