Biology Curriculum

Attached above is a 4-week unit plan for the Stage 1 Biology topic on Infectious Diseases. This unit plans consists of a unit summary, links to SACE curriculum, student objectives/learning outcomes, lesson overviews and resources. I have also included the summative assessment that will accompany this unit.

In this assessment, we were tasked with creating and delivering lessons based our Stage 1 Biology topic. Each lesson includes SACE Learning Outcomes, Science Understandings, differentiation requirements and include both content and an activity.

In my slides, I included the science understanding criteria required for students to understand. In my slides, I have included demonstrations, videos, activities and interactives to engage students. I have incorporated ICT use such as online voting allowing students to vote for the answers to a questions anonymously. I tried to link the concepts covered in the unit to real-life examples such as HIV or Malaria outbreaks in different parts of the world.

Based on the slides, I created a booklet to accompany it. The booklet contains information that students are required to understand for the topic. Most sections are left blank for students to fill in. I chose to design a booklet to help students organise notes and content in one place.

Attached above is an example of a formative practical I had designed for the Infectious Diseases topic. In this task, students would need to identify different bacterial/yeast colonies based on various samples. Students will be given a visualisation table to aid them in identifying the different colonies. I have also included a adjusted version of the practical.

The assessment task above represent a SHE task I had created for Infectious Diseases. Students will have the opportunity to investigate an aspect of the wider effects of infectious disease on human health, what innovative and new treatments are available or are being developed, or the ethical and social implications of the control of disease. Students will need to use a wide variety of resources to support their findings. Students will have to focus on at least one of the key concepts of Science as a Human Endeavour.

The attachment above is a Skills and Applications Task I created for Infectious Diseases. Students will need to demonstrate the knowledge and skills on Infectious Diseases. Students will need to apply their knowledge and skills to a range of questions including both new and familiar contexts. Questions based on new contexts may require students to apply their knowledge, solve problem, and interpret data or diagrams. An extended response question will also be included. Questions will also be included where students will use science inquiry skills to provide an answer.

In this summative practical, students will need to investigate the effects of synthetic and natural antibiotics on bacterial growth. They will then need to work in pairs to design an investigation to determine the effect of a factor (pH, temperature, nutrient availability) on bacterial growth. After designing a methods, students will need to implement the design, obtain, record and display their data in the form of a report. They critically evaluate the outcomes of the practical, consider a range of explanations for their observations and suggest improvements to the design of the investigation.

For the Practical Investigations task, we were tasked with assessing another students deconstruct. We needed to provide clear and constructive feedback to out peers regarding their deconstruct. The purpose of this task was to prepare us for marking assessments when we begin placements. In this particular deconstruct, I gave them a B-grade when I assessed them against the rubric. It was a well researched deconstruct but needed more justification as to why they chose to focus on certain aspects.

As part of the Biology Curriculum and Methodology course, we were tasked with conducting a moderation with a team mate. We needed to give feedback, assess the report against the SACE standards and provide a grade. We then needed to justify our conclusion to our teammate and supervisor to make comparable and consistent judgements of student work. Both my teammate and I, agreed that the first student work was of a A-grade and the second was of a C-grade.