Scaffolding learning through a classification and
sequencing activity
School
Teacher
Subject
Level
:
:
:
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CUHKFAA Chan Chun Ha Secondary School
Lam Tat Ho
Biology
S4
Please note that the consultant’s comments are in this font and colour.
Topic
How does breathing take place?
Objectives
Students should be able to:
o explain in sequence the mechanisms of inhalation and exhalation
o distinguish between lungs and thoracic activity
o use appropriate and correct English to explain the physical processes involved in breathing in and out.
Steps
Activities
1 (10 mins)
o Ask students to label the parts of the lungs (see Fig.1) and then match the major parts of the lungs with their
functions (see Fig.2).
2 (5 mins)
o Define the terms ventilation, inhalation and exhalation.
3 (15 mins)
o Groups of 4 classify jumbled sentences which explain the processes of exhalation and inhalation (see Fig.3
and Fig.4).
o The sentences are then sequenced so that the flow of information is correct. Each group records these
sentences in the sequence on a poster – to be shared with the class. (Remind the students to not use their
textbooks in this activity.)
4 (10 mins)
o Two groups read their texts aloud and discuss with the class their versions.
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Fig. 1: Diagram used in Step 1 – the labeling activity
Match the parts of sentences on the left side with those on the right side.
Ribcage
contract and relax to bring about breathing movements.
Intercostals muscles and diaphragm muscles
is in contact with intercostals muscles.
Inner pleural membrane
acts as a lubricant to reduce friction between the pleural membranes
Outer pleural membrane
protects the lungs and the heart.
Pleural fluid
is in contact with lung.
Fig. 2: Jumbled pairs used in Step 1– matching activity
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Classify the following into two groups: inhalation and exhalation. Then organize them in the correct order so that they explain the
processes of inhalation and exhalation.
The ribs are pulled downwards and inwards, ie returning to a
The lungs expand.
resting position.
The air pressure in the lungs rises above the atmospheric
The diaphragm muscles relax.
pressure.
The diaphragm muscles contract.
The air pressure in the lungs drops below the atmospheric
pressure.
The volume of the thorax decreases.
The external intercostals muscles contract.
The elastic recoil of the lungs forces air out of the lungs.
The diaphragm is pulled down and becomes flattened.
The ribs are pulled upwards and outwards.
The external intercostals muscles relax.
The volume of the thorax increases.
Air is drawn into the lungs.
The diaphragm resumes its dome shape.
Fig. 3: Jumbled sentences explaining the processes of inhalation and exhalation – used in Step 3 as
a classification and sequencing activity.
SOLUTIONS
INHALATION
EXHALATION
The external intercostal muscles contract.
The external intercostal muscles relax.
The ribs are pulled upwards and outwards.
The ribs are pulled downwards and inwards, ie returning to a
resting position.
The diaphragm muscles contract.
The diaphragm muscles relax.
The diaphragm is pulled down and becomes flattened.
The diaphragm resumes its dome shape.
The volume of the thorax increases.
The volume of the thorax decreases.
The air pressure in the lungs drops below the atmospheric
pressure.
The air pressure in the lungs rises above the atmospheric
pressure.
The lungs expand.
The elastic recoil of the lungs forces air out of the lungs.
Air is drawn into the lungs.
Fig. 4: Solutions to the activity in Fig.3
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In the lesson co-planning discussion, the consultant and the teacher considered many things about the lesson,
eg: what kind of genre the lesson would be dealing with, conceptual development, and vocabulary
development. It was clear that the genre would be an Explanation. Most questions that are expressed as
“How does breathing take place?” are Explanations. It is helpful if we follow the discussion between the
consultant (C) and teacher (T).
CONSULTANT-TEACHER DISCUSSION
T:
I’ll focus on how students write the process.
C:
What language would it be like?
T:
Present tense – the right order.
C:
Does the result of one action become the beginning of the next action?
T:
Sometimes we can’t do it.
C:
Do you mean that sometimes it’s just organised according to the location?
T:
They can talk about the generalised concept, but they can’t talk about the specific one. They combine
the 2 things into 1. I would like to deal with this.
C:
Something must have stopped them from giving you the details. Maybe you have given them the
details, but they can’t give them back to you. For example, in the marking scheme, if I combine 6
steps into 3 steps only, what mark would I get?
T:
3 marks. Everything has to do with concept. Maybe there are also problems with active and passive
voice. Or is it their memory?
C:
They’re all linked. Attitude, memory – all are connected with the ease of learning and that should be
our focus. Perhaps what happened was not easy for them to learn? There needs to be something else
in the way we teach.
o Causal explanation – all of them could be flow charts. Maybe students need to move away from
language as the only means for them to learn. That’s why experiments and pictorial
representations are good.
o One way can be: “Here are some processes – they are all jumbled up, your task is to put them in
the right order.” This shows them the importance of order, because you can’t have something
happening in an Explanation without having something else.
o Ask students to think in a pictorial order. “I want you to have the pictures in your head.” Write
the steps under the pictures, then it will be easier for them to remember.
o The other thing about vocabulary. How do you remember content words? When you encounter it
the first time, you hear it, and then by saying it once you put it into your short-term memory. It’s
the movement of the mouth, the jaw and the sound that help people to remember. Then you
consolidate the new vocabulary through ongoing, active use. So using the terms in spoken language
is important as is seeing the words at the same time.
o So how do you set up a situation for this kind of learning to happen? You may have group work in
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doing an experiment and you’re using spoken language only. This might be a more reasonable way
for you to create the situation in giving support but also pushing them to do more – it is the
instantaneous option that speaking gives that allows you to ask the right questions, to probe, to
push, to extend, to expand what they say, to correct – all of this is crucially important to learning.
o Before you start using ‘inhale’, you can use ‘breathe in’, then you can say ‘take a deep breath’ –
then you say: This process has a word to describe it – ‘inhale’ – you go from the everyday to the
abstract. Or you can say, “Explain to a 7-year-old what inhale means” – so they go forward and
backward.
o A number of things to do to make it easy – action linked with visuals – ‘dancing’ between the
everyday and the technical – doing visual with hierarchies.
T:
One thing that’s difficult in Biology is the understanding. All words are new to them. I did the
hierarchy when I could. I don’t want to rely on the blackboard. They underline the terms, but they
can’t pronounce them and they don’t have the concepts.
C:
Reasoning has to be done in language. You need to create a situation where they need to reason. You
may provide 2 of the 4 reasons – the 2 missing are in the textbook – ask students to look at page xx,
then find out the reasons. Always provide the framework and the structure. Give them the path and
they’ll find the way. I don’t want you to be the sole giver; rather, you should be the path finder. Give
strong support, then pull out support gradually.
T:
Another thing. I repeated a word 5 times, but they still could not pronounce it. I used your method –
going from the everyday to the abstract, but it was not effective.
C:
Ask the students to say the words.
T:
I strongly agree with you that they have to say it and do it in a meaningful situation. Maybe I need
to make them speak more.
C:
Maybe break the words up, e.g. in / hal / ation. A word with the prefix ‘in’ would typically mean
in and ‘ex’ must mean out. Do the prefixes with them. You can use visuals, action and language –
basically 3 ways to make students learn – interplay with all these. I don’t want you to ask them to
underline ‘verbs’, for example. You can say, “Can you find me words that mean becoming smaller
and bigger?” It should be a meaning exercise, not a grammar exercise.
STEP 1
The teacher asked the students to read aloud the sentence components given – this is a good strategy for these
students (students who are in their first year of EMI instruction in Biology) because it gives weaker students
the opportunity to participate in pronouncing English words without the stress and embarrassment of doing
it individually in front of the class.
STEP 2
The teacher took note of what I suggested in the co-planning session and drew the relationship between
ventilation and inhalation/exhalation on the board as a simple taxonomy. He also identified for the
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students the verb and adjective forms but I am not sure of the benefit of this when it is done out of context. I
feel that students would benefit more if they were given those forms through interaction, eg “What is going
on with inhalation? We are breathing in – we are inhaling. So the air that we have in our lungs is called
inhaled air.” Then when the teacher asks the students questions and discusses various biological concepts
about ventilation, the vocabulary is recycled in all its many ways and that is how all the forms of
vocabulary are both understood and memorised.
STEP 3
The students clearly enjoyed the classification and sequencing activities. It appeared that they knew enough
to be able to deal with the task with some success. We must keep in mind that for students to be motivated
to learn and to actually learn, they must be placed in a context in which the activity is not too far beyond
what they can do by themselves. It is a fine balancing act – the teacher needs to prepare them sufficiently
leading up to the next activity so that when they do it in groups or individually they have been prepared for
success and not failure. It seemed, in this activity, that the group work and the preparation did most of that.
However, the lack of great success in the sequencing activity showed that we can question whether the
preparation activities were sufficient.
A strong point of this group work was that the students spoke in English a lot of the time. This was
unexpected for a group of students who were engaging in their first year of EMI Biology. One of the
probable reasons it worked is because the students had to work with a text that was already there in front of
them so when they discussed what needed to be sequenced, they had to say aloud the English sentences that
were in front of them. Later, as they develop their English, support such as this can be reduced and at some
point perhaps even withdrawn, but it is vital that, when they need the support most, it is there for them.
Another positive aspect of the group work was the teacher requesting that the students identify their group
responsibility, eg “Don’t forget to make sure that someone is checking that what is being written is accurate,
someone is checking the reasoning, someone is writing …” My suggestion is that this is an ongoing demand
and so perhaps could be discussed very explicitly and clearly at the beginning of the year so that the teacher
simply needs to remind them later – the students quickly develop the habit if the teacher has explained the
expected behaviour – the why and how – early on.
Also, during one of the activities, another positive thing the teacher did was to write down the instructions
for the task (classify inhalation and exhalation, sequence, write the sequence on the poster) – not that he
hadn’t said it but he supported what he said by writing it down so they could refer to it later whenever they
needed to. The only problem was that he didn’t tell the students he had done so, so it was a little lost on
them. Perhaps, the best idea is to write the instructions down at the same time as saying them so the students
hear it and see it simultaneously.
There was some satisfactory beginnings of scaffolding by the teacher during this and other periods in the
lesson, eg
Student: “Air pressure increases”.
Teacher: “Air pressure in what?”
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Student: “In the lungs.”
Teacher: “Good. Air pressure in lungs.”
The next step would be to require in some way for the student to utter “The air pressure in the lungs
increases.” If that were done, then we could say that the student has started developing the language and
conceptual understanding in biology that is sought after.
STEP 4
Posters were displayed at the front but in the end only 2 posters were discussed. This indicates the difficulty
in balancing the need to show students’ work and using time efficiently. Perhaps if we see the opportunity
for students to show their work as not a time to give them positive reinforcement (eg “Well done!”) but more
time for the teacher to consolidate (or correct) and extend the learning. Having students’ work visible for the
whole class to see is an important opportunity for the teacher to do what has been suggested above: to probe,
rectify, clarify, and extend the students’ understanding. This is done at various time during the lesson –
usually when the teacher realises when walking around the class during group work that the students have
not understood something. For example, the teacher intervened at a point and explained something quite
crucial – that the lung is a passive organ and so the students should think how a passive organ can take
shape. What I am suggesting is that rather than disrupt the task of classifying and sequencing, either the
point is made before the group task or it is done through the questioning that goes in when the groups report
back. In this way, time is used efficiently and hopefully learning is maximised.
Lastly, in thinking about why many of the students were having problems with identifying which action
would be the first one in the breathing processes, the Consultant decided to intervene in the lesson and ask a
question as a way of setting a context for the concept of breathing. The question was something like: “What
begins the movement of the intercostal muscles?” The reason for asking this was to show the students that
breathing is not a conscious action, it is a reaction to a message from the brain. It is the brain that sends a
message that results in the intercostal muscles contracting or relaxing. Once that is understood, then it is
probably easier to see how the processes of inhalation and exhalation begin and continue.
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