Microteaches #1: February Half-Term

Bloody typical. I spend all this time putting together a post on GCSE Biology teaching specifications, and they all go and change it! Well, actually I did know about this, but at the time, and until the end of this academic year, there will be students examined under the old specification. The good news for you and me is that the specifications have not changed very much at all - I'll get up a revised post sometime soon. Anyway, here are some mini-bits that don't quite make up a full blog post, for your reading pleasure.

Mike Keesey has launched Phylopic, a resource with silhouette images for anyone who might need them in their phylogenies. It's wonderful to see these, and I hope many more people contribute. Best of all, from my perspective, is that they are on a clear rather than white background, so I can put them into my teaching slides without having to edit the backgrounds out. Not every organism is so easily converted to silhouette though (amoebas and bacteria...):

  
In reference to last week's highlight of AQA GCSE Fail, there have been some follow-ups. My post hit the Bad Science forum, probably as a result of being included on Ed Yong's Missing Links post. I've since seen that the New Humanist picked up on this, and managed to extract from AQA confirmation that future exams will not contain anything on creationism or intelligent design. I should bloody well hope so.

But AQA aren't off the hook yet: the bar-stewards discovered a marking error in some of their A-Level exams on 17 September 2010, but didn't think to notify Ofqual or UCAS until 30 September 2010. UCAS Clearing ended on 20 September 2010. Over 600 scripts were incorrectly marked, for GCSE, AS and A2, and this resulted in 13 A2 students not being able to get their first choice of university due to missing the grades (which they subsequently received), and not being able to do anything about it because UCAS didn't know until 10 days after places were no longer available for the 2010-2011 year.

In more palaeontological news, there is a new species of sauropod dinosaur, Brontomerus mcintoshi^[*]. Now that we have "Thunder Thighs", I wonder if there'll be any more dinosaurs springing up with the other cruel nicknames I had as a child... They're currently getting a good deal of publicity, although as Dave Hone predicts, there'll no doubt be a load of inaccurate references to Brontosaurus.

Currently not getting any publicity at the moment is a paper linking sex, climate change and dinosaur extinction^[*]. You'd think the redtops would be all over this like a rash. I have only skimmed the paper so far, but I am intrigued by a possible issue regarding genetic sex determination (GSD) and temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). For this to be a plausible mechanism, I would presume it would have to be shown that most, if not all, GSD species survived (not simply birds and mammals), and that most, if not all, TSD species died at the end of the Cretaceous. Rising global temperatures could have a rather major effect on TSD species, but one wonders if perhaps parthenogenesis as demonstrated in a number of reptiles could have countered this in the past.

Right, students - consider this your homework (in addition to the rest of it) - go read Silber's paper and come back and report on your views of its plausibility.

Finally, this has been amusing and appalling the kids in equal measure this week:


Following the theme I shall be attending the NHM After Hours event this Friday, visiting the Sexual Nature exhibit and the Let's Talk About Sex talk. I'm contemplating taking the AS Biologists to the Sexual Nature exhibit, so I'm off to scout it out to see if the little buggers are mature enough to deal with the contents...

^[*]Silber, Sherman J. 2011. Human male infertility, the Y chromosome, and dinosaur extinction. Middle East Fertility Society Journal, [In Press], Corrected Proof, Available online 17 February 2011, ISSN 1110-5690, DOI: 10.1016/j.mefs.2011.01.001
^[*]Taylor, Michael P., Mathew J. Wedel and Richard L. Cifelli. 2011. Brontomerus mcintoshi, a new sauropod dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous Cedar Mountain Formation, Utah, USA. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica 56(1):75-98. doi: 10.4202/app.2010.0073

Is That A Triceratops On Your Junk Or Are You Just Pleased To See Me?

A little light relief after all the deep academic navel-gazing, I think...

Thanks to my friend Owen, I am now aware of the existence of these swimming trunks:

  
Come on guys - buy these and wear them in the hot tub on the first night of SVP. It will make a change from the dino-themed ties and t-shirts.

I dare you.

There But For The Grace Of The Flying Spaghetti Monster

It was only a matter of time. Another teacher, in the US this time, Natalie Munroe has been suspended, having posted some rather unsavoury comments about her students on her blog. This follows hot on the heels of the sacking in the UK of Katharine Birbalsingh. Those of us in educational roles are likely to find ourselves under increased scrutiny, as we are coming under attack more frequently with the educational reforms hitting the UK. The only thing the tabloid newspapers seem to love more than a disgraced politician is a disgraced teacher.


My lab yesterday morning, after a ritual massacrebloodstain analysis practical
The comments she makes are pretty damning - there is a cache available. However, I had been more sympathetic to Ms Munroe before reading what she'd actually said. I feel more for the students who have commented on the cached blog post - I cannot say I would have been thrilled at being called a "complete and utter jerk" by my teacher! Who would?

There are some students in the world who are undoubtedly little shits, who do not want to be in school, who do not respect what their teachers are trying to do and who have no interest in learning. I wouldn't tell you if I had any of these students. Bitching about students is what the staffroom is for, and there's a reason it has a lock on the door.

I know that a couple of my A2 students have found this blog - it does not take a lot of googling. They were pleased at my glowing report of the Great Nando's Birthday Party (and I'm still waiting for the YouTube video, incidentally). Have I been back and made sure I haven't said anything unkind about my kids today? You betcha. Is there the possibility that one of you might read through and pick up on something I missed? Probably - and I'd hope you'd tell me. Do the students know that they are referred to collectively as "little buggers", "little sods" and if I'm annoyed with them "little darlings"? Of course.

There are real problems in schools and colleges with behaviour - hell, you only have to nip on to the TES Behaviour Forum to see some appalling situations. Surely the vibrancy of the TES forum and the increase in numbers of blogs means teachers are in need of support, of a sounding block, and sometimes a need to rant outwith the staffroom door. Maybe the teachers being disciplined for voicing their frustrations should count as a warning shot for the senior managers blamed for the poor behaviour management in schools.

I should add that I have few behavioural problems and that our college's policy on behaviour is pretty effective. The college also has a reasonably liberal policy on online activities as long as we do not bring it into disrepute or identify students.

Until then, if you're going to call your student a "sneaky, complaining, jerkoff", do it in an anonymous, untraceable manner...

Fearsome Beast

Not many people have the level of insight into the life of a leopard gecko, but Paul and I are lucky. Jabba has frequently shared his innermost thoughts with us, including his enjoyment of nature documentaries, his preference for waxworms over superworms, and his serious allergy to being bathed.

Yesterday he told us that his absolute hero was "Supercroc", Sarcosuchus imperator, and that he had been practising his best impersonation. Compare this image:


With Supercroc's pose in this painting. What a clever boy he is! As you can imagine we were very scared indeed, given that it appeared that a massive reptile several hundred times the size of our tiny gecko had materialised in our living room that evening.

Alternatively, he could just be yawning...

GCSE Postscript

Earlier this year I did a series of posts on "making your research suitable for outreach", where I featured the specifications for GCSE, AS, A2 and Scottish biology qualifications. It seemed to go down well, although not perhaps among the people it was actually intended to help (stunned silence from the VP community), but it highlighted some of the inadequacies of the syllabus and the way certain exam boards accommodate non-scientific views. CCEA is one of the worst, probably down to a worrying trend in creationism within Northern Ireland. I identified, within the GCSE post, an issue that meant AQA students would be expected to discuss Lamarckism.

Turns out, that was just the tip of the iceberg. Check this out, featured on Why Evolution Is True: British GCSE Biology: Exam Evolution Fail. Thanks to @sc_k via @edyong209.


Unfortunately, this is a real exam paper, issued in June 2009. I have two private tutees who study the AQA specification, and I'm afraid I must have missed a trick here, because it never occurred to me that I was supposed to be teaching them about creationism and intelligent design. Presumably I must go back and immediately fill this massive gap in their learning.

Except that this is not science. Now from a historical point of view, it is interesting to consider Lamarckism as a flawed theory - it is especially useful when one of my basketball-playing students asks me if he trains hard and increases the proportion of fast-twitch muscle fibres in his body, will his children be better basketball players. My A2 students can make jokes about Lamarckism - they have a good understanding of its place in science and in the history of science.

A GCSE student does not have the same maturity of thought (sorry kids) to recognise the differences.

Firstly, the problem with this is that "theory" when discussed in science should mean the following, as stated by Merriam-Webster:

a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena

Creationism and intelligent design are neither plausible nor scientifically acceptable, and this question simply does not test whether the students know this or not. What possible reason could there be for teaching these two ridiculous fairytales in a GCSE science course (which, for most students, will be the highest level of science training they ever receive) other than to demonstrate that they are not scientific?

Yet this is very definitely not the case. The relevant sections of the AQA specification state:

• to identify the differences between Darwin's theory of evolution and conflicting theories
• to suggest reasons for the different theories

Nowhere does the specification say that teachers should discuss a scientific and unscientific principle - just that they should identify differences between the conflicting theories. Well, the question certainly tests that at least. There is a depressingly large margin for creationist science teachers to play with, and you only have to log on to the TES forum to see how many creationists are teaching science, and especially biology and physics. There are organisations playing to this very comfortable margin, and there are creationist materials making their way into schools.

What to do? Well, I try to sidestep the idea that I need to give any time to creationism and intelligent design in my lessons, and just teach the damn theory of evolution. But I have an advantage - I have an MA from Cambridge in Natural Sciences, an MRes from Imperial in Biosystematics, and a wealth of information, contacts and resources from my short-lived career in palaeontology. I have the tools that I need (admittedly in many cases I need to learn how to use them effectively, but isn't that the case with all new pieces of kit?). So what happens to the students whose teachers are not biology specialists and who see some dire creationist book appear as a "free gift" to the school and think it's a wonderful resource?

Or worse, what about all those kids being taught GCSE and A-level biology by creationists?

The Thin Evolutionary Line

A lot has been mentioned recently of the article "Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom" (Berkman & Plutzer, 2011).

The main quoted criticism is that, among teachers in the USA there is "a pervasive reluctance [...] to forthrightly explain evolutionary biology". Slightly fewer than one in three teachers were considered to be "effective educators" in evolutionary biology, described thus:

"They unabashedly introduce evidence that evolution has occurred and craft lesson plans so that evolution is a theme that unifies disparate topics in biology."

While the study was carried out on American teachers, this ratio seems reasonable to me - the overwhelming majority of my science department is creationist in nature, which I expect is a barrier to effectively educating students about evolution (am choosing my words carefully...).

I try my hardest to do a good job when teaching evolution. I try not to make a big deal out of it, and treat it like any other branch of biology (which it is), teaching it from a position of authority as though it was the Krebs Cycle. Mostly, a matter-of-fact approach is effective. However, all it takes is for a student to say "Yeah but you don't really believe this, right miss?", and the class instantly degenerates into a discussion of religion and philosophy, while I feel like I'm struggling to hold it together and return to science.

Add into the mix the common interpretation of Equality and Diversity Guidelines:

"Acknowledging diverse cultural backgrounds enables learners to bring their own life experiences to the classroom"

is usually interpreted as:

"So as not to hurt the feelings of the students whose creation narratives exclude evolution as a valid explanation, make sure you stress that evolution is only a theory and that lots of groups have different views of the origins of species."

And having seen a colleague's Scheme of Work, this is only marginally paraphrased from the actual E&D notes.

This is starting to bother me, as I am researching effective teaching methods for evolution, and one of my PGCE lecturers is a little too keen that I treat evolution as being just another philosophical viewpoint, rather than a very well supported scientific fact. How do I do evolution justice in my classes without being perceived as being bombastic, not taking into consideration students' diverse backgrounds, or "forcing" my "beliefs" onto impressionably young minds?

I want to be "unabashed" in my teaching of evolution, but I am also afraid of complaints from students and criticism from colleagues. And that is a rotten situation to be in.

Berkman, M.B. & E. Plutzer. 2011. "Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom. Science 301: 404-305. DOI:10.1126/science.1198902.

They Don't Buy It

Today I discussed endosymbiosis with my AS Biology class. It's probably one of the most fascinating aspects of cell biology. There are three major similarities between mitochondria and bacteria: their membrane, their DNA and their method of reproduction. It is perhaps one of the most elegant theories in biology, and I find the evidence utterly compelling.


I drew this, so don't you dare copy it...
But the majority of students utterly rejected it. Now, I've been spoilt so far - my A2 students are mostly heathen and proud of it, last year's GCSEs barely had to look at anything more taxing than horse evolution, and the BTEC students don't have to learn a damn thing about evolution, natural selection or speciation.

So some of the gems I got today included:

"I accept it, I just don't believe it."

"You can prove collision theory. You can't prove evolution."

"Are gorillas going to evolve into humans?"

"This is rubbish!"

My responses, in order, were along the lines of "I don't want you to believe science, I want you to accept science, so that's fine by me.", "You can only prove mathematical theories - for all you know there are tiny elves living in chemicals who get really angry and throw atoms at each other when you heat up the solution.", "No." and "Tough, it's on the specification." These probably didn't convince anyone (although I am particularly proud of the collision theory elves).

So I'm starting to think of all the other topics I've taught them since the start of the year, and I'm wondering how much else in biology has as much/little supporting evidence as endosymbiosis, but is still entirely accepted by my students. As far as I am aware, the evidence for endosymbiosis is pretty good - it's been observed by Kwang Jeon in amboebae. Mitochondrial cristae seem to be homologous to prokaryote mesosomes. On the other hand, the last thing I heard is that the six-carbon immediate product of carbon dioxide and ribulose bisphosphate in the Calvin cycle is so unstable that it has not been identified yet. And the enzyme responsible for photolysis of water in the light-dependent reaction may or may not be one of the photosystems, according to a recent paper, but they absorb what I do teach them in this regard as gospel.

These students seem happy enough to accept a 4.6Ga old Earth. Most of them are satisfied with the Big Bang, and all of them are just fine with gravitational theory, collision theory and the kinetic theory of gases. It looks like I have an uphill battle, and I'm a little apprehensive about the prospect of teaching evolution and natural selection to them. I've also realised (naïve though I may have been) that there is very little chance of me convincing them of the evidence for any aspect of descent from a common single-celled ancestor, or any of the cool stuff in between that and the present day.

Humph.

Treasures In Old Books

Several years ago, while at Washington University in St Louis, I headed to the Biology department library to return some books. As many libraries are wont to do, they were chucking out old copies of books, and looking through the pile I managed to score a few classic texts, including Lynn Margulis' "Early Life". Astoundingly, tucked inside, was a photocopy of a letter sent to Lynn on 2 June 1982 (the letter is typewritten, and the photocopy seems to have been made not long after and has a handwritten note by Lynn in the top corner).

The letter reads:

Dear Lynn,

I have now read Early Life with pleasure and education.

It is interesting that this started out as one of the proposed Scientific American books envisioned by Gerard Piel and originally under the supervision and editorship of Edward Immergut. I, too, started a book for that series. As you of course know, Piel sacked Immergut. He then proposed to do the editing himself, found he couldn't do it, and then released or reassigned those under way. Yours went off to Science Books International, a firm I do not know. Mine went to W.H. Freeman & Co., which no longer has any connection with Bill Freeman, a geologist and old friend of mine, but is an affiliate of Scientific American. (It is not 100% clear which one owns the other, but they are essentially the same outfit, one publishing magazines and the other books.) My book for them is [title removed for reasons which shall become apparent] and is scheduled for November, 1982.

Gerry Piel's original idea was to have books on branches of science written by specialists for other scientists not specialized in the same field. Your book does a beautiful job of that sort, although it will in some spots be rather slow reading for a scientist who is not specifically a biochemist.

I will mention just a couple of quite minor points, if only to show you that I have read your book word for word. For example on p. 72 you give 3.5 billion years as the age of the Warrawoona fossils but in a footnote recommend the utmost caution because the age might only be 70 million years. If that is a possibility I do think we should skip the Warrawoona things until they are better tied down. Of course there were similar prokaryotes 70 million years ago (as there are today) but at that time there were also mammals and other very advanced eukaryotes.

Another point even more trivial is that on p. 9 you say that "dogs, cows, giraffes, horses, and even human beings" all have five fingers or toes on each limb. Human beings do, but none of the others you name do. (Their ancestors did, but that isn't what you say.)

As you may recall, I was at first rather dubious about your theory of the origins of organelles from symbionts. You have now convinced me that this has often been correct. Some of your suggestions do still seem somewhat dubious, but you also leave room for some doubts.

Congratulations on a fine book.

Now, who do you think wrote that letter? I removed the title of the book from the letter to try and get some more interesting guesses out of you (since a straightforward google search would have thrown up the author immediately). Nothing but bragging rights for you, but give it a go. I'm looking forward to reading your guesses.

I will be covering endosymbiosis with my AS biologists next week, so I shall be re-reading "Early Life" again over the weekend, I think.

Research In A Different Direction

I have fairly conclusively demonstrated that I have absolutely no talent for palaeontology (if I had any talent for it I would be heading towards tenure by now, rather than lecturing in further education). But what I do seem to do pretty well is teach palaeontology and evolution. Those who can't, teach? Maybe.

I am currently in my second year of a two-year part-time PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education), and one of the assignments I have to complete is a research paper on a topic relevant to our teaching, whether subject-specific or pedagogical. For some time I have been intrigued about the different creation narratives of various religions, and how that affects students' acceptance of evolution. Anecdotally, I have noticed the most resistance to evolution from my First Diploma Applied Science students (vocational qualification equivalent to GCSEs), and the most acceptance of evolution from my A2 Biology students. Which is certainly preferable to the inverse. And so far the only students to have directly challenged me in the course of teaching evolution have been those whom I believe to be at least culturally Christian or Muslim.

Incidentally, when discussing the age of the Earth at 4.6 Ga, one of my Hindu A2 students rolled his eyes and sighed "Pffft, young earth creationist", before he could no longer keep up the straight face and dissolved in giggles.

Much of the anti-creationism material, literature, resources and guidance available to educators seems to be aimed towards objectors from the Abrahamic religions. While these certainly account for a large number of potential creationists, there are still the Indian, Taoic and Iranian religions to examine, not to mention more modern and folk religions. The religions represented in my classes are (in descending order of proportions): Islam, Sikhism, Hinduism, Christianity and Buddhism, so I really must take account of the non-Abrahamic faiths.

I hope to identify whether a change of strategy is needed when teaching evolution and palaeontology to non-Abrahamic religious students. I plan to read up and give myself a much better idea of the creation narratives (I'd love to say myths, but I'm trying to be a little less strident in my atheism - it doesn't seem to be an attractive trait in a trainee lecturer). I'd like to feel more confident teaching evolution to non-Christian students who are struggling to reconcile their faiths with science. And I would love to learn something useful and publishable, but I don't hold my breath.

If nothing else, my wasted years of supposed PhD study have served to make me feel much more confident with research than my fellow PGCE students, given me a better grip of primary literature, and enabled me to do Harvard referencing blindfolded with my hands tied behind my back. So it wasn't all in vain after all.

MYRSFO: Scottish Qualifications

I assume that, if I had studied in Scotland and was training to teach Scottish qualifications, I would find these far less bewildering than they actually are. Fortunately, I happen to be married to a Scotsman who has been very helpful with translating for me. Rather than specifications, the list of criteria is referred to as the arrangements on the SQA website.

Standard Grade
There are general and credit levels within this (broadly equivalent to foundation and higher tiers in GCSEs), but for the sake of getting the information down, I've combined the two.

• State that competition occurs when organisms have a need for the same resources
  
• Describe some effects of competition
  
• State that a species is a group of interbreeding organisms whose offspring are fertile
  
• State that variation can occur within a species
  
• Give examples of continuous and discontinuous variation
  
• Explain what is meant by continuous and discontinuous variation

Now, what has shocked me is that at Standard Grade, there is absolutely no mention of evolution or natural selection. There is brief mention, in topic 3b, that "Pupils should be aware that selection favours those individuals that leave most surviving offspring. This sub-topic provides opportunities for pupils to investigate ways in which animals achieve this through sexual reproduction". But that is really not good at all. Paul has suggested that evolution might be covered earlier in the curriculum, during general science, but that's not really an excuse.

The Intermediate 1 and 2 qualifications listed are, I understand, more vocational in nature, and as such because I've excluded BTEC and applied science courses for the rest of the UK, I'll exclude them here too. There are some aspects of evolution included in Intermediate 2, which serves to reassure that the Powers That Be do not think that evolutionary biology is only useful to those destined for university.

Higher
Highers are equivalent to A-Levels (give or take), and are taken over one year, as far as I am aware.

• Natural selection:
  - The survival of those organisms best suited to their environment
  - The concept of the species
  - The importance of isolating mechanisms as barriers to gene exchange leading to evolution of new species
  - Adaptive radiation
  - The high-speed evolution of organisms such as antibiotic resistant bacteria and the melanic peppered moth
  - The conservation of species through wildlife reserves, captive breeding and cell banks. The maintenance of genetic diversity

There are some small bits about succession as well, but the majority of the relevant bits are covered in the module on variation and adaptation.

Advanced Higher
Back in the Jurassic period, these were Sixth Year Studies, and students took them in their final year, usually with another couple of Highers for good measure. Since neither Paul nor I really know what these are all about now, so more recent Scottish school leavers feel free to comment. Not all schools would have offered all the SYS subjects, so it is possible that this is still the case.

• Analysing the genomes of other species. Comparison of the human genome with other species reveals remarkable similarities
  
• Biotic interactions:
  - Distinction between biotic and abiotic components of ecosystem; density-dependent and densityindependent factors. Interspecific and intraspecific interactions
  
• Predation:
  - Predator/prey population cycles. The role of predators in maintaining diversity in ecosystems by reducing the population density of prey species allowing weaker competitors to survive
  - Defences against predation; camouflage (crypsis and disruptive coloration); warning (aposematic) coloration. Batesian and Mullerian mimicry
  
• Competition:
  - Exploitation competition and interference competition. The concept of fundamental niche as a set of resources a species is capable of using. Realised niche as the set of resources actually used due to competition. Resource partitioning. The competitive exclusion principle
  
• Symbiosis:
  - Parasitism
  - Commensalism
  - Mutualism
  
• The costs, benefits and consequences of interactions
  
• Changes in complexity of ecosystems
  - Autogenic succession (primary and secondary succession). The increase in complexity of ecosystems from pioneer through to climax communities. Facilitation of change in early stages. Increase in complexity shown by increase in: diversity of species, variety of habitats and niches, complexity of food webs. Changes in stability and productivity through succession
  - Reference to effects of external factors in allogenic succession and relatively short-term nature of degradative (heterotrophic) successions
  
• Evolution of behaviour:
  - Natural selection of behaviour patterns
  - Single gene effect on behaviour
  
• Feeding behaviour:
  - Predation strategies
  - Foraging behaviour
  - Defence strategies
  
• Sexual behaviour:
  - Male and female investment
  - Courtship and display

Those readers in Scottish universities, this is an absolute gift - almost all aspects of palaeontological research can be related to the specification for Advanced Higher, so knock yourselves out there. I wish that the A-Level specifications had half of this detail, as in my humble opinion this is way more fun and interesting than considering the ethics of performance-enhancing substances.