Analysis (cont.)
In Artifact 7: Meiosis Lab, I therefore tried out differentiating instruction multiple ways to teach meiosis; first, I gave the students a guided lecture with notes and then I had them model the process of meiosis with beads and pipe-cleaners. However, I still found that there were some students who were not retaining the content material. Student 1 got the concept that the chromosomes crossed over in prophase, as illustrated by the fact that his drawing on the lab showed the crossing over event, but he did not manage to retain the fact that the chromosomes separate in the various phases, as illustrated by the fact that he did not separate his chromosomes at all in step 7, and he separated them incorrectly in step 10 (Artifact 7.2: Student 1 Work). Student 2 did not retain the fact that chromosomes do not split up when they divide, as he drew ½ chromosomes in his final cells (Artifact 7.3: Student 2 Work), and Student 3 did well with following the instructions of what she was supposed to be modeling, but she did not connect this to which stage the modeling corresponded to, as illustrated by the fact that she wrote down the incorrect phases in questions 6a and 8a (Artifact 7.4: Student 3 Work).
This leads me to wonder why certain students are not retaining the content material even when it has been delivered in several ways; even when they had a lecture on the material and then did a lab on it in Artifact 7, some students did not demonstrate that they had retained the content material (Artifact 7.2: Student 1 Work, Artifact 7.3: Student 2 Work Artifact 7.4: Student 3 Work). One reason may have been the execution of the activity—while students were doing it, it seemed like they were going through the motions, but not making the connections to the content material (Field Notes, 2/5), which becomes obvious when you look at the products that Students 1, 2, and 3 turned out (Artifact 7.2: Student 1 Work, Artifact 7.3: Student 2 Work Artifact 7.4: Student 3 Work). (see Artifact 7 Analysis for more details)
This leads me to wonder why certain students are not retaining the content material even when it has been delivered in several ways; even when they had a lecture on the material and then did a lab on it in Artifact 7, some students did not demonstrate that they had retained the content material (Artifact 7.2: Student 1 Work, Artifact 7.3: Student 2 Work Artifact 7.4: Student 3 Work). One reason may have been the execution of the activity—while students were doing it, it seemed like they were going through the motions, but not making the connections to the content material (Field Notes, 2/5), which becomes obvious when you look at the products that Students 1, 2, and 3 turned out (Artifact 7.2: Student 1 Work, Artifact 7.3: Student 2 Work Artifact 7.4: Student 3 Work). (see Artifact 7 Analysis for more details)