Beating Memorization Monotony

We all know that memorization can get quite boring within the classroom; which is why there is such a push for higher level thinking questioning and teachers pushing the kids outside their boundaries...but when teaching a course like Anatomy, some basic memorization is a necessary evil sometimes!

In class, we have covered body cavities, now we are moving on into body landmarks.  There are about 82 terms that they have been introduced to in the first 4 days of school so I wanted to take yesterday and today to do some activities to reinforce the terms they were learning. 

Yesterday we did a new activity with the kids that I developed on a whim this summer. I made cork boards for the kids (I made a class set of 20 with scrap wood at my house and $15 worth of cork from Hobby Lobby)

As you can see, they are just made from 3/4" plywood and the thin corkboard that comes in a roll.  I cut the wood and cork, sanded it to prevent splinters and glued them together with woodglue.  It worked really well. 

When I got to school I printed out smaller (each board is only like 6"x8") pictures of the face, anterior view of the body and posterior view of the body. 

So when the kids came in; their bell work instructed them to pick up a board, one of each picture, and a handful of thumbtacks and wait for further instruction. 

I modeled how I wanted them to use the boards by having them work in partners - one partner would mention the body landmark and the other would mark it on their board, or they could do it together - i kind of left it up to each group and what worked for them.  They had to go over all the landmarks/body cavities and use all the pictures.

Then I had them switch it up to battleship mode.  One partner would put in a bunch of thumbtacks and then give clues to their other partner trying to get their partner to get the same locations on their board. 

Finally we took it a step further and instead of the clues being solely "Place one at the mental landmark" they had to use directional terms.  So the clue turned into "Place one at the landmark that is directly inferior to the nasal landmark."  It made it that much more difficult and they really liked it. 

I could also see this working for many other things where the kids have to recognize the term/location/functions - I'm excited to see what all I use the corkboards for throughout the year.

Today we kept with the reinforcement theme and did my classic Veggie People Activity! 

The kids make a person out of veggies, get their picture taken, then make 'flags' with toothpicks/paper/tape and they label 20 body landmarks/body cavities.  I went over their labeling to make sure there weren't any mistakes and then I injured their veggie person.  By injure, I mean I tell them where they got hurt and they then have to develop a story of how they got hurt (you'd be surprised how creative they can get!), what organs/organ systems would be affected, what doctors would worry most about fixing and any long term effects on the veggie person.  The story is homework for over the weekend and i'm excited to see what they come up with.  Here are a couple of the kids veggie people - don't they look super cool!?!?!?

I love teaching A&P!

What Stuck?

All of us have really good lesson days and today was one of mine!

With teaching Anatomy & Physiology, I normally start out with notes of the basics of the body systems, homeostasis and then we talk about the orientation to the body (body cavities, landmarks and directional terms).

This year I made a goal to get away from regular PowerPoint notes with lots of information and make the move to a lot more pictures and leading discussion with the class instead.  In my first years of teaching, I relied on the notes on the PowerPoint to make sure I taught everything I needed to to and to help me remember it all since I was practically learning it all with the kids. Since this is my 3rd year with A&P, I think by now I pretty much have the material down...so I decided to switch it up.

Today was the second day of school and we did some housekeeping tasks first, then I put up my PowerPoint. Found Here. We only focused on the first 3 slides and spent the rest of the hour focusing on the terms, anatomical position, cranial cavity, vertebral canal, dorsal cavity, ventral cavity, thoracic cavity, diaphragm, abdominal cavity, pelvic cavity, abdominopelvic cavity, ventral/anterior, dorsal/posterior, superior and inferior. We would talk about where the terms were, what they contained, what the directional terms meant and then in sections we would repeat it all.  I would say them and do hand motions, they would say them back with the motions, then they would take turns sharing with their partners, then back with me, with partners and finally some brave kids did them all by themselves in front of the class. They received an applause from the rest of the class.

It was an awesome class!! All of the kids were participating and they did great. It was a lot of repetition but I think they really got something out of it! To finish up the class, I used my new bulletin board!  Each kid took a sticky note, wrote their initials on it, and "what stuck?" With them from today that they will remember on Monday for sure.  I had many kids say to each other "what if I will remember a lot more than one thing?!?" " I don't think I could see a better response!

On their way out the door, they posted their sticky notes on the bulletin board and got their traditional high five.  It was a great way to end my week.  Their enthusiasm for learning just makes me thrilled for this year!