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Twenty-six rowdy, energetic, science loving students have just walked in from their lunchtime which consisted of play fights, gossip sessions, football, and obviously intellectual discussions about how interesting and mind-blowing biology is. This afternoon’s agenda: Rat Dissection. Miss Radford: Petrified.

We’ve all been there, we’ve all experienced the feeling of dread and uncertainty before a practical class. We’ve all done the research and learnt that practical experiments are such an incredible way for students to engage with content and learn in a hands-on manner, but how do we make sure it’s effective?

How exactly are you supposed to watch 26 students when they are sprawled across a huge biology lab holding dead animals and scalpels? How do you allow students the freedom to perform experiments, ensure them that you think they’re old and mature enough to conduct this themselves while constantly watching and monitoring their every move? While watching all of this with your 26 eyes that we now need, are these students even extracting the knowledge and skills from this task? What’s the point of all this if they’re spending the period throwing rats at each other and giving Miss Radford a breakdown? HELP!

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Realistically, we will never evolve to have 26 eyes, hands and legs to be everywhere and see everything at once. What we can do, is equip ourselves with the skills to excite students, to make science interesting, to watch our students and guide them the best we can. It’s part of our job to know the options for doing experiments, to build trusting relationships with students and to impart our knowledge the best way we know how.

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(Smith, 2018)

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-  Build relationships with students. If they respect you, they are more likely to work for you, learn from you and be engaged with the subject (Teach Thought Staff, 2016)

-  Never have your back to the class. Ensure you have eyes everywhere. If you make the conscious decision to position yourself such that you can see as many students as possible, you are able to better manage the class (Costanzo, 2018).

- Increasing curiosity increases content retention when students are participating in inquiry-based learning. It has been established that if students are curious about the content they’re more likely to engage with the practical’s appropriately and extract the necessary information from doing so (Van Schijndel, Jansen & Raijmakers, 2018).

- Use flow charts to make method easier for students to follow. If they don't know what they're doing they're more likely to be disruptive (Liu, 2018). If your students feel confident that they know what they're doing and have something easy to follow to assist them they can learn more independently by problem solving rather than being spoon fed by you as a teacher.
- We need to make science fun (DeWitt, 2018)!

-  Go through safety precautions (You Tube, 2018).

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If you can be excited and enthusiastic about the content you are teaching and if you can make that enthusiasm infectious and contagious and get students to see how fascinating the world around you is: then maybe.. just maybe they'll jump on board and maybe..just maybe they will focus and be engaged in the experiments and learn all there is to learn from making, doing and seeing the world around them. Biology is fascinating and fun, lets infect the students with the urge to know and learn more.

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Costanzo, R. (2018). Mentor Feedback.

DeWitt, T. (2018). Hey science teachers -- make it fun. [online] Ted.com. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_dewitt_hey_science_teachers_make_it_fun?referrer=playlist-talks_from_inspiring_teachers.

Liu, Y. (2018). Blog Response.

Smith, D. (2018). Hand Painted ACEO Trading Cards. [image] Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/simpsonaceo/3648551043/in/photolist-FVAtCu-958Qta-frfnYh-b9nUAP-8aQRXR-CKFtK-63iQZ8-9AY7aw-21yBuUD-wTFNhv-K6heE-fr16CP-cg5NG9-77aB9a-811Cua-21rwLD-9HePvY-coQocQ-cZmAm3-ohEw9h-38xMRs-HCAMyr-9RffbZ-coQjDN-3f6QgX-7EvYun-38tegX-4Khdss-38teE8-8CLB5Y-Dhe8s-5YTxXw-7rUba2-jdz3o9-77ewRL-25S5hf-dQBq4d-6ypZXH-CVTjfF-6ypM7t-77ewT3-G42kxu-58UKwk-jdLev-4i7qv2-Dvxm8v-6ypMEv-Dvxm92-GFhJvK-MoVf2.

Teach Thought Staff. (2018). 6 Golden Rules For Engaging Students -. [online] TeachThought. Available at: https://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/6-golden-rules-for-engaging-students/

Van Schijndel, T. J., Jansen, B. R., & Raijmakers, M. E. (2018). Do individual differences in children’s curiosity relate to their inquiry-based learning?. International Journal of Science Education, 40(9), 996-1015.

YouTube. (2018). Mr. D: Wood Shop Saw Safety. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yoq4y80P_A