Teaching Toward my Passion: MFS Beekeeping Course
Daniel Sorokin
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Beekeeping at MFS
Beekeeping at MFS
The beekeeping program at MFS has been ran through a student club, and later a student committee. Historically these groups have met once a week for 30-45 minutes. In addition, this small amount of time must be split between many activities, making adequate apicultural education hard to achieve. This means currently, our MFS apiary is unsustainable. There is no way to ensure all future classes are able to keep our pollinators alive. A beekeeping minor class would just that. If done right, it should teach everything necessary to keep our honey bee colony healthy for years to come.
But while we worked to apply for a grant and prepare for the colony, I knew nothing about bees. Well, none of us in our small club of future beekeepers did. To help contribute to the project, I surrounded myself in beekeeping culture, reading articles and watching videos about every niche aspect of the hobby. Then COVID came. There was no way we'd be able to get a honey bee colony at school for at least another year. I was excited to start exploring beekeeping hands-on and actually do what I had been seeing in all those videos, but now I couldn't. So beekeeping became my sourdough bread. I got my own colony at home during COVID.
I came back to school "the bee guy," according to a group of 5th graders in the halls. I assumed the role of head student beekeeper at MFS and starting preparing for the honey bee colony's arrival. The group grew quickly; dozens of new faces were interested in helping kick-start the project. Soon enough, we had our hive, and I started informally teaching my peers how to keep the bees healthy.
But what will happen when I'm gone? How can I be sure that I've passed on everything necessary? I love teaching, so it just made sense to do my Capstone project on creating a beekeeping curriculum for MFS.
The Project
The Project
Ok, so the project couldn't just be creating a curriculum. There had to be significant research and reasoning behind it. To start, I knew very little about how to create a good environment for learning. With that, my first avenue was pedagogy: the study of how things are taught and learned in an educational context. The goal not was to understand how to teach generally, but what methods of teaching would be perfect for a beekeeping course. This was the preliminary research. From there I moved on to testing how my devised course would work in the real world, and making any changes necesary.
Timeline
Timeline
Preliminary Research Overview
Preliminary Research Overview
Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics
Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics
Meta Analysis of 225 Studies of active learning’s effect on STEM education
Shows that a 0.47 standard deviation increase in exam performance (increase of 6%) occurs as a result of using active learning in STEM fields
Students in classes with traditional lecturing were 1.5 times more likely to fail exams
TL;DR: Using active learning while teaching STEM improves retention and application of information
Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom
Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom
Students in active classrooms learned more, but their perception of learning, while positive, was lower than that of their peers in passive environments
When students experience the increased cognitive effort associated with active learning, they initially take that effort to signify poorer learning ... may have a detrimental effect on students’ motivation & engagement
TL;DR: An element of passive learning increases learner confidence in what they have learned, even if active learning is (in reality) superior
This research provided a framework for me to create the syllabus of the course. From here, the way I conducted my research went through a major shift from reading published studies to engaging with teaching directly.
Use this link to access all resources including curriculum, syllabus, pedagogy, unit slides, and the textbook
Syllabus
Syllabus
A syllabus is a general outline of a course with an overview, subjects, grading policies, and more. This syllabus divided the course into six subjects: Introduction; Basic Honey Bee Biology; Establishing a Honey Bee Colony; Ongoing Management; and Diseases, Pests, and Predators. These subjects ensure that students gain experience necessary to develop independence and confidence. In total, the course is made to last around 13 weeks. The class is pass/fail, with projects but no tests.
Schedule
Schedule
The curriculum for the Beekeeping minor course is paired with a schedule with important topics to cover, optional at-home reading passages, and projects. The schedule is made to be flexible such that all necessary information is covered. Given the nature of a course that depends on uncontrollable conditions like weather for some lessons, this was needed. Many lessons planned in this schedule are paired with Google Slides presentations.
Textbook
Textbook
This "textbook" is optional, but extremely useful! Beekeeping: A Practical Guide by Richard E. Bonney is the book I recommend to anyone looking to get into beekeeping. In fact, it is such a good book that some beekeeping supply companies put the book in their starter kits! It dives into every unit in the curriculum and more. With detailed illustrations to help students follow along, this guide will effectively prepare students for class activities, demonstrations, and discussions.
About the Class
About the Class
This course consists of a mix of didactic and authentic pedagogical methods. Studies show that while active learning works to improve test results in STEM classes, passive learning creates confidence in what has been learned. With the end goal of preparing students to be able to manage their own beehives, this course must garner confidence along with actual skill. Didactic Learning Pedagogy with an emphasis on textbook use and lecture will build up roughly half of the course. Authentic Learning Pedagogy with an emphasis on group work, research projects, hands-on interactions with bees, and class discussions will make up the other half.
Active and engaged learning with our school beehive is the core of this course. Facts taught through lecture and textbook reading will be applied in real life through the school beehive. This way, students will learn how to apply the knowledge they have learned in real life. Both skills and confidence will be nurtured.
From the Minor Course Catalog:
From the Minor Course Catalog:
Research
Research
Testing out the Course
Testing out the Course
I tested my course using an online peer-to-peer teaching service over the beginning of the summer. The pilot course ran for a few weeks. Since it was online people from all over the world were able to be a part of the pilot course. However, due to the limitations of online learning, the course was a slightly modified version of the course that I had originally planned for. There were less possible meetings, and the hand-on learning components needed to be removed.
Revising the Course
Revising the Course
The online course provided great insight into changes that needed to be made to perfect the beekeepign course. After the class had finished, I asked members to fill out a feedback form to determine the quality of the course and any changes that needed to be made. In the end, I received a lot of very helpful feedback that enabled me to make slight modifications to the course. For example, the lessons on ongoing hive management did not work best in the online passive learning setting.
Project Experience
Project Experience
Did your project change/progress from its inception to the end result?
Most of my project did not change from my original proposal. I was still able to do research on pedagogy and create a course for beekeeping at MFS. The biggest change was the use of videos in the beekeeping course, which is explained on the right. Originally, I was aiming to create a series of long-form YouTube videos to go along with the course. However, I found that this too heavily relied on passive learning. In the end, I decided that a series of short-form YouTube videos may be used, but not are not integral to the class.
What obstacles did you face throughout your project? How did you respond to those challenges?
It was more difficult than I thought it would be to find a place to do the course pilot. I did not want to do a weekly Google Meet course with only members of the MFS student body for many reasons. One of the biggest reasons was that I wanted a large sample of students, and that would be very difficult with summer volunteers from our very small school. Even when I found the platform where I could host the course, I found it difficult to get consistent attendance. I came to realize that my project was going to have to pivot at least a little. I eventually accepted inconsistant attendance, and began asking for feedback after every meeting.
Will you use the process or information you learned from this Capstone in future endeavors?
I really like teaching. Even if I do not go into teaching in my professional career, I know I will definitely be doing more if it in the future. Even now, as an instructor at a local STEM camp, I find what I have learned in my Capstone project to be extremely useful. I teach my students there 3D printing, and they greatly benefit from incorporating hands-on learning in the lessons.
What advice would you give to a student who is considering doing a Capstone project?
Don't do a Capstone project for the sake of doing a Capstone project. Ask yourself, "if faculty says no, will I do the project anyway?" If the answer is yes, then you're doing it right. It's a lot of work; you should choose a topic that you are passionate about. If you're just doing a Capstone for your college resumes, you will end up wanting to drop out of the program.
Beekeeping Videos
Beekeeping Videos
A happy byproduct of this Capstone Product is a small beekeeping YouTube Shorts channel. Originally, I was going to be making a series of long YouTube videos for the project that would go alongside the course. However, I found that these videos were not the idea after doing research into pedagogy. Many videos would simply restrict opportunities for hands-on active learning, and passive learning is best when questions can be asked. This led me to make a series of short-form YouTube videos giving short insights to different areas of beekeeping. Without a doubt, these videos can and will still be used in the course, but they are no longer a core component. Some beekeeping activities are time-dependent, and there is no way of ensuring that a queen replacement, for example, will happen during the Beekeeping class.
Impact
Impact
By the end of my project, I had a Beekeeping course curriculum ready that was approved by MFS faculty to be taught in the Spring 2023 Semester. The goal of ensuring that our school honey bee colony lasts seems more possible than ever. For me, this is extremely important. I have spent countless hours ensuring the success of Beekeeping at MFS, but the future of the endeavor was questionable. However, I see this project's success impacting much more than just the Beekeeping Initiative directly. My passion for beekeeping came did not spontaneously develop in isolation. it came from other people around me who were passionate who sparked my interest. From there, I was set on an ongoing journey. Hopefully, this course will be able to do just that for at least one other person.
What's Next?
What's Next?
Friends, I am proud to say that the Beekeeping course is officially on the Spring 2023 Minor Course Catalog! Several students have signed up to be in the class, and I am extremely excited for it all to begin. I will be teaching this course alongside Mr. Newman, continuing my research. For the first time, this course will be given in person, so I will be likely making slight modifications to the curriculum. If all goes well, it is my hope that the course continues to be taught by students in future years, similar to Model UN or other student-led classes. This way, student wisdom and experience will continue to build onto the foundational course I have created.
A Special Thanks to Mr. Newman, Mr. Rachlin, and members of the Environmental Committee for support throughout this project!
A Special Thanks to Mr. Newman, Mr. Rachlin, and members of the Environmental Committee for support throughout this project!
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