Writing Biology Mastery Textbooks

This post covers:

1. Why biology is more than just facts;
2. Why I write my own ‘textbooks’;
3. How I write my own Biology ‘mastery’ textbooks – in 6 steps;
4. An example of one of my textbooks.

1. Why Biology is more than just facts

“Biology is just lots of facts.”

I hate this statement – one I often hear to contrast Chemistry and Physcis, which are seen as more conceptual disciplines.

Firstly, all subjects are filled with lots of facts. Without facts, what do you actually learn in a subject? Secondly, facts sit in relation to one another to form concepts, theories and explanations. Not only do complex ideas emerge from the links between facts, but so does an exciting lens through which our view of life transforms, evoking marvel at ‘endless forms most beautiful’ in the case of Biology.

Critics of Biology that claim its study is of mere facts are missing the transformative lens of conceptual understanding that is vital to relate those facts together. Perhaps this arises because as teachers we don’t make these themes tangible enough? This is why making links, making themes explicit and exposing underlying principles is essential to good Biology teaching. Using mastery textbooks is an excellent potential way to achieve this.

2. Why I write my own textbooks

Olivia Dyer has criticised published textbooks for not being knowledge-rich enough and failing to engage pupils beyond the scope of exam specifications. She argues it is best for schools to write their own. Rosalind Walker & Adam Boxer have blogged about their takes on writing Physics and Chemistry mastery textbooks respectively. Here, I give my take on writing Biology ‘mastery textbooks’.

To summarise briefly, biology textbooks:

1. Begin each lesson with a recap quiz of content covered in earlier lessons from the current topic & content from previous topics (interleaving retrieval practice aids memory).
2. Present new content as academically written texts, which are read together as a class. The teacher clarifies and extends explanations, and asks quick questions to check for understanding.
3. Contain LOTS of comprehension questions (more than published textbooks).

In my classes, these are the predominant format of lessons. There are other lesson types, in which pupils engage in further deliberate practice, practical lessons (always after theory) and mini-quiz/test lessons.

Notice the absence of ‘activities’: no powerpoints, no carousel or market-place activities, no card sorts. Abandoning these have transformed my teaching and learning in three ways: my planning impact, my pupils’ learning and my department:

1. All my planing time goes into writing, sequencing & thinking about content. My effort-to-impact ratio is exceptionally high. In contrast, I can’t explain how much time I used to waste deciding on an activity, creating a time-intensive resource with lots of impact-less images and writing and then printing and cutting resources. Kerfuffle – goodbye.
2. Pupils think about content only – not complicated activity instructions – and do so receiving all content; no information is withheld for another pupil to badly exhange information as would occur in market-place type activities from my past. If memory is the residue of thought, I want my pupils thinking about science only. Furthermore, most work is done independently by pupils, giving them the time to think about the content on their own and not letting some else do the thinking!
3. We can centralise resources in my department and teachers can easily use each other’s lessons without spending ages figuring out what activity has been planned. This saves duplication of effort & allows teachers to genuinely plan – usefully – for their classes. They plan their questions, their explanations & dual-coding they’ll use.

3. How I Write Biology Mastery Textbooks

Since I am thinking only about content, not activities, all of my efforts go into thinking about:

• Ordering content
• Prior knowledge
• Themes/underlying principles to focus on
• How to link current learning to previous content
• Best questions to ask
• Tier two vocabulary to focus on
• Considerations of ensuring pupil remember what they learn

I’ll use the example of KS3 respiratory system to illustrate my thought procces.

Step 1: map out all the core content you wish pupils to remember in a unit. For respiratory system it was: anatomy of the respiratory system, functions of each structure and of the system as a whole, ventilation, gas exchange, asthma & effects of smoking on the respiratory system.

I split each chunk of knowledge into lessons, and made a knowledge organiser with new key words and definitions.

Step 2: consider what previous knowledge this links to and include recap for this content. For the respiratory system, this includes: organisation (cells to organ systems); diffusion (process that explains gas exchange); circulation (process which takes the oxygen away in the blood); aerobic respiration (chemical reaction which requires oxygen and is the reason we breathe in the first place); digestion (the process used to obtain the other reactant of respiration – glucose).

The reason I branch out this far links to step three.

Step 3: decide on the theme(s)/underlying principle(s) that will be continually revisited in the unit. For me, fitting the obtaining of oxygen into the bigger picture of providing the reactant for aerobic respiration was the main idea I wanted pupils to understand. Therefore, the underlying principle was that organ systems work together to achieve the goal of survival. The relationships between the facts they already knew and the ones they would acquire in this unit was vital to this unit.

A second underlying theme of any Biology unit that explores biological structures is the structure-function relationship. I refer to this throughout the teaching of all biological structures from cells and tissues to organ systems. All biological structures have a particular morph because that helps it to perform its function. It gets even more exciting when we come to evolution because the idea extends to the fact that the structure-function relationship is adaptative! But, I digress. Weave this theme in and refer to it constantly!

Step 4: Decide the best sequence of knowledge to build understanding. What should you review first? How can you build on this prior knowledge to build understanding of the new topic. Remember, new information is added to existing schema. It can help to draw a flow chart to link all the knowledge you want to build up. For me, I started with drawing this before writing writing any lessons at all:

I can’t stress how useful this was. So, now, when I started writing my first lessons, I chose the order:

1. Overview of the big picture: we need oxygen from breathing to enter our blood stream by diffusion, and glucose from digestion. The circulatory system ensures both are delivered to every cell into which they diffuse. Aerobic respiration occurs in the mitochondria to release energy for the cell to perform its function.
2. Lesson recapping digestion.
3. Lesson recapping diffusion.
4. Lesson recapping mitochondria and respiration & then linking all together explicitly using the diagram above.
5. THEN I go into the respiratory system anatomy. I foreground the two functions: ventilation and gas exchange.
6. Ventilation
7. Gas exchange
8. Exercise + effects on breathing & heart rate
9. Smoking & asthma

Step 5: List potential misconceptions & plan to avoid them arising in the first place. For this unit, the biggest one is confusing breathing (ventilation) with cellular respiration. There is also the confusion of breathing in air vs just oxygen.

Step 6: Start writing lessons… at last! Here, I’ve changed my mind since actually teaching so I will write what I would do in hindsight.

6a. Begin with recap questions from previous units. These are random questions solely to help pupils with retrieval practice of old content – not necessary relevant to current topic. Then do recap questions from current unit (or relevant prior content if first few lessons).

6b. Then write comprehension:

• Use academic language – pitch high. Since you are doing whole class reading, you – the expert – are helping pupils access a text they wouldn’t be able to independently. By doing so, you are improving their vocabulary, exposing them to model scientific writing & setting high expectations. A good yard-stick is: is this pitched slightly higher than the published textbook I might use instead?
• Explain everything clearly, with spelt out examples to illustrate abstract ideas. E.g. when I refer to cells requiring energy to carry out their function: ‘e.g. muscle cells use energy to contract to help us move. Similarly, oxygen & glucose must be delivered to the cells in our brain so that respiration can occur to release energy for our brain cells to help us think.”

6c. After a few paragraphs, usually when there is a natural break and a new subheading is required, add some comprehension questions.

• Begin each question with a command word, instead of ‘what/why/how.’
• Keep it succinct and start with relatively simple comprehension questions.
• Have only one or two more challenging questions – remember, this activity is designed to get pupils to think about and engage directly with the new content. Challenge and application will come at a later date, when they have remembered this content.

6d. Application

Later in the unit, build in lessons that are more comprehensive and require knowledge from different lessons, after pupils have had sufficient retrieval practice and know most of the core knowledge you set out. Examples of application questions:

• Linking multiple facts together
• Sequencing facts in an order e.g. process or concept development as a flow chart
• Converting information into a diagram or table
• Explaining whether given statements are correct or not.
• Comparing structures/funcitons
• Consolidation – good for homework: consolidate texts into revision notes, and self-quiz on notes.

Mastery over time comes from having had multiple opportunities to retrieve knowledge, make links between knowledge & consolidate. As knowledge is committed to memory, and schemas are built, the understanding of the facts, the concepts and an appreciation of the beauty of the subject will emerge. It takes time! I won’t come instantly as memory isn’t permanent instantly.

4. An example of my textbook – co-authored by my amazing Head of Science, Owen Hawkins

I have uploaded my Respiratory System Booklet here… but it is work in progress. Some of my thinking described above came after I taught it! Some of the lessons are not as described above.

Please comment with feedback / thoughts on this post / the booklet – my thinking is still evolving & I welcome your thoughts.