Teaching the Same Old Thing in a Whole New Way

Tonight's #flipclass flashblog is about teaching the same old thing in a whole new way. I have a lot of activities that I L.O.V.E. to do. That kids love to do and that seem to hit the standards very well. But, I've never been able to repeat the same things over and over every year. Even the best activities are boring!  Cell division is a good example.  It has been part of middle school science in one way or another for the 14 years that I've been teaching and the details don't really change.  Mitosis is mitosis.  Every year, I try to change things to keep it fresh for both me and the students.  Most years students create a mnemonic device to remember the steps of mitosis. One year we did the yarn activity. Another year we used Twizzlers. We've looked at onion root tips under the microscope. We've watched really cool and amazing videos of cells dividing. 14 years is a lot of mitosis activities. One year, I remember watching a video from Cells Alive and thinking it's like a dance.  There it was. Let's see if we can create a dance for cell division.  I provided the students with some supplies:

• Different colored T-shirts to color code themselves as sister chromatids.
• Segments of rope in different colors to represent different membranes.
• Carabeeners and long ropes to represent spindle fibers and centromeres.
• Various signs

Students divided into groups based on their roles and created their movements. We commandeered the school lobby so we'd have space to practice. And, we had a ton of fun.