Videos in the classroom

I was thinking that I could use the video for how the immune system responds to a pathogen in my class. I would start by making an introduction to the topic. Ask students to identify a time when they had an infection, how they knew they had an infection (signs or symptoms), and how their body fought that infection. I would expect that kids would be able to identify crudely that your body can rise in temperature, swell around the area, etc. in an effect to fight/contain the infection. Kids may also talk about glands being swollen, cuts being inflamed and hot feeling. I would ask kids to identify the types of cells involved in this process. There may be some answers that involve the words pathogen, white blood cells, or T cells depending on the ages. After the class talked about this, I would give a brief introduction to what they were going to see in the video, making sure to not be too specific. I would then play the video and ask the students to try to identify different cells present and to come up with an explanation for what was occurring in the video.
After the students shared their ideas and observations I would then start talking about the different cells involved and their functions when responding in immune defense. The purpose of having the kids see the video first is two-fold; they can make their own connections and I can test previous knowledge while at the same time allowing my students to have a picture in their head of what is occurring while I am talking through the steps of the immune response. Afterwards, I would then show the video for a second time asking the students to reapply what we discussed in class to the events in the video. I might then play the video a third time and allow for students to identify out loud the events in the video to make sure that every student was making a connection at the appropriate parts in the video.

Check out the Bio Alive website for cool videos about everything Biological! The Harvard recreation of the inner workings of a cell is absolutely breath-taking. I did show this to my students when I was in a long-term position on what the Science Department called Cell Day. The kids loved it, it sparked so many questions, the kids asked to watch it again because they liked it so much.