This standard, Classroom Practice, instructs the teacher to use a variety of approaches in how he or she presents the material to be learned.  During my student teaching I learned that the variety of learning approaches you can take depends on the class.  And yet, I also learned that there are common "rules of thumb."  For example, most classes will not be thrilled with a week full of direct teacher presentations.  Most students need some variety of instruction in the week to keep them interested and on-task.  Also, there is great value in having the teacher step back and put the learning in the hands of the students in a more obvious way, for example by working on an individual project or lab exercise that is less structured, yet points the student in the direction of the desired outcome.  Also, by varying my instructional strategies, I can accommodate students that learn best with their hands, those that learn best by taking notes, those that learn best observing images, etc.  Whatever the teaching strategy, it is imperative that I find some way to assess what students are learning.  Early in my student teaching it was very easy for me to ask questions of students during presentations to see if they understood the material.  However, asking such chorus-like or individual questions did not exactly give me feedback on each student.  Noticing this area of my practice that needed improvement, I began to increase the number of personal assessments on each student, often in simple and informal ways---like the entrance and exit ticket---so that I could keep a constant eye on how students were grasping the material.  

Collaborative activities take a lot of careful planning. For example, the first lab I had my students do (a chicken wing dissection) could have been better introduced, perhaps by doing a pre-lab activity.  The mistake I made in this case was not giving them the information on the lab prior to the day we actually began the lab.  Had I better prepared them for the lab, I think there would have been fewer questions needing to be clarified during the lab (a somewhat less-structured environment), and students could have progressed more smoothly and quickly through the dissection.  Now, when I know I will be doing a lab activity, I try to always have my students prepare for it the day before in some way (like the cow eyeball dissection.)  Overall I have found that most students enjoy collaborative activities, and are able to stay on task, provided the instructions are clearly presented and what will be assessed is highlighted.

Questioning in a classroom can be a valuable tool for teachers and for students.  I cannot count the number of times that my students have asked questions that have made me think.  One way I have tried to keep track of these often complex questions of students is to create a place in the classroom where such questions can be placed: Questions that I either cannot answer at the time because I do not know the answer or do not have the time to devote to them.  I designed a "What is on your mind?" brain bulletin board where we write such questions on cut-out "neurons" that are posted on a large brain silhouette.  As either a student or I answer the question, the answer is posted alongside the question.  So far I have found this tactic somewhat challenging to maintain, as it is a distraction from class for me to write down the questions, and I do not always have time to research the answer. In the future I think I will post this bulletin board closer to the front of the classroom where it is more visible so that both the students and I will be more likely to actively attend to it. 

Asking questions of my students has become second nature.  Questioning helps me feel connected to my students during a direct teacher presentation; it helps give me feedback on what students are learning and understanding; it forces me to try to lead them to their own answers and not just present them with the information.  Realizing that I could think of many ways I could improve my questioning, at midterm I made a goal for myself to actively script key questions into my lesson plan prior to teaching the class. By scripting such questions (as in preparation for a Socratic seminar on "What is brain death?") I found that I was able to add more structure to my teaching as well as involve my students throughout the lesson, not just when the opportunity arose to ask a question.

For the portion of this standard that describes the "Development of student skills," I am immediately reminded of what my cooperating teacher alluded to as "the big picture."  She mentioned that I might step back and look at both of my classes to assess what the big picture or the end goal was for each group of students.  On one side there is the goal of preparing the students for college and cultivating in them the skills that will allow them to succeed in a college environment (note-taking skills, critical thinking, test-taking skills, learning vocabulary, laboratory skills, etc).  On the other side there is the broad goal of developing a general appreciation and understanding of how science works and ways in which we all encounter and can use science every day.  One section of this part of the standard that I focused on in my Personal Inquiry Presentation is that of developing students' scientific literacy through reading a variety of scientific literature.  Not only do I want to show students how to carefully read and understand scientific literature, but I want them to be able to know how to use such skills in their everyday life, whether they are going to college or not.  Such an example might be the general idea of applying the scientific process to common hypotheses we all have.  One example I encountered the other day was in the form of a question from a student, "I heard caffeine helps headaches?" We posted the question in the room, hoping to return to it later.  This question is a perfect example of how I can help students look to a number of scientific writings (magazine article, newspaper article, journal article, textbook, etc) to search for the answer. 

Finally, lab work is essential in any anatomy class (which I taught during my student teaching, but this also applies to biology in general) because it allows the students to directly experience the anatomy about which they are learning.  The chicken wing dissection lab was one example.  However, because we cannot dissect an organism every day, I have tried to develop a variety of other hands-on labs to help students better understand anatomical structures and how they exist three-dimensionally.  One example was a "human head lab" I designed in which students cut out paper templates of facial muscles and were instructed to figure out how they were positioned on a Styrofoam head, using straight pins to secure them.   This lab forced students to apply knowledge they had up to this point only learned on paper (two-dimensionally) to a three-dimensional model, as well as made them examine how the various muscles overlapped each other, where they originated and inserted, and what their actions were.  This type of non-cookbook lab is what I hope to include more of in my classroom.