Teaching Strategies
An input chart with basic information will become an anchor chart for students to use during the entire curriculum teaching. Most of my science content is from a textbook that teaches essential life science. Life science is mainly covered in the fifth grade. Still, our sixth-grade curriculum has specific content: cells, DNA, RNA, genetics, bacteria, viruses, and ecology, and several topics are covered. Life science is covered at the end of the school year, but this curriculum will be introduced in the first quarter of the school year. Our seventh and eighth-grade science teachers would like our fifth-grade and sixth-grade students to know science terms, understand the scientific methods, learn to make observations, and be willing to discuss any thoughts and feedback about learning. The school’s goal is to make students see the world through a lens of being curious. Evolutionary medicine is the topic due to the interesting case studies that will be shared. Sharing how the history of living organisms evolved to what we see today. In addition, we are attaching the idea of using bacteria and phage or probiotics with cell mutations. The mutation of an organism is natural and sometimes helps scientists cure or alter the path of a bacteria or virus's existence. Teaching them how cells communicate in layman’s terms would make learning much more straightforward.
Direct Instruction on vocabulary: An anchor chart activity using a graphic organizer explains what a virus, a pathogen, and a bacteria look like in the cartoon version. This mini vocabulary lesson entails content-rich definitions with graphic pictures as anchor charts. These anchor charts will be used to refer to during direct instruction. Students will have accumulated at least 20 words. These words will be user-friendly and can be used for future instruction in life science lessons.
Direct Instruction with interactive group reading, group video, and group chart. Using this strategy, students will take notes on how the history of organisms and the history of medicine join to make evolutionary medicine. This will be taught in three days. The school textbook Life Science will provide a short background knowledge and a simple explanation of the evolution of all living things. On the second day, the students will use YouTube to search for medicine and problems with antibiotics for humans.
Think-pair-share is a strategy to clarify any misconceptions about vocabulary or readings. A group of three students will read short passages and discuss the critical ideas. After each student shares the main ideas, students write their responses in summary style for others to read. Once the group shares with the class, they will post their responses near the anchor charts. Students will be allowed to ask questions about the summary later for clarity.
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