Appendix 1: Teacher notes – organisation of the lesson

This lesson on the human heart links directly to SHS and the teaching and learning activities associated with it.

Biology SHS Year 2 Section 4 Unit 3

Integrated Science: SHS Year 2 Section 3 Unit 3 and SHS Year 3 Section 1 Unit 3

Ideas for organising this exemplar lesson link directly to activities and teaching examples in the OpenSTEM Africa CPD units on Using ICT to support learning, and Approaches to active notetaking.

A full list of the OpenSTEM Africa CPD units can be found at: https://www.open.edu/openlearncreate/CPD_units

Overview

If possible, this lesson should take place in the ICT Lab in your school if this can be arranged through your Head of Science and the Head of ICT. If the lesson takes place in the ICT Lab, it may be possible for each student to work individually at a computer; otherwise divide the class so that students are in small groups at a computer.

If it is not possible to use the ICT Lab for this lesson, then try to set up this lesson in your classroom. You may be lucky enough in your school to have a set of ‘empty’ tablets or mobile phones which students can use. Or you may be able to bring into the classroom a laptop connected to the internet or to your school intranet – and perhaps connected to a projector to make it possible for the whole class to view at once. If access to ICT is a real challenge in your school but you want your students to view an experiment, you might be able demonstrate it to small groups of your students at a time, using your own mobile phone

Whatever way(s) you set up the class, it would still be helpful to the students to be able to work in pairs or small groups for at least some of the lessons associated with using the human heart application. Do remember as well that students need desk space to be able to write in their notebooks and to draw tables and diagrams.

Steps in organising the lesson

Step 1: This could take place in the classroom in the lesson or lessons preceding the one where you and your class access the OpenSTEM Africa Virtual Laboratory Human heart application. As you will see there are a number of questions and activities in the lesson that students can carry out in the classroom, and which will help them prepare for the activities where they use the human heart application.

Have students work in pairs to pre-read the short Background section of the exemplar lesson. Ask them also to read all the instructions for accessing and using the human heart application as this process involves several steps. You may want to ask them to draw the schematic diagram of the heart before they move to looking at the heart application in the OpenSTEM Africa Virtual Laboratory. While they are doing so, you may want to walk round the class and check their laboratory notebooks, as accurate drawing of the diagram is important for this exemplar lesson.

Step 2: This could also take place in the classroom in the lesson preceding the one where you and your class access the OpenSTEM Africa Virtual Laboratory Human heart application. Check students’ understanding by asking them to carry out the activity of checking for radial and carotid pulse. Have each student make a note of the observations they are going to carry out and the calculations they are going to make when they are interacting with the human heart application. Make sure that they have set out appropriate headings for the tables in their own laboratory notebook in preparation for their data collection.

Step 3: Once the students have access to the OpenSTEM Africa Virtual Laboratory, give them time to go through the steps in setting up/opening the applications, time to try out all of the activities in the menu, and time to complete all the practical activity tasks.

Step 4: Make sure that each pair has access to/can see the computer screen to begin the actual observations. Ensure that each pair knows how to carry out the observations – or, if you are using a laptop/projector, that you draw on the expertise of the class as you go through each step of the human heart activities – e.g., ask them what the next step is.

Step 5: Have the class follow the instructions for each of the human heart activities. Make sure, if working in a pair on a PC, that each student in the pair gets to follow all the steps; if working in a group on a PC, have the group leader ensure that everyone in the group is involved.

Step 6: What they write in their notebooks should be agreed between the pair or within the group but allow enough time for everyone in the class to fill in their own set of tables. Have them check each other’s writing.

Step 7: Ten minutes before the end of the lesson, tell the students to complete the quiz.

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