Microworlds and Macrocontexts

By:

Jaimie Lex

My Classroom

The lesson plan that I am writing will apply to my High School Freshman and Sophomore students or any that are in Biology 1. For most students this will be their first biology class taken.

Lesson Plan

For this lesson students will be taught most of the information through lecture. The students will also learn in a learning community, they will teach each other through their oral presentations. They will also be given a list of websites they will be able to use to aid them in their learning as well as research.

Goals and Assessment

Students will be required to complete an oral presentation which will be individually graded as well as satisfactorily master the information. A quiz will also be given at the end of the lesson with questions from lecture as well as from each presentation.

Students will be assessed based on their performance on the quiz as well as how well they did on their presentation. A rubric for the presentation would involve aspects such as

-understanding of topic-presentation style-use of facts/statistics

Microworlds

A microworld is defined as “… an exploratory learning environment that presents a simulation of real-world phenomenon …” These are usually computer programs that allow the student to explore ideas and theories so that they can interactively understand them.

Macrocontexts

A macrocontext is a situation you put your students into in order to help them understand several ideas in one activity. An example I can use in my classroom would be a lab write-up. Any particular lab write-up would make the students use the information they learned in my class (biology), grammar and English skills, math concepts (if equations are involved) as well as the ability to relate information and ideas.

Microworld Website

http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~larry/microworlds/rabbits.html

This website is a good example of a website I could use in a lesson plan to explain the effects of population growth in the animal kingdom. The microworld is a good one for students in high school as well as for those in middle school as it allows you to experiment with the controls and change things.

Macrocontext Website

http://webpages.csus.edu/%7Ekdulai/CourseBio184L_1.1.html

The website listed gives an example of a lab report that could be given for students in a DNA/heredity lesson plan. This lab is good for high school students and can be considered to be in a macrocontext because it causes the student to use biology, math, common sense, deductive skills as well as grammar and English skills.

Bibliography

http://webpages.csus.edu/%7Ekdulai/CourseBio184L_1.1.html

http://www.umcs.maine.edu/~larry/microworlds/rabbits.html