Often, people discuss schools as centres for optimising students' learning and teachers' teaching. However, I want to share a distinction...

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

Recently the idea of "rehearsal" has appeared in UK-based educational blogs. But there appears to be confusion. What's it for? Here are some recent quotes: 🚨 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/whats-the-purpose-of-rehearsal-during-lessons/

Around 2012ish, a new movement rode into the UK (school) educational scene. It came with the banner of "evidence-based", to counter the previous movement. I'm not writing to contend whether the movement was right or wrong, but to offer a perspective of what it may be. My view differs to the major slogans of the movement as it took force. Let this movement be called EduCogSci. It was claimed to be a movement of objective reason, empowering teachers with the science of cogni

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

Advising students how to study is complex. Learning is messy, with ups and downs. Sudden insights may punctuate periods of seemingly little change. But when students are working for themselves without our guidance (i.e. at home), they need something simple to follow. Below, I offer a study guide that's worked for my classes and those of colleagues in other subjects. Take a look before I discuss it below. 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read the newest, updated ve

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.

Variation theory isn't a theory of how memories are stored. Nor is it a theory of how learning can be impeded (like cognitive load theory) it doesn't tell you what to avoid doing. Crucially, it isn't just an activity or technique you can sometimes add to a lesson. Instead, it's a theory of how we come to perceive something new. Sometimes, things can be sitting right in front of our eyes, yet we're not aware of them. When students enter our classrooms, our role is to help 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/

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...

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 to share what I've learnt. I'll discuss these things: The new syllabus "roadmap" design The content A resource that covers the content of the entire course (link below). 🚨  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/my-opinion-on-the-

For years I've toiled with quiz questions in my biology courses (AKA core questions). I've used quiz questions as starter quizzes, to summarise key points of an explanation, as homework, and for cover work. I warned about potential problems of quiz questions in a post back in 2020, linked to Prof. Rob Coe's doubts about quiz questions in the classroom . But I made real efforts to make it work and spent considerable time meditating on the best design for quiz questions ( see m

Reading great books is the only one short cut to improving subject knowledge. Here, I compile a selection that have helped me develop as a teacher and are accessibly-written. It isn't a complete list of my favourites and I'm sure there are many great books I'm yet to read. Great Books Human ecophysiology & evolution On Fertile Ground: A Natural History of Human Reproduction A Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution I, Mammal: The Story of What Makes Us Mammals 🚨 Update:

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...

"This outstanding book... deserves to be very widely read. I hope it makes a major contribution to how school biology is taught."  —Dr Michael J. Reiss, Professor of Science Education, University of London 🚨 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/biology-made-real/

After coming across two interesting journal papers I thought they would make excellent case studies for my students. Let me introduce,...

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

What are the most important factors for teacher sustainability? I'm sure there are many: student behaviour, planning time, teaching hours, pay, etc. I'll look at just two factors that, together, provide a rough rule for deciding whether an activity or assignment is sustainable. The two factors are 1) how much these activities develop the student and 2) how much they develop the teacher. Crossing these continua, we get this: 🚨 Update: I've moved to a new home! You can read th

Short answer questions are currently ubiquitous in UK secondary biology education. They work well for providing objectivity. This gives...

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

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...

Glucose homeostasis—What will happen? On the surface we have the learning of the component parts of the human body that function as a...