Christian Moore Anderson
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Nov 19, 20222 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Oct 27, 20224 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Sep 20, 20223 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jun 30, 20226 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jun 16, 20227 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
May 20, 20223 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
May 12, 20225 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Apr 21, 20224 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jan 24, 20224 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Nov 14, 20217 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Oct 29, 20212 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Oct 27, 20216 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Oct 15, 20216 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Sep 8, 20217 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Aug 27, 20214 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jun 1, 20218 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Feb 18, 20214 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jan 6, 20215 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Nov 4, 20204 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Oct 14, 20208 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Sep 1, 20205 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jul 31, 20205 min read
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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Christian Moore Anderson
Jul 3, 20208 min read
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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