Farewell To Coursework

In just over a month I will send off the last batch of A-level coursework I will ever have to mark (or at least until the specification changes). I can't say I will be sad to see it go. After four years, I shall enjoy having some time to enjoy my Easter holiday, and will be delighted to not go through a large bottle of Gaviscon for the fortnight before the 15th May deadline.

I had two great seasons of fieldwork with the class of 2010 and 2011. Then the class of 2012 rebelled and demanded to do lab work (then went back on their demand when they realised fieldwork would have been more straightforward). And for the class of 2013, I had provisionally booked fieldwork for them before their summer break, only to discover that our departmental budget was weirdly empty... So it's been another year of living hell lab work for Unit 6.

Now, I've written about the fun of fieldwork, and how exciting the data collection could be. And I've listed the many advantages of the written work as preparation for university and beyond. But the drawbacks of coursework have superseded the benefits, and in September we changed exam boards from Edexcel to OCR. The latter examines its Unit 3 and Unit 6 through practical assessments in the laboratory.

Those disadvantages:

• The mark schemes seem increasingly poorly applied. I've seen superb papers that I have advised students to submit for publication given low marks (including often only half of the communication marks for flawlessly formatted, perfectly spelled academic prose). I've seen awful papers that barely discuss the issues associated with the applied biology given high marks. I have been to training days, I have sought subject expert advice, I have co-moderated with colleagues internally and externally, and I have appealed outrageous marks, but the ability to predict the marks given (and therefore evidently the ability to help students do well) eludes me. Time to move on and use an exam board with prescriptive, clearly worded mark schemes.
  
• Many of my students come from an ESOL background. Until last September, students did not require GCSE English in order to be enrolled onto A-levels. This had a minimal effect on the other STEM subjects, but it clearly hurt A-level biology. Some of my students only complete GCSE English alongside their A2 exams. A 3,000-word report may be doable for them by the time they get to university, but it's a struggle before then.
  
• The sections in the report bear little resemblance to how scientific papers are actually structured. This limits the utility of the coursework for me. The students do this kiddy-on Disneyfied version of a science paper, then no doubt will try to submit manuscripts with full discussion of the credibility of each of the sources cited in the references.
  
• Actually, despite my assertions that the process of doing coursework was a unique skill that could not be gained in any other way, I can provide opportunities for students to learn these skills throughout their two years.
  
• Least importantly (since it's all about the students really), it is stressful running 17 different experiments, negotiating with the lab technicians, postponing experiments because reagents that should have been shipped next-day have not arrived three weeks later, postponing deadlines because none of the little sods could be bothered to do their experiment plans and giving up my Wednesday evenings for a month to increase the lab time available. Not to mention the fact that I gave up two days of my Easter holiday to supervise the final few experiments - trying to find everything in the prep room without my lab technicians was terrifying.

So I have 17 Unit 6 practical reports and four Unit 3 issue report resits to deal with, which is a lot better than the 14 Unit 6 and 43 Unit 3 papers I had last year. I just hope the students luck out with their examiner for the final time. And I hope the transition to the practical assessments of OCR proves to be the correct decision.

So What Can We Teach?

A couple of stories (along with comments from some of the louder and more obnoxious members of the Edublogosphere) have popped up over the past few days. Most relevant to my own teaching is on the subject of SRE lessons, which will now include aspects of respect and intolerance of violence against women. Relevant to Paul is the introduction of an A-level in Creative Writing.

Where these two seemingly divergent subjects meet is in the overwhelming criticism of both SRE and creative writing, namely that teachers are woefully underqualified to teach both of them. Apparently our relationships are train-wrecks by and large, and we shouldn't be giving advice to students on their relationships. And the only people who will be able to teach Creative Writing will be those who have been successful writers in their own right. I'll address this one first.

"Only successful authors can teach Creative Writing effectively"

Fortunately, Paul is a successful writer and editor and would be able to rock that A-level teaching. But do all teachers of creative subjects need to be accomplished in that field? The actual creation is not the majority of the qualification - in Art I spent a lot of time learning ratios, perspective, techniques, history of various movements. In Music (I didn't do any qualifications save for my AB exams) there was a formula for composing music, which I was supposed to demonstrate in my Grade V theory exam. I would imagine in Creative Writing there are similar theories and formulae that can be used to help students write creatively.

But surely this is extended to the supposedly non-creative subjects. Do I need to be a successful biologist in order to teach A-level Biology? I most certainly am not. I'm not even a biologist, though I have a masters in Biosystematics. I'm a geologist and I have one published paper. I don't have a PhD - I failed to do that twice. No, I need a good understanding of the subject matter and an ability to pass that understanding to my students. I can do that without a PhD, long publication record, grant applications and the other characteristics of successful scientists.

"Teachers are the last people who should be advising on relationships. Look at us!"

My marriage is not perfect. Many people close to us know we've had some trials and tribulations. My family's story would be rejected by sitcom writers for being too outrageous and unbelievable. But despite all that (or maybe because?) I still deal one-to-one with a large number of students with boyfriend/girlfriend problems, family issues and so on. I'm now certified to give out condoms to students under our borough's C-Card scheme. In Biology classes I discuss IVF, contraception, STIs, abortion and drug use - sometimes it's even relevant to the specification. Why shouldn't I take the opportunity to discuss relationships with the students too?

There have been some concerns that certain supposedly controversial issues such as homosexuality would be difficult to teach about in SRE if one's religious beliefs state that it's a sin. Well, the same colleagues who would have issues also have serious problems with evolution and an old Earth, but no one has suggested (apart from me) that they shouldn't be teaching Biology... If these colleagues can teach a topic they think is inaccurate and wrong, then they can jolly well teach about the full range of human relationships.

Given a framework, regardless of our experience in the world of relationships, we can raise discussion points. We can ask the right questions. We can get students to reflect on their own relationships and those they see around them. I'm not a role model - I have tattoos, blue hair and am contemplating a nose ring (hey, it's MY midlife crisis, right?). I drink and occasionally smoke. I eat poorly. I still have to teach students about the importance of healthy eating and the dangers of lung cancer. No one has suggested that, because I'm overweight, I shouldn't be teaching students about a balanced diet. So why should private relationship woes prevent a teacher from teaching about positive relationships and respect for each other?

Right. Time for caffeine. I don't usually write before my first cup of the day. It probably shows.

You Don't Scare Me, I Teach In FE #1: Hearts In The Air

My A2 class are an interesting lot (mostly in a good way). They do the "why regress" on me whenever I teach them about metabolic pathways (thus reaching the limit of my biochemical understanding and sending me screaming for the textbooks). They have a slightly too healthy interest in dissecting stuff. They know themselves and their opinions and they aren't afraid to show it. Last year these characteristics were pretty much condensed into one awesome student, and it's great to see more of the same.

Occasionally, however, they test my patience... Surely not, you cry! How could 17 teenagers and twenty-somethings possibly get on my nerves?

Well, last Wednesday was my birthday, and rather than bring in chocolate or anything like that, I offered my A2s a practical. They'd already done one heart dissection at the start of their AS studies, but would they like to do another one? Hell yes. Spirits were high and the students were thrilled at the thought of being allowed scalpels (why we haven't had more injuries, I will never know).

Until one little darling picked up his heart (the disembodied sheep one) and asked me if he should throw it. Well, no, obviously. He said he was going to, and I have to say I was getting a little nervous and squeaky in my protestations. And then he threw it.


I don't know if any of you have ever seen a sizeable sheep's heart sailing across a laboratory, but it is something of a surreal experience. It would have been rejected by the producers of "Teachers" for being too unrealistic. I'm just glad that one of the other students caught it (though my poor broken nerves could have done without her throwing it back to the original culprit!).

This will be an infrequent (I hope) insight into some of the more extreme aspects of my teaching life. Just in case there's anyone who doesn't think teachers earn their holidays.

Other Natural Substances

An advert that always amuses me is the Rennie "Happy Tummy" one, which has been around for a couple of years (sadly, can't embed it). In it, the wonderful declaration is made that "Rennie turns excess acid into water and other natural substances". What are those "natural substances" exactly?

Rennie contains magnesium carbonate and calcium carbonate. That's fairly standard antacid remedy, because it's pretty good at neutralising stomach acid, which is hydrochloric acid.

MgCO₃ + 2HCl → MgCl₂ + H₂CO₃
CaCO₃ + 2HCl → CaCl₂ + H₂CO₃
Nothing wrong with MgCl₂ or CaCl₂ (all of those ions are vital for the body's metabolic functions anyway). It's the benign little molecule produced in both reactions: H₂CO₃. That's carbonic acid. Now, anyone who has studied environmental geochemistry (and any A2 student daft enough to ask) knows that:

CO₂ + H₂O ⇌ H₂CO₃ ⇌ H⁺ + HCO₃^- ⇌ 2H⁺ + CO₃^2-
This is the carbonate buffer system, which maintains the pH of the oceans. It's also involved in the maintenance of our internal pH (though it seems to be more frequently called the bicarbonate buffer system in physiology). It's an equilibrium, shifting to the right when the pH increases (in other words, the concentration of H⁺ ions decreases). Which means that, when the pH is low (the conditions are acidic), the equilibrium will move to the left.

What's on the left hand side? Well that would be water, H₂O. We knew about that from the Rennie advert. But this other molecule, CO₂, is carbon dioxide. The gas produced when we belch and fart. This is simply the standard chemistry behind the action of antacids, and shouldn't be a surprise to anyone with some high school science in them. It's tickled me that the advert is so coy about it, but I suppose if we were told that indigestion remedies leave us trumping like a one-man oompah band none of us would run out and buy them.

Things I Learned From My Students #12: New Year Exams

The first few weeks of term have been taken up with AS, and then A2 exams. I think my classes are now back to normal, or at least our rather unique definition of normal. This is what I've learnt so far this year.

1. I genuinely look five years younger than my actual age. Whether this is down to the blue hair, baggy jeans, slogan t-shirts, willingness to swear like a navvy with piles, or simply a decent combination of phenotypes, I do not know.
   
2. This makes me a TILF. Yes, I have officially been called a TILF.
   
3. I'm actually really chuffed at being referred to as a TILF.
   
4. Regardless of their feelings towards me, I still can't get my horny little students to submit their bloody coursework proposals.
   
5. Four drunken Australians are no match for a single pissed Scottish student, yet the roles are somewhat reversed if there are 15 of each and they're sober.
   
6. Beakers are an awesome vessel to use for doing shots, since they come in 25ml and 50ml versions.
   
7. If my colleagues knew half of what goes on in the Biology lab they'd be horrified.
   
8. I'm creating a generation of biological sciences students who expect their lecturers to bake flapjacks for them before each exam.
   
9. The promise of being taken for a meal at Nando's is quite an incentive to A2 students to get A*-B on their exam.
   
10. I must have been an awesome cub scout leader when I was younger.
    
11. There is an awful lot of hatred towards Hypnotoad, the lab frog.
    
12. Fortunately there are enough students who adore Hypnotoad and his baleful stares that he's safe from the dissecting dish.
    
13. Students really want to dissect more stuff.
    
14. Eyeballs are the exception, however.
    
15. Students can be bribed to do pretty much anything in return for pizza.
    
16. I've become one of those really sad old teachers who enjoys hanging out with her students.
    
17. My students assure me that's okay because they think I'm closer in age to them than I am to my colleagues.
    
18. Few things have elicited such a horrified reaction from my students than my revelation that I quite like the Black Veil Brides.
    
19. The University of Oxford doesn't know what it's missing.

Management

Our department is in a precarious position at the moment. Our manager left suddenly (rumours abound about why, but it is no secret that a lot of the figures for our area were found to be completely inaccurate) and we have an interim manager from another department. She is amazing, and I am enjoying the sensation of having a supportive, empowering manager. The other CL in the department is also on extended leave, so I am assuming some of his responsibilities. I'm realising that, while I am not quite the longest-serving lecturer, I am now the most senior non-managerial lecturer.

Questions were being asked about the department's future, and the Director responsible for our department (among others) asked my manager if I was interested in becoming the permanent manager. The short answer is no. The slightly longer answer is hell no. And this is why:

• I am a teacher. Teaching is what I do. Any managerial position will take more teaching hours away from me than I am comfortable with.
  
• We are short of staff. We need more full-time lecturers. And we need more competent full-time lecturers. I have supported students with AS and A2 Chemistry, and AS Physics, in addition to my normal teaching duties. Losing half my teaching hours to management would be disastrous.
  
• I left the private sector to get away from days spent peering at an Excel spreadsheet. I certainly don't want to return to that.
  
• The £10k extra a year is not worth the hassle.
  
• I am unlikely to find myself with a supportive, empowering manager further up the scale, and this will bother me, perhaps to the point of a relapse into the anxiety and depression that has been so paralysing in the past.
  
• I'm an aggressive, passionate, sweary mama-bear, and I will do battle for my students to the detriment of my own position. That is not a particularly desirable managerial trait.
  
• I do not wish to rise from the ranks and become the manager of my own colleagues. I have no desire to manage my PGCE mentor, or the A-level Coordinator, or the head lab technician.
  
• Timetabling seems to be worthy of its own special level of hell, and I would quite like to not have my summers taken up with it.

Finally, when discussing this with Paul, we drew some comparisons between college management and "Game Of Thrones" (which we have finally watched, after months of being told to by my students). Management is a game of thrones, thrusting staff into the line of sight of the Directors, requiring people to play politically or risk being removed from their post. As Cersei Lannister says, "When you play the game of thrones you win, or you die". I have no desire to play the game of thrones. I am, apparently, Ned Stark - best left to be Lord Lady of Winterfell My Lab, and to try to avoid being called to King's Landing for as long as possible, in case I lose my head...

Newtown

I was at my College's staff Christmas party when Paul showed me the awful news of the mass-shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. We've both watched the coverage of this with horror and deep sadness. There is much to criticise of the things said (the media's continued demonisation of all with mental illness, the continued worshipping of guns in the name of the Second Amendment, and their assertion that only a parent could possibly imagine the grief felt by those caught up in it), but most of those are for another post, another person, another day perhaps.

For now, I want to pay tribute to the teachers, our brothers and sisters in education, whose actions saved the lives of their classes and without whose bravery the loss of life could have been even more terrible. This is apparently going to be the front page of the Independent on Sunday:

Under the photo, the caption reads:

As the shooting started, teacher Vicki Soto, just 27, hid her 16 pupils in the cupboard, and when the gunman came into her room, she told him the class was in the gym. He murdered her, then turned his gun on himself. The children survived.

Three other teachers were also killed while trying to protect their students.

Five and a half years ago, during another massacre at a US educational establishment, Virginia Tech, Liviu Librescu died barricading the door to his classroom and allowing his students to escape. 16 years ago, just four months after the Dunblane disaster, Lisa Potts suffered terrible injuries to her arms defending nursery school children (even younger than those at Sandy Hook) from a machete attack. In Mexico, Martha Rivera Alanis kept her children safe during a shoot-out a block from their primary school, getting them to sing songs while they kept out of the line of fire.

Numerous teachers have surely done the same in their time. In the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting, the Executive Director of Gun Owners of America has said teachers should be armed - I have not seen a single teacher saying they agree with this. Teachers with guns would not help in the slightest. Where would we put them? In our desks, locked away? It would take too long to access it. On our person? That just tells a shooter to take out the teacher first and then the students. And where would we fit in the training needed to be able to shoot to kill someone who was trying to kill us? Members of the Armed Forces spend months - years even - being trained to do so.

To suggest that, had the teachers had guns the tragedy could have been avoided, is to lay the blame for this at the feet of the teachers. Yet another thing that is apparently teachers' fault. As with the examples above, and no doubt many more, teachers have shown again and again that when the lives of their students are threatened, they will step in to defend them, to buy them time, to let them escape, to give their lives for the youngsters they love.

We have not had a major incident at my College. We have a lock-down procedure, which will override the computers in each classroom with a warning. We have to lock the doors, switch off the lights and hide away from doors and windows. The doors in our new building can only be opened from the outside with a staff pass and my lab is the furthest point from the main entrance.

My thoughts are with the families and colleagues of all those killed yesterday. I can hardly imagine something like this happening here, on my campus, but I only hope that, if that terrible day comes, I can muster some of the courage of the brave men and women who have put themselves between their students and an attacker.

Worry

I worry.

I worry about my students.

I worry that, after all that they've done, the students I've prepped for interview at top universities won't get offers.

I worry that my prospective vet student just won't manage to pull three A grades out of the bag.

I worry that this is my fault for failing to teach him properly.

I worry that trying will do him more harm than good.

I worry that some of my students will slip through my fingers because I'm too busy trying to hold on to some other students.

I worry about the pressure of the HND programme on my frayed nerves.

I worry that Michael Gove is going to do to teachers what Thatcher did to miners.

I worry that it's been so long since I ate proper food that I have a vitamin deficiency.

I worry about why the staff in Domino's know me and Paul by name and our usual order.

I worry that I spend too long at work and not enough time at home with Paul.

I worry that Paul spends too long at work and not enough time at home with me.

I worry about the results.

I worry about the feedback.

I worry about how long I can keep this up.

I worry that Ofsted might be just around the corner.

I worry that I am not, in fact, an excellent teacher, and that all I do is entertain while relying on nothing more than charisma to engage the students.

I worry that I am a charlatan, an imposter, a pretender.

I worry that nothing I do as a teacher is ever good enough.

I worry that I'm too emotionally involved with my students' education.

I worry that one day I'm going to punch a colleague in the defence of one of my students.

I worry about burnout.

I worry that I have slowly regressed to the lifestyle, hours and vices that I had as a PhD student.

I worry about dying young.

I worry that I'm doing this not to impart enthusiasm and knowledge to the next generation but to surround myself with admirers.

I worry that I'm the cool teacher.

I worry that I'm not the cool teacher.

I worry that my hair will break from the bleach and dye.

I worry that underneath the bleach and dye my hair is grey.

I worry for the welfare of the young people I teach.

I worry that they will have their hearts broken.

I worry that sometimes I'm the one who does that.

I worry about worrying.

Past And Present

One of the things most likely to get me into Mama Bear-mode is criticism of modern A-levels that suggests that students are getting worthless qualifications. I frequently find myself having to remember that it is frowned upon in polite society to punch the lights out of ignorant wankers telling you that your students are stupid and that teachers are failing them. With the proposed end of January A-level exams, the opportunity presents itself for idiots to weigh in with their opinions.

I imagine the Daily Fail has been saying exams are getting easier since exams were invented, but it certainly seems that this has escalated in recent years. I've mentioned before that I acquired my past exam papers, and I had a fantastic opportunity to do a small test with my A2 students a few weeks ago. We had just finished looking at photosynthesis, so I copied a question from my 1997 Central Concepts paper.

A cell suspension of a species of Chlorella, an alga, was supplied with carbon dioxide, initially at a concentration of 3%. This was then reduced to 1% after 100 seconds, and then to 0.03% after a further 200 seconds. The levels of RuBP and GP (PGA) present were determined at intervals.


(a) With reference to the figure, state the effect on:
(i) the concentraion of GP when the carbon dioxide concentration is reduced from 3% to 1%. [1]
(ii) the concentraion of GP when the carbon dioxide concentration is reduced from 1% to 0.03%. [2]
(iii) the concentration of RuBP when the carbon dioxide concentration is reduced from 1% to 0.03%. [3]

(b) Explain the observed change in the concentration of RuBP during the 100 seconds immediately after the carbon dioxide concentration was reduced to 0.03%. [4]

(c) State the evidence provided by the figure which indicates that the concentration of carbon dioxide may not be a limiting factor. [3]

Then I gave my students one of the Edexcel questions from June 2012, with a remarkably similar graph.

An investigation was carried out into the effect of reducing the carbon dioxide available for photosynthesis. Cells of a unicellular alga were suspended in a solution containing 1.0% carbon dioxide. After 250 seconds, the carbon dioxide in the solution was reduced to 0.003%. The cells were illuminated with a bright light and some were removed at regular time intervals for 500 seconds. The concentrations of ribulose bisphosphate (RuBP) and glycerate 3-phosphate (GP) in the cells were measured.

(i) Suggest two reasons why a suspension of cells of a unicellular alga, in a solution, is more suitable for this investigation than using leaves. [2]
(ii) Suggest why it would be advisable to illuminate the cells at a high light intensity during this investigation. [3]
(iii) The graph below shows the results of the investigation.


Describe and suggest an explanation for the changes in the concentrations of RuBP and GP shown in the graph. [6]

So, which paper do you think the students found easy? Why, that would be the 1997 paper. The majority of the questions involved very little mastery of the subject knowledge. I imagine a numerate non-scientist could do quite well on the 1997 paper, just reading off the graph. The A2s preferred the clarity of the graph in the 2012 paper, but I think much of that can be attributed to it having been reduced from A4 to A5 and scanned.

The "suggest" questions in the 2012 paper involve students applying their existing subject knowledge to an unfamiliar experiment. The final six-mark question is a QWC question, meaning students are not only assessed on their biological knowledge, but their ability to present it clearly and logically. My A2s hate QWC questions, and they really hate "suggest" questions; because they have to show an excellent command of the subject, rather than being able to pick up marks for stating the bleeding obvious.

Sure, this is only one example. But I bet colleagues in other subjects can show where the exams are indeed more rigorous, demanding more detailed subject knowledge, a greater degree of critical thinking, and the ability to apply all of this to new situations. Gove and Co have spent so long chipping away at the exams my students sit, telling them their coursework is nothing more than teacher-sanctioned cheating, that they don't work hard because they know they can always resit their exams, and that modular exams are too easy. They claim to want more rigorous exams, but as Paul said, in the spirit of Inigo Montoya, they keep using that word; we do not think it means what they think it means.

So here's a multiple-choice question to the Department for Education. How should students be assessed in the academic pathway before leaving school or college?

(A) A combination of practical and written exams and coursework, enabling students to demonstrate complex subject knowledge and application, with opportunities to resit units, reflecting the way that pretty much every university degree, and indeed every assessment they will face in life, is set up.

(B) A single terminal exam in each subject, requiring students to memorise facts, definitions and explanations, with no resit opportunities.

Option B seems to be what Gove wants. But I don't think it's what any student or any teacher wants.

The Many Vices Of Steve

Every biology teaching lab should have a skeleton. The best lab skeletons have names. My skeleton is Steve.


Steve has featured in a number of outgoing class photos, and it is a joy for me each September to see how long it will be before the new students try to make Steve grope his non-existent breasts. Just over a year ago, the Class of 2011 decided to show one of Steve's peccadilloes - in this case, it was bestiality:


He likes Halloween, and was most impressed with his outfit:


And in the absence of a Christmas tree, he gallantly stepped up to be covered in decorations:


Courtesy of the Class of 2012, Steve lost his head and indulged in a bit of fisting:


But on Friday it all got a bit too much for him, and my HND class made him into a NEET:


After many years, two dislocated shoulders, a missing atlas and a pigeon chest, Steve is retiring. He has been replaced by Steve 2, who is taller, better put together, and crucially this time, actually a male skeleton. Steve 1 is coming back to Jurassic Towers, which will be his forever home.