Physiological Determinants of Global Health

Classroom Strategies and Student Activities

When teachers are evaluated an aspect of their evaluation that new and seasoned teachers often struggle with is Classroom Management. The term is broad and encompasses the skills, techniques, and bag-of-tricks teachers bring to their classroom to keep their students on task, to maintain classroom structure, and to provide an academic setting. Performing a web search of classroom management strategies will lead any educator to millions of web hits. So, how does one choose from this vast pool of knowledge? In my classroom, I’ve found that one classroom management strategy that almost always works is the one we learn early in our teacher education training – engagement. As long as I am able to engage my students, student maintain behaviors appropriate or the academic environment.

In teaching this unit, the goal and the challenge is to engage students through every lecture, individual and collaborative work, and assessment. When attempting to keep students engaged, I do my best to limit the amount of down-time. If my students feel there is purpose and goal for the hour I have them, I can engaged them from the very moment they enter class. During the hour period, when student’s’ attention ebbs and flows, I make it a point to incorporate multiple learning modalities. For example, in any given hour students will read a question of interest to the lesson, discuss that question, watch a video to clarify a concept, reflect their understanding through their writing, collaborate as they move and walk with another student, and of course, simply quietly listen when necessary. All these modalities makes for a seemingly maddening and chaotic classroom environment, but it has proven to be an effective strategy for keeping my students engaged throughout the class period.

One activity that keeps my students engaged is a collaborative strategy called Two-line-Pair--Share. In this activity, students face each other and one row of students is denoted as “A” line and the other “B” line. For the purpose of this unit, students will be asked a series of question that they will share with their first partner. For example, “A” line shares their response to the question, “What respiratory problems are you familiar with?” “B” line listens and responds by summarizing or paraphrasing what was said by “A”. Then “B” line shares their response to the same question. After both sides have had a chance to listen, respond, and paraphrase, “A” line is asked to move down one person. Thus, A and B now have new partners. A new question is prompted to the students and the activity continues for about fifteen minutes. Appendix A includes a list of questions that are intended for this unit and this activity.

As my students become familiar with my classroom structure, teaching them a new skill gradually becomes easier. This is, in part, because they have come to trust that I will be prepared for class and will have something for them to learn. One of the new shifts in education is the move towards incorporating literary skills as an answer to the Common Core State Standards. Thus, embedding literacy into the science curriculum has lately become a major focus in our district. Therefore an activity students will engage in will be to review articles, textbooks, and journals to decide whether or not electronic cigarette should be banned from public spaces similar to tobacco cigarettes. A sample list of potential reading material is available in Appendix B. Since Mt. Pleasant is an AVID School (Advancement via Individual Determination), students become familiar with AVID Reading and Writing strategies beginning with their freshmen year. In reading material for this unit, students will utilize AVID’s Critical Reading strategies to work through their text. This methodology allows students to employ prior knowledge, close reading, and evaluation as they read for information. This will allow students to practice interacting with their text through the use of annotations, writing and note-taking in the margins, and to reflect on their reading.

As an example, an AVID Critical Reading Strategy involves teaching students six interacting-with-a-text skills. Using a textbook passage or article, students will need to Visualize, Clarify, Respond, Summarize, Connect and Question while reading through a text.[1] Visualization involves students drawing symbols, pictures to depict ideas presented in text. The central question teachers would ask students is, “What visual can we use to depict this concept?” When Clarifying, students are asked to define key terms and paraphrase ideas. In Responding to a text, students note interesting ideas, identify and establish claims, and remark on statements that they find shocking or surprising. Summarizing the text means to restate key paragraphs that support an author’s claims. Finally, Connecting and Questioning allows students to relate the material back to themselves, and their prior knowledge. It gives them the freedom to decide whether they are in agreement with the author, discover possible topics for extending their learning, and exposing potential fallacies or biases within the text.

In the last two years teachers throughout our district have been asked to increase the rigor in our classroom by moving students to the higher levels of Webb’s Depth of Knowledge. By being cognizant of the types of tasks we ask students to perform, moving through the levels (1-4) becomes more manageable. Though achieving Level 4, Extended Thinking, is challenging, by informing my students of this goal from the beginning I am able to prime them to expect this level of rigor before the unit begins. Moving from Level 1 understanding to Level 4 understanding requires time and constant demand on students to show evidence of their learning. I have found that giving students the autonomy to choose topics within the scope of our unit allows them to move through the succession of levels much faster than forcing my lesson into a specific DOK level. In addition, by choosing broad, multi-variable problems with multiple solutions that are relatable to real life situations, students rise to challenge of the problem because they see the importance of solving the problem and they take ownership of their learning.

The challenge in this unit will be for students to educate others regarding the health risks of poor air quality. Since our goal as a district is to move students through Webb’s Depth of Knowledge, I hope their web based readings will lead them to being able to formulate answers that require increasingly deeper understanding of the respiratory system. For my students, this means that they will understand the respiratory system, and also be able to use this information in classroom discussion, debates, and ultimately their culmination project.

After completing their assigned and self-selected activities, students will complete a laboratory activity in which they use a balloon to illustrate different lung volumes and capacities. Biology Corner has a lab that provides detailed instructions for this activity.[2] Students in physiology will do a similar activity but they will also be asked to create a model lung using a simple soda bottle, straw, and balloons. Though some students have familiarity with this model, the activity will be extended by asking students to experiment with various factors that would decrease the lung’s ability to do work. In this lab, students will need to propose the materials they intend to use/change and predict the overall affect and functionality of the lung.

Finally, as a culminating project I intend for my students to discover and use free software applications to create propaganda posters for cleaner, safer air. As a district, we have shifted towards the use of technology in the classroom to familiarize students with various computer applications that can be helpful in their studies and thus projects that encourage technology is highly encouraged. After learning the anatomy and physiology of the respiratory system and reading about the air quality in multiple cities around the world, students will be asked to create a propaganda ad for better air quality in the language of that country. Along with the propaganda ad, students will justify their ad with evidence that expresses the need for cleaner air as it related to the physiology of the respiratory system. This ad will be available through student generated web pages. During presentations, each student’s ad will have a QR (Quick Response) code. When the QR code is read by one student’s QR reader (a free application for cell phones), it will lead other students’ cell phone or tablet to the student-generated web pages. Thus, the class will be able to see respiratory health issues throughout the world and, hopefully, inspire others to change their habits to improve their respiratory health.