Contextual+Teaching

It has often been recognized that real life examples help students to learn concepts more quickly and in a context to which they relate. This idea is at the heart of contextual teaching. Contextual teaching means that instead of providing examples while teaching concepts, a teacher uses the examples as a platform through which concepts are learned. In this assignment, you will develop a contextual activity or demonstration to teach a concept, using the 5-E model as the basis of your lesson planning.





Student Work:

 * [[file:Man+Without+a+Stomach.pdf]] Man Without A Stomach -** **Mrs. Palmer**: This lesson introduces students to the digestive system through a video of a man who attempted suicide by swallowing bleach. Throughout the lesson, students are introduced to the structure and function of the the organs of the digestive system (including accessory organs), the mechanical and chemical digestion of organic compounds, and different disorders of the digestive system and their causes.



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 * [[file:Kira Hedrich's Diabetes-Metabolic Homeostasis Gone Haywire.doc]]Diabetes: Metabolic Homeostasis Gone Haywire- Kira Hedrich** This lesson will introduce students to the Endocrine system through a video about a girl who has been diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Throughout the lesson, students will be introduced to the hormones and organs within the Endorocrine system, the organ and hormones associated with glucose regulation, disorders of the endocrine system and their causes, and how a diabetic's insulin is manufactured.

Jones- Conservation- How can we be a little Greenie? This lesson will be an introduction to a Conservation. This lesson will let students explore conservation through a visual activity, exploritory investigation, and deal with "What if?" type questions. I think the students will be engaged throughout this lesson and make them interested for more!

Koppers-Energy- Color Crisis! This lesson is designed to have students discover the relationship between wave lengths and energy. This is to follow an introduction to the electromagnetic spectrum. With the students knowing that the types of waves listed along the spectrum are from longest to shortest, this lesson allows them to find out which type of waves have more energy behind them. It also helps students to understand light energy, the difference between the spectral bands, and light energy absorption and reflection through a scenario about growing plants in different colored lights.



Williams- Plants- Seedy Intentions! This lesson is designed to help students reinforce ideas that they would have become familiar with during a plant taxonomy unit. This is a lesson that will allow the students to become engaged as they take part in a murder mystery scenario in which they are the forensic scientists. The students will be using a dichotomous key in order to correctly identify an unknown "mystery leaf." Once the leaves are identified, we will have a court hearing with each group presenting their "evidence."

Czapar - Lily Pad Activity. This lesson is designed to help students recognize and understand exponential growth within a population. The lesson engages students through an activity utilizing the worksheet attached below.

Kevin Pavesic- Drop your genes. This lesson is designed for students to learn Mendel's laws after being given a brief lesson on the basic genetic terms. The lesson allows the students to partner up and create a baby with their partner using their traits and Mendel's laws.




 * Julie Massanisso** - Regulating the Harvest: Beaver Trapping. This lesson is designed for students to understand the importance of wildlife conservation in Illinois. The lesson engages students by allowing them to participate in a mock beaver-hunting activity. Beavers are an important part of Illinois' ecosystems, and were endangered in the early 1800's due to unregulated hunting. Students will be able to compare the effects on the beaver population of hunting without regulation and with regulation, and be able to discuss the importance of wildlife conservation laws.




 * Steve White**-Surfing Radical Seismic Waves- The lesson is designed for students to understand the behavior of body and surface waves. The lesson engages students to participate as a "wave" of an earthquake. The lesson allows students to visually see what happens in an earthquake and how different behaviors of seismic waves affects the worl we live in.





Jill Wojtanowicz- Evolution: Gummibar evolution This activity allows students to complete a hands on activity to model natural selection. Students are engaged by a short video clip and story of a familiar gummibär character. Students then take part in the activity as a gummibär themselves. After this another example of natural selection (peppered moth) is given and explained. Students are then evaluated and elaborate on the activity by completing post lab questions.

Coughlin- Ecosystems- The Pride. This lesson has students practicing identifying producers and consumers in an example Ecosystem and then introducing Food Maps and Food Chains. Students will watch the introduction to the Lion King, and they will be asked to identify which tropic level the different animals they see and then will draw both an example of a Food Map and a Food chain. Afterwards, they will present to "Simba".

This lesson introduces the six major land-based biomes to students and dives into the importance of climate. Students begin by brainstorming the six different biomes in groups. They are previewing the different biomes in order to decide how to divide their lottery winnings on their real vacation to the biomes. After the brainstorming activity, students stay in their groups and choose one of the biomes to research. After researching, we will come together as a class and discuss the students’ findings. The discussion will also cover the importance of climate, which will then lead students into the extend activity. During extend, students will be analyzing climate graphs in order to match the depicted climate with its associated biome.
 * Laura Sedivy- Biomes**.



Connor Downs - This is a 5E model on disease. It connects prior knowledge on the body systems, that the students will have learned in one of the previous chapters. It follows the Model where it captures the students attention with a video on gorillas, then it will transition into the article on the gorillas contracting diseases. It goes into exploration next where the students connect what they know about body systems into their new knowledge on what disease is. Explanation and Elaboration are covered in the worksheet, and then we will have a discussion shortly after they answer. Then I will evaluate by collecting the worksheet.



Emily Matko - Biodiveristy Jenga! is a game constructed to introduce students to the ideas of population dynamics and the importance of biodiversity. During the game students are asked to generate feasible reasons why a species becomes extinct. As the game progesses students see how extinction and invasive species impact an ecosystem's stability. They are asked to answer questions on a worksheet, think of othere examples of ecosystems that they are familiar with, and explore possible threats to those systems as well.

Leslie Garcia-DeoxyRiboNucleicActivity is an activity that is constructed to introduce students to the concept of DNA and structure. This is designed to create an idea of how to problem solve with minimal instruction and introduce the concept of traits and inheritance to each student.

Laura Zehr - Population Puzzle For this activity the student is hired as a population biologist for the "Global Save Life Mission." The student has been assigned 6 populations; they need to determine the factors affecting the size and stability of the population. The students will use the information they have gathered to determine the populations fitness and the effect of environmental change on the population. Finally, the students will consider how environmental change affects the direction of selection on a population.

Teacher Files: Student Files:

====Taylor Farnetti- Monstrous Mutations- This activity is for students to start understanding what mutations are. After learning about the different types of mutations, students will get into groups of 3 or 4 depending on the class size to do this lab. Each group will simulate an animal with a mutation that can only digest pistachio nuts as its food source. Gather the food (3 pistachios per group member) Store the food for later use (place the group’s pistachios in your letter-designated container. Retrieve the food at a later time (remove the nine pistachios from the container and return with the pistachios to the home location) Process and consume the food (remove the pistachios from the shells or candy from the wrapper, and consume them [or open them to appear as eaten]). This different mutations will teach students how animals adapt to their mutations. So the main purpose of this lab is that they learn about mutations relating to adaptations. ====  Student Files:  Teacher Files: 