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Group 6 : LESSON STUDY

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RESEARCH LESSON
LESSON PLAN 		School Name + Department SEEDS

Course: Freshmen Biology

Team: Michael Collins, Sally Fenska, Julie Smith, Patty Teague, Dennis Vienneau

Teacher:

Date of Lesson: July 29, 2003 9am

Name of Unit: Biotechnology

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN:
Total of lessons:

Sequence of lesson topics (and number of lessons on the topic) surrounding the research lesson.

1. This lesson is the introductory lesson.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.
PLAN OF RESEARCH LESSON

Lesson Title: Morphological and Molecular Classification

Lesson Goal(s): To develop students' problem solving skills through a biotechnology activity.

Lesson Objective(s):

1. Students will identify the morphological characteristics of a group of fictitious organisms.

2. Students will develop a classification scheme based on the characterizations above.

3. Students will be able to justify their classification scheme to their peers.

4. Students will then restructure their classification scheme after the introduction of DNA sequences.

5.

Learning Process:

 
STEPS STUDENT ACTIVITIES/
ANTICIPATED REACTION		 TEACHER PROMPTS/
THINGS TO REMEMBER		 EVALUATION

 

1

5 minutes
Total: 5

 Give examples of classification schemes in their life. During the history of humankind we have grouped organisms together by various characteristics. For example, think about your clothing, do you group your clothing? How do you group your clothes? What other things can you think of that you or others group? Did this introduction elicit student responses/interest?

2

2 minutes
(duration)
Total: 7

 Students are listening to/processing the task. Today we're going to give you several critters that we'd like you to group. You and your partners need to look at your critters, and decide on characteristics you can use to group them. Characteristics can be similarities, differences or a combination. For example, these snacks have been grouped according to a variety of characteristics. You will have 10 minutes to group your critters and then we will have you share your ideas. Are their any questions?

Did the example allow the students to understand the directions?


Do the students feel comfortable proceeding with the activity?

3

10 minutes
(duration)
Total: 17

 Students will cut out organisms and group them according to characteristics they choose.

Teacher will circulate around the room asking students what characteristics they are looking at to do their groupings.

"Which critters do you think are more closely related?"

"What characteristic did you use to group these?"

"How many groups did you come up with?"

"How could you further divide these groups?"

Teacher to pass out one more critter and ask them to fit it into their scheme.

"List your groups on a piece of paper."

Are the questions asked by the teacher fostering student problem solving skills?

Are we encouraging more than one approach/answer from the class?

Are students being encouraged to communicate their thinking?

Are students on task?

4

5 minutes
(duration)
Total: 22

Students (2 groups) will share with the class what their classification scheme is and explain their system.

 

Anticipate that students will indicate that the added organism was difficult to place.

 

 

Is there a group that is willing to share their classification scheme (groupings and justification)? (tape groupings on the board)

Teacher will ask "were any of your schemes identical to the ones presented?" "What are the similarities and differences?" "What criteria did you use to establish your grouping system?"

So what happened to you when I gave you the extra organism to place in the grouping?

"Biologists who do this for a living having the same difficulties you are having today. Currently, there is no universal system."

Put the "critters" aside for a moment.

Did students group their organisms using multiple approaches?

Are they able to communicate their scheme?

5

2 minutes
(duration)
Total: 24

Students will offer suggestions of characteristics.

Think about all living things on earth - bacteria, protists, fungi, plants, animals - can you think of any characteristic we could use to compare them all? Bring them to DNA.

So let's say you have all the DNA for all the organisms, how are you going to compare the DNA? How will you use it to group the organisms?

 Was the topic of DNA student introduced?

6

15 minutes
(duration)
Total: 39

 

Students will highlight the differences in the sequences.

Indicate that there were areas of similarity and areas of differences.

 

Students will then match sequences to "critters" and tape them together.

Each group will get a segment of DNA that is a small portion of a gene (show DNA model to show it's a small section). These segments are for your "critters".

Look through the DNA. Compare each DNA sequence to organism #1. With the highlighter, mark the parts of the DNA strip that are different from #1.

At this point, what do you notice about your DNA sequences?

Match your DNA sequences to your organisms.

How would you now group your organisms? Regroup them. Discuss how the DNA sequences changed your orginal grouping(as a group)

Give them a new DNA sequence(that matches the extra one from above). Have them fit this into their new DNA scheme.

Should we give them highlighted sequences or let them highlight the sequences themselves?

Did students highlight the differences not the similarities? Would it have been better to highlight the similarities?

 

 

Is it easier for them to fit the discrepant organism into the new scheme?

Did the introduction of the new DNA sequence bring the students to an understanding of DNA's use for classification?

7

6 minutes

Total: 45

 Students will write and share ideas.

As a group, write a paragraph about your first method of grouping, and then about the grouping with DNA and how they were different.

Have students share ideas (2-3 groups).

What we've been doing this last month is similar to what you've been doing today. We have been working with bacteria from the Jersey shore to group them according to their DNA. We have even found a bacterium that hasn't yet been classified.

 Did the introduction of the new DNA sequence bring the students to an understanding of DNA's use for classification?

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MAP OF RESEARCH IDEA

Department’s Educational Mission
An idea of the possibilities of biotech. Good problem solvers. Be knowledgeable of biotech in order to be future good citizens/policy makers.

Actual Profile of Students
Incoming 9th graders from a low socioeconomic background and schools. Motivated to learn/excel. They do not have a common scientific experience or knowledge base. Their knowledge base is minimal and superficial. Can follow protocols but they don’t necessarily have conceptual understanding. Appear to be bright and capable of learning.


 Ideal Profile of Students (Goals)
They do not appear to have the conceptual scientific skills and would therefore have difficulty in solving scientific problems.

Research focus To develop students’ problem solving skills through a biotechnology activity.

Research Hypothesis

Methods and Measures

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Notes from debriefing of first research lesson taught be teacher name on date:

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