As teachers of 21st century where technology has undergone such a big boom, we are at a complete new era of learning and teaching. Through it this course we have encountered different ways of incorporating communication technology in classroom. Nowadays it is all about communication. As teachers we need to need to take this on board and get ourselves accustomed with the latest changes.
We have been writing weekly blogs on specific topics which are already discussed in the classroom. We have expressed our own understanding and commented on other’s blog. This process took some time every week. But I actually found it very effective. My understanding was not limited to tutorials only. I had to research and think about the topic and come up with my own reflections.
This technique can be applied in biology classroom, where students have to come up with answers on particular problems in any module. Moreover it can be used as a tool for online discussion. Then the whole blog will be like a note on various important that teacher provides constructive feedback where students can make necessary improvements to their answers.
Again if this is a summative assessment, students must have a clear cut idea about the marking criteria about each blog they submit. Moreover to fill in the criteria of a rich authentic assessment we must ensure that it
-assesses a range of outcomes
-meaningful and manageable
-tests students’ ability to apply knowledge and skills in new
situations
For example the optional module 9.6 Biotechnology, my chosen outcomes are H1, H3, H5, H8, H12,H13, H14 and H16. The assessment will be titled as“Evolution of biotechnology”, where students will be researching into the past, present and future of biotechnology. Students will be posting series of posts through out the module. Some of the posts are as follows:
Post1: describe any one of biotechnology by Aboriginals.
Post 2: explain how strain isolation method has changed technologies like fermentation.
Post 3: Impact of bio transformation technology on medicine industry.
This module provides a good opportunity to teach ethics to the student and help them to take their own understanding in respect of DNA technology.
So the final post will be like a discussion, where students apart from posting their own blog, will be commenting on three people’s blog. This will create the opportunity to share and respect each others' opinion.
There can be many other ways to use blogs in biology classroom. It takes the learning on student’s context making it interesting as well as reflective.
Bibliography:
NSW Board of Studies. (2002). Stage 6 Syllabus Biology. Sydney, Australia: NSW
Board of Studies. Available from
NSW Board of Studies. (2009). Science Stage 6 Revised Support
Document. Sydney, Australia: NSW Board of Studies. Available from
Plummer, F. (1999). Rich assessment task: exploring quality assessment for
school certificate. SCAN, 18 (1), pp 14-20. Available from
/assets/pdf/rich_tasks.pdf
Scott, J. (n.d.). Authentic assessment tools. Retrieved October 15, 2011 from
http://www.calpro-online.org/eric/docs/custer/custer5.pdf
