Download chapter 1 here
Summary
What you'll find inside:
A vision for an integrated and meaningful biology education.
A framework for teaching for meaning-making, which cuts planning time.
Ways of creating a unified narrative across disparate topics.
A taxonomy of understanding that unlocks problem-solving with minimal workload.
Tried and tested examples from mixed-attainment biology classrooms.
'This is a book that all teachers, not just biology teachers should read.'
—Ben Strathearn-Burrows, Head of Biology, Emanuel School
Introduction
'I've been motivated to discover for myself what biology is to us as humans.
What it means to understand biology, and how I could make it meaningful for my students. I've read as much as I could and reflected, I've discussed and listened, I've taught and observed.
This book is about sharing what I've learnt with my secondary-school mixed-attainment biology classes.'
'Not only is this book likely to change how you teach biology but also how you perceive yourself within the living world.'
—Dr Alex Sinclair, Institute of Education, St Mary's University, Twickenham
Eight chapters
Chapter 1:
Meaningful biology relates principally to organisms
This sets the scene for the book.
It brings together many threads to define what I see as most meaningful to secondary biology students. And therefore what we can do about it when planning our lessons & curricula. Planning for meaning-making has vastly enhanced interest and motivation to learn in my classroom.
Chapters 2 & 3
Teaching for meaning using variation theory
How variation theory unfolds in the classroom
Next I introduce a powerful—relatively unknown and often misunderstood—pedagogical theory. Variation theory. In these chapters I set out to show how useful it is—and easy to use—in the secondary biology classroom, using many examples.
Chapter 4
How to integrate organisms, ecology & evolution
Now I pull together all of the previous chapters to present a new framework for teaching for meaning-making. I've greatly advanced the framework I published in 2021 (Moore-Anderson 2021). Those biology-based arguments have been united in a symbiosis with a variation theory. This framework:
Has cut my planning time for great lessons by forcing me to focus on what matters for meaning-making to occur in biology.
Served as a powerful classroom heuristic for when I haven't had time to plan a lesson.
Has brought more nature into my classroom by explicitly promoting the presence of varied species and landscapes as examples in my explanations—without overloading a lesson or curriculum.
Has helped in developing a 'thinking-culture' in my classroom.
I also discuss exactly how to embed evolutionary theory into the entire curriculum, and present a modified version of the framework above for teaching ecological concepts.
Chapter 5
Concepts of the organism that unite a biology course
Biology is often seen as a fragmented subject—with lots of disparate topics. Here I discuss two concepts that I think can unify all the topics on the curriculum and help students make meaning.
Seeing biology through a thermodynamic-systems lens, and
Seeing biology through an ecological-evolutionary lens via the concept of life strategies.
I lay out the reasons why and show how I've introduced these ideas to my students.
Chapter 6
Teaching systems thinking to help students see interconnectedness
This chapter is dedicated to systems thinking—a powerful lens for viewing and studying biology that is relatively unknown and under-exploited in England. Firstly I show how stock and flow diagrams are very useful for the biology classroom and give examples. These are much than just 'flow diagrams'.
Next, I introduce a new taxonomy of understanding biological systems (shown below). Embedding this taxonomy in my curricula has:
Helped me instill a long-term vision of learning that is more interconnected, synoptic, and meaningful—encouraging students to move away from the rote memorisation of isolated parts and processes.
Helped me unleash endless workload-free questions that make students think hard. It has unlocked problem-solving 'the biology way', and freed me from the idea of topic-specific success criteria.
Made live-marking more meaningful and interesting (marking with a class during a lesson using a visualiser).
Helped me build a classroom based on feedback cycles rather than many data-driven summative assessments.
Chapter 7
Establishing a thinking classroom
This chapter is focused on the whys and hows of embedding the taxonomy into my biology curricula. I give examples of how I use it and many examples of my students answers from lower and upper secondary courses.
Chapter 8
Navigating classroom and biological complexity
This chapter brings us to an end by considering complexity in biology and in the classroom.
Download chapter 1 here
Reviews
'Innovative books about school teaching are, all too sadly, rarely written by classroom teachers—they simply don't have the time. This outstanding book is, nevertheless, the work of a classroom biology teacher. I wish I had read it while I was still teaching school biology. It has helped me to see so many aspects of teaching in a new light. It 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
'For the average student, the biology curriculum can seem overwhelming. Christian Moore-Anderson shows us that we can approach it from a different perspective that allows students to develop a greater understanding of the ‘why’ in biology and moves it away from the perception of the science of facts. This book will make biology teachers think about the approach to planning their curriculum and help them develop critical thinking using the taxonomy of understanding approach and will allow students to make connections between seemingly distinct aspects of the subject. This is a book that all teachers, not just biology teachers should read.'
Ben Strathearn-Burrows, Head of Biology, Emanuel School
‘Biology Made Real’ comes with an education health warning - be prepared to have your beliefs challenged. Christian has thought long and hard about all aspects of Biology and created a comprehensive set of frameworks that educators can use to improve their teaching. The text is infused with examples from his classroom practice and underpinned by robust scholarly evidence. Not only is this book likely to change how you teach biology but also how you perceive yourself within the living world.’
Dr Alex Sinclair, Institute of Education, St Mary's University, Twickenham
‘Many subject specific education books approach from the perspective of how we can enable students to learn a curriculum, providing strategies and pedagogical advice for teachers to utilize. Philosophical education books tackle what it really means to know and understand, challenging us to think more deeply about the purpose of specific curricula, pedagogies or even education. In this book, Christian has woven the two together expertly, providing both a theoretical and practical framework for thinking about and delivering a Biology curriculum in schools.
Reading the practical strategies felt strangely familiar, and yet at the same time remarkably refreshing. From the ‘what if’ questions to systems thinking, the harmony between pedagogy and philosophy allows Biology teachers to prioritise meaning-making without generating workload. The integration challenges us to think more deeply about Biology, and in turn ask the same of our students.
Whether you’re an experienced teacher or just starting out, quite simply, every Biology teacher should read this book.’
Dr Daniel Rosen, Head of Secondary at an international school in Germany
‘It’s strange that a subject priding itself on an integrated view of life on Earth should take a reductionist and atomistic approach to its teaching. Moore-Anderson takes us on a different journey suggesting that nature’s unifying forces become pedagogical ones. Yes, we are studying trees, but they are part of the woods that we also need to understand. This is an excellent text demanding we think not just about what we teach but also why and how.’
Dr Paul Ganderton, Consultant and researcher
Download chapter 1 here
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References
Moore-Anderson, C. 2021. "Putting nature back into secondary biology education: A framework for integration." Journal of Biological Education. doi: 10.1080/00219266.2021.1979628.