Learning Theories Week 2 Assignment

Hi Everyone! Here are the three sites that I have found relating specifically to Biology:

1.) http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/dl/free/0072437316/120060/ravenanimation.html

The McGraw Hill Textbook Company (as well as other biology text book manufacturers like Pearson’s, Campbell) continues to produce science textbooks that are rich in detail, easy to understand and follow, as well as provide the student with excellent online web pages. I like the McGraw hill web pages because they are specifically tailored to the book that the student has and the edition of that book. Just to specify, the texts are geared toward higher academic levels, such as high school and into college. I believe that students learn not from just reading a text (which provides a good source of knowledge, fact, and theory), but being able to visual the concepts in the text and how they work out in life, instead of just textbook drawings and diagrams. On these web pages, the company has made a section for each chapter, and added animations within those sections of concepts that are discussed. For example, a student learns about the sodium-potassium exchange pump in detail from the text, as well as the lecture in class. After discussing it and doing activities on it, that student is still having a hard time being able to picture exactly what it looks like in their head. They then can just go to the website, and click the play button on the animation that has been provided, and watch like as if it were a movie, exactly what happens. The animations provided on this page allow the student to pause, rewind, or fast forward the visual, as well as add the text to it, or include narration. I believe that a “good teacher” should be able to provide the same type of learning environment to the student. A “good teacher” should be able to explain a concept, such as exocytosis, in a simple yet detailing account in which the students are able to piece together the steps and be able to place them together on their own. A good teacher also provides the student with different avenues for acquiring that information. I believe a student will be competent in the subject of biology when they are able to visual their own animations of the key concepts. I also like these web sites because it provides study methods, such as already made flash cards for the kids, matching, and chapter outlines, as well as quizzes. So it provides the students with multiple ways of studying and looking at the material!

2.) http://www.biologynews.net/ as well as http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/plants_animals/biology/
Both these sites have the most recent articles, news, and current events in biology. For the students that learn through articles about daily findings, and news, these are great sites to include because they keep up-to-date information on what is being discovered, or is happening around the world. The articles connect certain topics in biology for example one article is about experimentation, fly research, genetics, and metabolic disease in humans. Each one of these topics are interrelated in one article, helping a student see how certain concepts influence and affect each other. The sites contain articles from discoveries in genetics, to the coral reefs, and endangered animals. They even include some visuals and images on the site for the visual learners. Through these sites a teacher becomes a “good teacher” because they are now taking what’s currently going on in the student’s world, and bringing it in relevance to their life, and what they are learning in the classroom. I believe this is a good teaching tool because it expands the knowledge that is being taught in the classroom to outside of the classroom, and captures the students attention to other areas of science. A student develops competency when they can see a news article and uncover a meaning with that article relating it to not just the concepts in their textbook or notes, but in their own lives.


3.) http://www.Howstuffworks.com
Howstuffworks.com is a top site that is used for many different purposes. By using a website like this, as a teacher I can show video clips of real life situations and experiences that go hand in hand with the content they are learning. Howstuffworks.com has a wide range of videos to be able to pick from that come from the Discovery Channel, a reputable television channel that gives multiple perspectives to concept theories. I believe that people are able to learn a concept at a higher level when they can connect it to real life experiences and understand the relevance of certain ideas, facts, or processes to the outside world, and them individually. I like the videos because they give realistic and actual images of certain parts of biology that is not seen daily or without technology, for example viruses, or red blood cells, and what the journey of a red blood cell through a capillary actually looks like inside the body at regular speed, or slowed down using video technology, instead of a description that is given to a student in a text book. The videos on Howstuffworks.com provide clips like this as well as videos dealing with everyday issues for people with health in relation to biology, and so on. To be a good teacher is to be able to teach a lesson on a subject and give the student the tools necessary to make connections with the lesson to life, as well as to other key ideas that have been learned in the class. I believe by using a site like this, a student will be able to acquire competence by using the site to understand the “big idea” easier by connecting the subjects learned such as the concepts of the immune system, and be able to relate it to real life situations, like allergies or a person’s health. A student is competent when they can take to knowledge that they have learned and apply it to what happens in life every day and situations that happen in life to people.

Thanks!!