Nothing makes me prouder than when my students do well or show improvement. When I think back on the year, there are two highlights I can point to, one for bio and one for anatomy. It's funny, too, because the chapters my students did the best in happened to also be the chapters that I showed the most enthusiasm for. I am sure that helped make a difference.
For anatomy, the chapter with the best success rate was definitely the senses. The average test score across periods was a B. Not only that but students asked the most questions, paid the most attention, and were more engaged, especially with the vision test lab. It felt like we all had a ton of fun together on this. Because it was fun, I feel like they learned the most in this section, which is backed up by the test they took.
In biology, my favorite part has always been evolution/natural selection. Next comes invertebrate zoology, but we did not have much time to get into them this year although I did go over them a bit. The students seemed to really like this chapter because I brought in tons of examples and pictures and personal experiences. Like I posted about before, I also dressed up as Darwin on that first day. The quiz results were not what I was expecting, but the lab results made up for this by far. I also took a student perception poll, and by and large, students said they felt like they learned the material. The wording of the quiz was the problem, which I will reflect on later. I felt like really captured their attention finally, which is definitely a success.
In the future, I need to find ways to make each section as interesting. To do this, I need to get more interested myself. I am sure this is something in each chapter I can really get behind. At least, I can behind it just enough to shine through for them.
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