So, the grade 9 project ended quite well and I got very good feedback from the students. Most of the presentations were good, contained a lot of information and were quite creative. They wrote a test on Friday and I was happy to see that much of the information was retained by many of the students.
Now I have moved away from projects for the 9s for a little while until I start my biodiversity projects and am giving my grade 8 students some projects on body systems and disease.
In the past I have taught most of the material about the body systems and then had the students do a choose your own adventure murder mystery project, but I though that I would use the google docs and try something new this year.
Phase I - Become a Specialist (4 classes)
Before we started I told all the students that they were doctors and I congratulated them on this accomplishment! Now the goal was to make all of them into specialists. I created mixed ability groups and gave each group a system of the body (Circulatory, Respiratory, Digestive, Nervous and Urinary). The goal of each group was to answer the following questions:
1) What is the function of the system?
2) What are the main organs, tissues and cells of the system?
3) In general, how does the system work?
The groups were to make one google doc for their system and then everyone in the group had to know the information well enough for each person to pass a quiz on their system in order for them to move on to the next step of the project. I have never tried this before and I was a little concerned about how well it would work. The students had to work together and test each other, and then when they felt they were ready, all 6 had to come to me and tell me that they were prepared to write the quiz. I use an online course shell and so the quiz was a 10 questions multiple choice test that was marked automatically by the computer system.
As the students were working along in the document I gave feedback about the information and then got the students to remove the questions and try to make a document that was clear, concise and flowed logically. If I felt that their document was ready and they had decided they were all ready to write the quiz I opened the quiz and they all took the test. Overall, this worked really well. I had 2 of my students who tend to struggle fail the test. I allowed them to come and see me, I asked them some questions orally and if I was happy that they had the basic information, I gave them a 5/10 and the whole group was able to more on to the next step. I had two groups with multiple student fail and so I made these groups go back into their document, fix it up, study together and try again. All the students passed on the second attempt and I took the average of their marks.
Phase II - Investigate a disease (1 class)
I broke each of the groups of 6 into groups of 3 and allowed them to pick any disease that related to their body system and add information about the following:
1) What is the disease?
2) What is going on in your body if you have this disease?
This second question was strategic because students were not able to find this information easily on the internet. I wanted them to think about how the system worked and apply that to what would be happening if this disease was present. This portion of the project was not marked, but it has built their understanding for the next phase of the project and they enjoyed looking into a disease of their choice.
Phase III - Teach (one class prep, 2 classes for teaching)
I struggled with the best way for students to share the information about their systems to each other and I decided that I would get the students to teach the class. I emphasized that this was not the same as giving a presentation because they had to ensure that the other students learned the most critical aspects of their system. While students were presenting they used the white board, SmartBoard, diagrams, videos and demonstrations. I did step in if the information was incomplete or incorrect, but mostly my job was to slow down the presenters and to get the students to write out or simplify their information.
Phase IV - Diagnosing symptoms
Tomorrow we will be starting on the next phase of the project. Here students will work in groups of 2 or 3 but group members must be specialists in different body sytems. The group will be given a scenario of a person coming to their clinic, or of someone they meet in their life who is experiencing some sort of symptom. In each scenario, students must write out:
1) What they think is actually going on inside the body system(s) now that the person is experiencing this problem?
2) What will happen in this body system, and ultimately this patient, if the symptoms continue?
Each group will be given a scenarios from each body system one at a time. They will be able to come and ask me for more information if they feel they need to run extra tests. When they feel they have completed the task for the given scenario, I will get one of the other students in the class who is an expert in that system to look over their explanation and give feedback to the team. At this point, the team can fix up their explanation before handing it in to me to mark. I will give the students a small oral quiz on the scenario and then give them a mark on their explanation and understanding of the system.
The students are looking forward to this phase of the project, as am I. I think it will be a fun, highly educational and collaborative process.
The following is the list of scenarios:
Circulatory
1) A patient, named Jordan, comes in with a cut that will not stop bleeding.
2) You arrive on the scene of an accident and find a woman lying on the ground. You take her pulse and find that she has an irregular heart beat.
3) You arrive on the scene of an accident and find a man, Frank, lying on the ground. You can not see any wounds, but when you take his pulse, you cannot find a heart beat.
4) Sydney comes into your office and says that she is feeling tired and unwell. You take a blood sample and find an elevated number of white blood cells.
5) You have been out skiing in the mountains all day when one of your friends complains that he is feeling pain and numbness in the toes on his right foot.
Respiratory
1) A patient, named Sandra, comes in making wheezing noises when she breathes.
2) Nicholas comes into your office with chest pain. You do an x-ray and discover that he has excess mucus in his lungs.
3) You are attending a hockey game and a player gets hit in the stomach area with the butt end of a stick. You go to the ice to find that she is unable to breathe at all.
4) You are climbing a high mountain and one of your team members is feeling dizzy and lightheaded.
5) You are driving home and find that your neighbour's house is on fire. Miguel has just run out of the house surrounded by a cloud of smoke. He is coughing and cannot seem to catch his breath.
Nervous
1) A patient, named Kate, comes in with numbness in her left foot. She says she has been this way for over a week.
2) You arrive on the scene of an accident and find Jimmy lying on the ground. When you ask him to move his right foot, he is unable to do so.
3) You come upon an accident and go to help some of the injured. You shine a light into the eye of one of the patients and the iris does not contract or expand.
4) Rachel comes in to your office complaining about persistent pain in her knee.
5) You are going home on the bus and see another rider, Luc, fall down and start shaking uncontrollably.
Urinary
1) A patient, named Marcus, comes in feeling quite tired and unwell. You take a urine sample and find that he has excess sugar in his urine.
2) Caitlyn comes in quite worried about seeing blood in her urine.
3) Carmen says that she has been feeling tired and sick for a week or so. You take a urine sample and find that she has excess waste products in her urine.
4) Marnie has brought in her son Blake, a 5-year-old boy, who still often wets the bed at night.
5) You are hiking in the Grand Canyon in the summer. It is very hot and dry. You come upon a man, Randy, who is sitting on a rock and who is looking ready to pass out. You ask him if he has any water and he says ‘no, I didn’t think I would need any’.
Digestive
1) A patient, Sam says that he has had diarrhea for the past 48 hours.
2) Michelle comes into your office and complains of being constantly hungry. She says she is eating a lot, but that she is hungry, tired and sometimes dizzy.
3) You are out having dinner with your friend Pablo. He decides to have a chicken salad. Six hours later he is throwing up repeatedly.
4) Mitchell comes into the office complaining of a burning sensation in his throat and an acid taste in his mouth.
5) Alexis comes into your office. She is very thin and has indications of burning on the inside of her mouth and throat.
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