Living Systems: Structure and Function

8/18/2023

State: NEW YORK

8/4/2023

State: PENNSYLVANIA

Thank you for the engaging experiments and activities!

7/18/2023

State: PENNSYLVANIA

Great class!

7/10/2023

State: PENNSYLVANIA

Valuable information within this course!

5/29/2023

State: PENNSYLVANIA

Excellent course, very well organized and informative. There are a variety of useful resources that can be easily incorporated into any life science course. Mr. Harms is excellent to work with!

5/15/2023

State: PENNSYLVANIA

4/25/2023

State: NEW YORK

3/5/2023

State: CONNECTICUT

To begin, the primer to the course was quite informative and an invaluable way to refresh or broaden ones understanding of biological concepts in general and human biology in particular. As one should not easily trust a waif-life chef, one ought not trust the teacher who does not themselves refresh their knowledge and hasten to learn more as they continue to hone their practice. Evidence of continuous improvement and additional knowledge being added to this course was, well, evident. Needing to think carefully about which standards to associated with which content objectives, which content to connect to each CCC and DCI, made me a better teacher. While it may seem easy to simply treat science curriculum planning as a matching game, at certain times it can be elevated to an art- choosing to put in front of students only those resources which will best lend themselves toward content and skills acquisition. Some of the resources did not make sense to me at first glance, and only made me question them and grow in so doing, later to understand that my conceptualization of what was being asked from the tasks went deeper than I first realized. In other words, I was the one who needed to put work in to understand why I didn’t understand the task. Instructional strategies that I used during the Living Systems course were not simply recycled from prior years’ lessons, they came as a direct result of working with these new materials and finding that they lent themselves to new methods. Learning attained by students and impact of teaching both improved in my subjective observation as well as in measurable improvements in student outcomes. Participation was significantly improved from prior years, in which textbook learning was more often used and we did not have as many varied resources. This allowed students to access information in ways that they hadn't before, and opened up a greater proportion of learners to the coursework. It was an unexpected boon to my curricular goals as well to include what the instructional materials had seemingly included as a normal part of the coursework- information on exercise and its benefits. I think this is sorely needed in the US public education system, as we fall further into a depressed, overmedicated, obese, and social media-obsessed culture; more afraid to go outside and catch a ball than hurl insults on the internet. To that end, the Military.com and How Exercise Works articles were great choices. It honestly hadn’t occurred to me before encountering the course materials that science class, and biology in particular, as as much of an imperative as health or physical education courses to convey these messages to middle school students.

3/4/2023

State: NEW YORK

I loved how so many of the assignments could easily be used in my classroom.

2/24/2023

State: PENNSYLVANIA

These courses have been a tremendous benefit to me as an educator, they'll serve me for years to come!

12/4/2022

State: HAWAII

You will leave this course with 15 solid labs or activities to use with your class. There are close to 100 choices so there is great autonomy depending on your grade level and course. This was exactly what I was hoping for and couldn't be more pleased.

5/26/2022

State: PENNSYLVANIA

Great Course!

5/25/2022

State: MISSOURI

This class helped me to gain valuable knowledge that I can apply to my classroom.

4/13/2022

State: PENNSYLVANIA

2/26/2022

State: MASSACHUSETTS