Sunday, December 19, 2004

Curriculum Revision 1.2

After struggling through cell processes and promising students that diffusion, osmosis, and active transport would be really interesting and important when we get to study the human body, I realized I could not put off that unit till the end of the year.


It just makes no sense to me to teach these cell biology topics out of context. I still believe in teaching abstract fundamental concepts on a need to know basis. Why do textbooks insist on presenting a whole separate unit on cell processes? I will cover enzymes when we get into digestion, where enzymes play an obvious and key role. DNA replication and synthesis will go with reproduction. Of course diffusion, osmosis, and cell transport are part of just about any human body function we might want to discuss.


This puts me again in the difficult situation of having to "cut & paste" from various chapters in the book, but I just cannot fathom right now trying to teach enzymes the way it is presented in the books.


On another level, it probably makes more sense to cover human body in winter, since our "subject" is right there in the classroom. No need to go on a field trip to see one or think about how things work. Other concepts that I had planned for this winter are probably better covered in spring when we can get out of the classroom - ecology in the parks, evolution at the Museum of Natural History (I'm hoping that my principal will allow field trips again by then!).

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