Too often do I see teachers testing their students by asking them to write out or draw out the light reactions or the Calvin cycle. Not only is this unfair to students who do not have the required background in chemistry or do not learn well with textbooks, it also does not guaranteed that our students actually understand the metabolic processes. When I was a student, I spent an hour before the test memorizing the names of all the protein complexes and products of the reactions, but I never spent the time to track the electrons and protons because I thought it was way too complicated and would confuse me. It also created too much anxiety by pressuring them to memorize such a tough pathway. Why not try some of these alternative ways of assessing our students understanding?
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Create a model of the reactions of photosynthesis: This university professor from Simon Fraser University posted these ingenious videos on photosynthesis mechanism on his youtube page. It got me thinking...why not ask students to create their own model of the reactions of photosynthesis?
Teachers can also use this method to instruct our students! |
Write a story: create a story documenting the journey of a carbon dioxide molecule or an electron within the chloroplast as the plant converts inorganic ingredients from the environment into life-supporting carbohydrates!
Write a song or choreograph a dance to outline how much student understands the photosynthetic pathway. This video here is a perfect example of how students can show you how much they've learned about photosynthesis without having to draw a diagram in five minutes during a unit test
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