1. INDIVIDUAL
LEARNING
in biology
and science
• Thursday 10.8.2017 for primary and
lower secondary school teachers (grades
5-10)
• Reykjavik, Iceland
• Rita Keskitalo and Þóra Skúladóttir

2. Subject areas and topics of this workshop
• biology and science
• new curriculum and 21st century skills / six pillars
• individual/personalized learning
• ICT as a tool of learning
• students’ own phones, tablets and laptops (BYOD) as a tools
• social media as an environment of learning and teaching

3. Rita Keskitalo
• biology and geography teacher
at a secondary school in
Finland, Salo, Perniön
yhteiskoulu
• ritakeskitalo.com
• openbiomi.com

4. Made with Wowed (apps for iPad)

5. Þóra Skúlad.
•Kenni líffræði, eðlisfræði og efnafræði
á unglingastigi í Háteigsskóla

6. Timetable
9-9.30 am
• Introductions and warming up
9.30-10.30 am
• Individual learning in biology in Perniön yhteiskoulu
10.30-11.00 am
• Activities in outdoors
11.00 -12.00 am
• Lunch
12.00-14:00 pm
• Individual learning in practice, teachers as a students
• Coffee
14:00 – 14:15 pm
• Coffee break
14:15 -15 pm
• Discussion about the individual learning
• Time to plan own courses or lessons
• Homework
• Feedback

7. Share and chat online
During this workshop you can share your thoughts, ideas and questions or pictures
in social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat.
Use hashtag #individuallearningISL2017.
Or you can write your notes in TodaysMeet.
https://todaysmeet.com/individuallearning
You’ll find the TodaysMeet in my website too:
ritakeskitalo.com
Workshop in Iceland - Materials

8. What is your experiences, thoughts or
ideas about individual learning?
• Answer in Padlet. Add a picture of you from your photo gallery
and write your name and your answer.
• You’ll find the Padlet in my website too:
ritakeskitalo.com
Workshop in Iceland - Materials

9. INDIVIDUAL/PERSONALIZED AND COLLABORATIVE
LEARNING IS A NEW CULTURE OF LEARNING AND
ASSESSMENT…
... where student can learn at his/her own level, works self-guided
together with others, is motivated, sets goals and evaluates his/her
own skills.
… which consists of many methods of learning and teaching.
… which builds on and changes in interaction between students
and teachers.
… which can be applied in different ways depending for example on
the special features of the subjects, the student group and student’s or
teacher’s personality.

10. 10 steps for individual
learning in biology
This is my way.

12. Curriculum describes
• skills and contents required for an assessment grade of
8 (=good) in every subject in 9th grade
• learning goals of transversal competences (=21st
century skills)
• thinking and learning to learn
• cultural competence, interaction and expression
• taking care of oneself and others, managing daily activities, safety
• multiliteracy
• ICT competence
• competence for the world of work, entrepreneurship
• participation and influence, building a sustainable future.
These descriptions are tool and support for teachers.

14. Entities (big learning content) include
• goals (contents and skills) and assessment criteria
• different activities, learning methods, tools and
environments
• collaborative working
• flipped classroom
• learning games
• doing an interview
• writing an essay
• drawing
• building a prototype with modelling clay
• short lectures
• small-scale research indoors and outside
• making or watching videos, animations
• web pages, websites
• apps
• etc.
For example
Ocean

15. I collect materials to my websites
openbiomi.com
ritakeskitalo.com
•for students and
•for teachers.
My PLE is social media:
Facebook, Twitter,
Pinterest, blogs etc.

16. The
Ocean

18. For example of goals
In school
• I recognize different species.
• I can explain the classification of
organisms
• I can explain how different living beings
have adopted to their environment. I can
study collaboratively.
• I show effort and take responsibility of my
learning.
• I am able to use ICT as a tool of learning.
• I can make photo collage of organisms.
• Etc.
In this workshop
• I know the new curriculum and it’s 21st
century skills/six pillars.
• know what is individual learning.
• I have new ideas for my lessons.
• I am able to use ICT as a tool of teaching
and learning.
• I have ideas how students can use their
own phones, tablets and laptops (BYOD)
as tools of learning.
• I have ideas how teachers and students
can use social media as an environment
of learning and teaching.
• I share my thoughts and ideas with other.

19. For example
Ocean

20. Students
•can choose
• activities, learning methods, environments
• tools, ICT apps
• they are used to communication, collaborate and create with other
• speed of learning
• amount of homework
• can learn different skills and contents
•build their own paths of learning
• gather all their works for example into One Note or into Biology
folder in Office 365 (= e-portfolios)

21. Hands on! Individual learning in
practice
• Work with peers.
• Choose one Ocean Activity.
• Write it on the wall. Do not choose the same activity than others.
• Carry out the activity as a student.
• At 12 – 13.30 pm
• Ask help and help others.
• Prepare to show your work to other within 5 minutes.
• At 13.30 – 14.30 pm
• Tell about the application used in the activity, it’s benefits and
disadvantages, new ideas raised during working etc.

22. But students have to read the
textbook.

23. • with textbook it is quite easy to learn the basic content
and skills
• books are written according to curriculum
• with textbook it is easy to differentiate the learning with
different skilled students
• the textbook has many exercises and activities which
suit for different student
• students can choose which they’ll make
The only common homework to all students is to
read the textbook.

24. Sanoma Pro Oppimisympäristö

26. Teacher
• help and support
• inspire and motivate
• encourage and challenge
• clarify the content/information
• differentiate learning
• build the bridges to other subjects
• evaluate and give feedback
• learn with students

28. Short lectures or discussions with all students at
the same time
• in the beginning of learning entities
• introduction of the topic/entity/learning content
• motivating
• in the middle of learning entities
• key content
• most difficult contents
• cause and effect relationships
• bridges to other subjects
• in the end
• summarizing etc.

31. Assessment methods in biology
• observing the learning process and group
working and “online” discussions
• evaluation discussions in different sized
groups
• peer and self-evaluations
• evaluation of activities:
• digital collages of different organisms
• small-scale research
• labs and reports
• concept maps
• study book exercises
• presentations
• posters
• pod casts
• videos
• essays
• e-portfolios, blogs
• reflective diaries
• questionnaires and games
• oral or written checkpoints
• species recognition tests
• not “binge learning” tests but
• seen tests
• group tests
• doing it – tests
• cheat if you want – tests or open book tests
• find, gather or take photo – tests
• etc.

32. Evaluation discussions in small groups. ☆

33. Tests are self-checked by students. ☆

34. Students
• check tests together in peers or in small groups – with coloured
pencils
• find the right answers from the textbook or notebook
• draw the wrong answers over
• complete the answers and make them better
• evaluate the overall impression (no points will be given) and give a
grade for themselves
• a good overall performance means grade 8
After that the teacher check the student’s answers and give a grade
for student.
This grade include the corrections of answers too (=skills to find the
information and understand it).

35. By self-checking tests
students
• discuss a lot with each other
• are very active 
• ask a lot of questions from teacher
• learn more about the topic
• learn to write better answers
• learn to use textbook and other source of information
• find out the importance of good notes
• learn to self-evaluate their skills and knowledge

36. OBi!
ritakeskitalo
biogeoilua
@RitKes

37. Student’spointofview

38. 8 steps for learning
(instructions to students)
1. Get inspired.
2. Check out the goals.
3. Investigate.
4. Select.
5. Act, mix and match.
6. Discuss and share.
7. Reflect, evaluate and get feedback.
8. Give feedback.
Read more in Thinglink.

39. Benefits of individual learning
• Learning and teaching is more active and collaborative.
• Students learn to learn and use ICT as a tool of learning.
• Students can learn at their own pace and at their own way.
• Students can choose the activities which they are interested in.
• Students can influence the amount of homework.
• Students’ different knowledge and skills can be taken account. Differentiation is easier.
• Students are better aware of goals of learning and they will learn to self-evaluate their learning.
• Assessment is definitely diverse.
• Students learn 21st century skills.
• For teacher, it is interesting to design the entities with diverse content, learning methods, tools and
learning environments.
• Teacher gets to know the students better. It creates deeper teacher-student bond.
• Learning and teaching is motivating.

40. Disadvantages of individual learning
• For student, it takes time to learn the steps of individual
learning.
• Competent and hard-working students may get tired.
• Non-motivated students may do anything.
• For teacher, it takes time to design entities for a first time.
• Sometimes there is too little time for evaluation discussions.
• Coaching, assisting and struggling with non-motivated students,
teacher may get tired and angry.

41. Break activity in outdoors
Make collaboratively a digital collage of organism into Instagram.
1. Go out and take 2-3 photos about species which live in school yard or near it. You have 10 minutes
time for that.
2. Download photos to Instagram.
3. Use hashtags #digitalcollageISL17. Write down name of the organisms and
classificate them as you can.
4. Find out all the species with #digitalcollageISL217. Like and comment.
5. Find my 7th grade students’ collages:
_eliot7a_
seiskojeneliot
meidan_eliot
eliot_7
elioita7b

42. To Instagram

43. To Instagram

44. Hands on! Individual learning in
practice
• Work with peers or small groups.
• Choose one Ocean activity.
• Write it on the wall. Do not choose the same activity than
others.
• Carry out the activity as a student.
• Discuss and share. Ask help and help others.
• Prepare to present your work to others.
• Tell about the application used in the activity, it’s benefits and
disadvantages, new ideas raised during working etc.

45. Wrap up! Today we have
• become familiar with individual learning ✓
• been like a students ✓
• got inspired ✓ I hope so!
• checked out the goals ✓
• worked actively, individually and collaboratively ✓
• discussed and shared ✓
• used own phones as a tool of learning ✓
• used social media as a learning environment ✓
• learned 21st century skills through different activities ✓
• reflected, evaluated and got feedback ?
• given feedback (not yet, but soon )

46. Time to plan your own courses and
lessons

47. Homework
• Design a learning period and try it in practice in your classroom.
• Do experiments in your own classroom on individual learning
work in practice.
• Prepare to share your experience.

48. Feedback
Give your opinion about the workshop, please. I appreciate your
feedback .
Questionnaire:

49. Thank you!
This presentation is licensed
under
CC BY-SA 4.0
Rita Keskitalo