Bugs 101: Week 2

Getting into this second week of class, I feel like I’m getting into a swing and working off the rust. This weekend I had the first Essay to grade and my ULA, Maris, rocked 90% of the grades out for me. Never again will I underestimate the power of grading help. Students seemed to really struggle with the structured writing, not so much providing a claim and evidence, but explaining why that evidence supports the claim was a big ask. I’ve noticed that students, when asked to elaborate, tend to rephrase instead. I also saved my own butt and asked students to color code their claim, evidence, and reasoning, and this very quickly showed that students were not carefully constructing their arguments. Random lines in the middle of their paragraphs would be color coded as claim, additional evidence would be dropped in late and uncolored, and the reasoning would sometimes contain citations. We’re going to address the writing skills more carefully in the next unit, but I suspected the learning curve on this was going to be steep and a little grade jump scare in the first week of class may not be the worst thing for sending a message that the grading will be very particular – pedantic some might say. 

Day 3: Diversity & Classification

Learning Goals & Objectives:

• Introduce Profile #1 and the grading rubric

• Students should be able to identify peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources, and distinguish between them

• Students should be able to identify insects using the order common names, and be familiar with the scientific terminology

• Students should be able to identify modified anatomy specific to individual groups of insects and explain their function

I started off this lesson by talking about the Essay grades and reminding students that in proficiency based grading, they will have multiple opportunities to attempt the skill, receive feedback, and refine. Honestly, if students can perfectly perform on day two, how are they going to grow? I think I may need to dedicate an entire post to CER writing and really dive into some of the issues, but that can be another day.

This provided a nice segue into the intro for Profile #1 which I think will be a much more approachable assessment. Students get to be more creative, there is less complicated writing involved, and they are allowed to use any type of source for their info so they aren’t getting dinged for using web articles (which a lot of them did for the essay). I’m excited to see what students do with this and how this assessment type will evolve through the other units. (*Spoiler alert: They did so well!*)

I took this opportunity to explicitly talk about the difference between peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources, the types of things I look for, and the telltale signs that a student could use to “vibe-check” a source. From here we took a little break and students were asked to do some cursory googling to start thinking about what insect they will complete their profiles on. I like having a minute to catch my breath and reset the room with something individualized as a transition between explicit skill discussion and buggy content. Students were coming up with some really cool ideas and their one requirement was to choose an insect local to them, whether that be Michigan or their hometowns. This led to students asking about invasive species and I could already see the power of these mini-research projects in introducing new vocabulary authentically. 

As the timer ended, we transitioned into talking about all the different kinds of insects. I created slides for the most common orders and provided a core set of information about each. I’m a big proponent of breaking words down, and so for each I explained the root words for the scientific names and hopefully this built some memorization techniques for students to be able to earn some bonus points on the exam. Each order was also identified as holometabolous or hemimetabolous to help build in some vocab supports, and to model the process of recognizing that hemi-metabolous insects are linked to their nymph juvenile stage similar to larvae in holometabolous insects. I’m really pushing “holo = larvae, hemi = nymph” here so that there is recall ability. These slides also addressed some fun facts, and provided a natural platform to discuss modified anatomy specific to some groups. Better to learn about halteres while discussing diptera translating to “two-wing” than in a vacuum on some vocab list. These slides were super fun to put together and I will probably modify them for a social media post at some point because they’re so colorful.

I purposefully cruised through the order slides to get to the main event for this class. Each table had a collection of pinned specimens, printed images, toys, or resin-enclosed insects from each order with a corresponding letter label. Students were then given a crossword puzzle to solve using the vocabulary, but the definitions required that students reference the labeled insects on the table. I’m so clever. Watching students read a definition, look for the corresponding insect, try to identify what kind of insect it was, reference the powerpoint for the answer, and then seeing if the answer fit in the boxes was really fun. I think students appreciated something hands-on, and they were surprised to find that at each table there were 2 oz condiment cups with a live darkling beetle and mealworm crawling around inside. 

While students were working I got to do my favorite teacher thing… distracting students. I pulled my eastern hercules beetle, Cream, out of his container and walked around asking students if they needed help. They would look over their shoulder to say no and be met at eye level with his glistening little hairy body and their eyes would go wide. You could feel the tone in the room shift as students started to point and make comments about how “disgusting” Cream is to their tablemates. A student asked me if he was wet, because his body is surprisingly shiny for the number of hairs on him, and instead of giving an answer I asked him to hold out his hand and find out for himself. Cream ended up getting passed around by a surprising number of people, and I encouraged them to pull out there phones and take a pic. I’m hoping I caused a micro-event of snapchat stories being populated by Cream’s angry little face. After a few rounds of this, I put him back in his substrate to escape the light and pulled out a hissing cockroach. 

After class, Maris made a comment about how the students had been immediately more engaged when the live insects came out and I gave her a quippy “write that down.” As a future educator, it was good for her to experience that the hands-on, weird, unique experience broke through the thick layer of collegiate apathy. Obviously, there would be no rigor or structure in a classroom that is 100% excitement, not to mention how numbing this would become. But recognizing when the vibe is in a nosedive and having a trick up your sleeve to reel them back, that should make your teacher heart smile. This crossword also served as the exit quiz for the day, so extra points for efficiency. 

So far, this has been the class that was the most work to put together; the cards, the toys, printing and cutting out the crosswords. That being said, I think it was worth it to have students say and write these very new vocab words, and the opportunity for kids to hold and take selfies with bugs is always a homerun. 

Day 4: Biological Processes

Learning Goals & Objectives:

• Introduce the study guide and folder system

• Briefly review DNA, genes, and traits

• Students will be able to interpret the genotypes for homozygous and heterozygous individuals

• Students can complete a punnet square

• Use this genetic background to explain natural selection and evolution

• Students can explain what a niche is, and provide an example

• Students can provide characteristics of insects that explain their incredible distribution globally

• Expose students to a graph they’ll see on the exam

At the outset, rolling these concepts together made sense but putting it all together it looks really hefty. I’m finding that one of the hardest parts of teaching this group of students is the immense spread in ability and background knowledge. I have a pretty equal mix of freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, and only two seniors. They also come from a variety of disparate majors, some are STEM based, others are art or business. Considering genetics as an example, I can’t predict whether these students have learned about DNA or simple Mendelian inheritance in a recent science class, in high school, or not at all. A quick survey during class revealed that none of these students had ever completed a punnet square before (which doesn’t feel possible to me) but those are the sort of hurdles I can expect throughout the rest of the semester and this will help me make decisions about the breadth and depth of some of the topics I want to cover. 

To start class, Maris and I handed out folders to students. I have a hanging folder box I take to class each day, inside are manilla folders for each student organized by last name. This is my solution to handing back papers this year. MSU’s policy is that work not handed back should be securely stored for two calendar years as a reference (which I made the mistake of doing my first semester) and so I officially hand their work back when it goes in their folder, which they can retrieve at any time, and towards the end of the semester I’ll have them take their folders with them to inevitably fill a hallway garbage can. In their folders, they have all the printed work from the semester, along with the complete Mastery Rubric for the course printed on legal paper. The plan is to eventually use these rubrics to self-grade and refine student skills, but today folders were just an excuse to (a) give students their Exam #1 Study Guides, and (b) force Maris and I to learn student names.

This lecture walks itself straight into simple dominance, and I think the cows do a pretty good job of explaining alleles and inheritance. I was surprised when none of my students admitted to having learned about this before, so they seemed pretty engaged by the walkthrough provided by the slides. They then get to experience the old “I do, we do, you do” and watch me complete a punnet square before we do one together. Maris and I then handed out a worksheet that lets students practice punnet squares on their own. These are one of those things where it seems confusing at the beginning, but once you struggle through the first one and it clicks it becomes second nature. People got through the six question worksheet pretty quickly and with relatively few mistakes, and afterwards they admitted that completing these felt satisfying, or dare say… fun. This worksheet again functioned as the exit quiz, so another round of efficiency bonus points for me. 

Transitioning from the worksheet, we have a short lecture to connect the inheritance they just practiced to larger scale phenomena like natural selection and evolution. I kind of rushed through this, but they don’t have any questions on this exam related to either process and only need to be able to describe what a niche is, and provide an example. At this point, I was out of slides and intended to give students time to work on their Profiles (which were due in 24 hours) and all the students opted to leave early. I want to be able to provide worktime in class, but I’m seeing that the temptation of leaving early is too enticing. Being that these are college students, I feel justified in giving them options and full control of their decision making, but you and I both know these decisions are being made with a partially developed frontal lobe. More on this later I’m sure, especially as the weather gets colder, darker, and the spark of joy begins to fade. 

Reflecting on this week…

… I am so excited to be knee deep in the content part of teaching, I can feel the negative vibes the bad essay grades brought being replaced by excitement for the profile, and I’m motivated by the connections and engagement I received when I pulled the live critters out. Next week is the last week for this first unit and I intend to do some formative surveying to check student attitudes and perceptions, as well as evaluate the current structures and policies before we move into the second unit. It’s also been so rewarding having a ULA to experience and think through all these decisions, and– even better– develop some pedagogical metanalysis in this amazing future educator.