Chris Meyer, York Mills Collegiate Institute
christopher.meyer@tdsb.on.ca

Here there be dragons
What happens when you let a physicist teach biology? Science, that’s what! Well, not at first. I still have my science teaching notes (in the form of overheads) from 25 years ago and at the time, I taught the biology unit of grade 10 science in a very traditional way. Fast forward 22 years and I found myself teaching grade 10 science again, now with a very different perspective on learning. As part of my redesign of our school’s grade 10 science course, I needed to build a biology unit from scratch. I have absolutely no university training in anything remotely biological, so I felt ready to give it a go! For me it was terra incognita, unknown country. As my guide, all I had were the learning principles I chose for the grade 10 course: questioning and scientific observation. When I described to my colleagues what I was doing, they thought it crazy. But fools rush in… Read More...

Tags: History, Pedagogy