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.

Scientific Literacy and Misinformation

Some of the most commonly peddled scientific misconceptions are related to the development of the human embryo and foetus. The anti-abortion groups love to show shocking photos of incredibly baby-like embryos and foetuses in an attempt to persuade women not to seek abortions. Women are all capable of making a decision that is best for them and their families (however that is defined), and they need to have accurate, unbiased information to do so.

I only read the Sunday Torygraph because it was being given out free as Paul did the Royal Parks Foundation half marathon today. I really wish I hadn't. It's unscientific and elitist at the best of times, but this was downright misogyny.


The image of the 12-week foetus is probably about half the size of the image of the 23-week foetus. This is way too big. At 12 weeks gestation the foetus is about 2 inches long. At 24 weeks it reaches 12 inches long. Even accounting for allometric growth of the head, the scale of the three images is misleading, no doubt to make it appear that lowering the abortion limit from 24 to 12 weeks is no big deal.

I also think they've got it wrong in terms of development. I think that 12-week foetus is actually much older. Compare it with this image of a 12-week foetus from the Science Photo Library:


I'm never going to stop newspapers (though they are not the trustworthy media organisations they may have once been) from publishing bad science and misogynistic misinformation. I'll never stop the anti-abortion campaigners from grossly over-estimating foetal development in a callous ploy to shame women into continuing with unwanted pregnancies. And don't even get me started on what a prime example of Cockney rhyming slang Jeremy Hunt is. Everything I have to say about him is an anguished sweary scream, which doesn't translate well to text.

But I can at least educate my own students, in the hope that 100 young people every year learn that pictures like the ones in the Torygraph are utter bollocks.

How To Tackle Plagiarism

I still dip into the Geoblogosphere, and really enjoy keeping up with what colleagues in academia and research are up to. Over a year ago, Evelyn wrote a post about the carbon cycle, from the carbon atom's point of view. It was an endearing and entertaining story written years ago by a 10-year-old Evelyn.

Today Evelyn received a comment from a biology teacher called Mrs Kim:

Please delete this post. I am a biology teacher at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. Two students were caught plagiarizing this article for a carbon cycle assignment. The issue has been resolved, but we need to guarantee this does not occur in the future. Thank you.

Understandably, many earth scientists and interested parties have responded. I felt I had rather more to say than could easily be put in a comment. There are a number of possibilities. Firstly, in the age of the internet troll, Mrs Kim could be a bored youngster. However, on the balance of probabilities, she is a genuine teacher at the school in question.

So, perhaps through being a little naive about technology and the internet (I'm really trying hard not to go for the alternative explanation that she's a moron), Mrs Kim has found the source of the students' plagiarism, and decided that the appropriate course of action is to ask the author of the original work to remove it.

If I asked for all the websites my students plagiarise to be taken down, then it's safe to say Wikipedia and About.com wouldn't be half the online monsters they are today. Just in the past two weeks I'd have had to demand the removal of every article on the kidney, nephron, ultrafiltration, the acid-base mechanism, cell structure, mitosis, DNA and protein synthesis. Even if it had at one time been the normal course of action to remove a book from the school library if it was notorious as a "plagiarisable" source, it is unsustainable with so much information online.

And, as is so rightly pointed out by a number of commenters, the burden is on the students and their teacher to prevent plagiarism, not the author of the original work. So, here are my methods for detecting, punishing and preventing plagiarism.

1. Put the fear of Flying Spaghetti Monster into them at the start of the year, and tell them exactly how much shit they'll be in when (not if) they plagiarise.
   
2. When they submit work, make sure they do so electronically. If your institution has been able to afford subscription to TurnItIn then use that. Otherwise, copy the text into the box at Article Checker. If all else fails, type a few phrases into Google.
   
3. Strike through every single plagiarised word and only mark text that is entirely original.
   
4. Hand the work back and tear student a new arsehole in private.
   
5. Issue a general "hairdryer treatment" bollocking to the entire class. Show them examples of academic dishonesty. Make it clear this is one of the most serious offences a scientist can commit within their field.
   
6. Promise the class that you will find and punish all subsequent instances of plagiarism with the full weight of whatever disciplinary system you have at your disposal.
   
7. Tell them that if they pull this kind of stunt at university they can be kicked out.

Alternatively, ensure every single piece of work set is one with a significant amount of reflective thinking - the sort of personal work that can't be easily copied and pasted off Wikipedia.