Why+I+decided+to+change.

I'm going to tell you a story. It is a true story and it really made me think!

A couple of years ago I was teaching my year 11 Biology class. They were not the greatest students, but they were lovely girls who wanted to do the right thing and they wanted to do well. At the end of the year, they sat for the exams and when we were going through the exams. We came to this question. 

In the space provided below, draw up a dichotomous key to separate these organisms into four distinct groups. State the criteria you used to form these groups. (You may use any form of dichotomous key you choose.)

One of my students, who did not get full marks for this question, started to state her case for getting full marks. She had not made a key that would clearly differentiate the organisms. Specifically, she had not been able to clearly differentiate the characteristics of the cat and the duck! After some discussion she said "But you never taught us that a duck has feathers." I had to agree, I never had taught my year 11 Biology class that a duck has feathers and a cat does not. How remiss of me! But this revelation did generate a lot of thought. It was clear that, aside from the sheer stupidity of this comment, this student had left all common sense and prior learning outside the classroom AND she had abrogated all responsibility for her learning.

It may have been too late for this student, but I had to do something to ensure that this would not happen again. I had to find another way of teaching, because what I was doing was not working.

And so the search began... <span style="color: #000080; display: block; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 150%; text-align: left;">