Conclusion & Strategies Suggested in This Article

Almost half of the biology students teachers have misconceptions in cell divisions particularly
in meiosis. Majority of them cannot establish relationship between cell cycle and division.
Majority of them cannot establish relationship between mitosis and meiosis as well. Hence,
few T&L approaches have been suggested by the author. The author diagnosed misconceptions
among biology students teachers through drawing analysis as well as interview. Therefore, new
teaching strategies have been suggested by the author such as conceptual maps, conceptual
networks, semantic features analysis and conceptual change texts. Conceptual map is a cluster
diagram that illustrates how abstract ideas are related. It is often created to help students
organize their thinking, brainstorm new ways to connect concepts and share information,
helping viewers to understand how one concept relates to other concepts. Conceptual networks
also almost similar with conceptual map but in different orientation. The semantic features
analysis is a strategy to help vocabulary improvement among students as well as help them to
explore interrelationship of terms. With the help of this strategy, students will be able to
identify relationships, make predictions, and master important concepts (Denton et. al, 2007).

(Denton, 2007)

Figure 1: Example table of semantic features analysis

Whereas the conceptual change text is strategy to identify students’ misconceptions and
improve their understanding through provided scientifically acceptable concepts. This strategy
help the students aware with their misunderstandings and fix them with proper explanation and
examples (Sari et. al, 2017).

Teaching & Learning Suggestions

Based on our experiences as a student as well as teachers, these misconceptions occurred

maybe due to some factors. One of them is the unsuitableness teaching and learning approaches
used by the teachers. Thus, we would like to suggest few teaching and learning strategies based
on behaviourism, cognitivism, constructivism and connectivism approaches. First, teachers
have to diagnose students’ prior knowledge before lessons which this strategy is based on
cognitivism and constructivism approaches. Second, teachers can ask their students to practice
drawing on regular basis with added descriptions on the drawing to emphasised understanding
on cell cycle. This strategy is based on behaviourism approach. Besides, teachers could remind
their students to pay attention to the cell biology terminology and make sure they are able to
differentiate the terms in table form. This strategy is based on cognitivism approach. Teachers
also can ask their students to create models, flashcards using plasticine or other tools and this
strategy is based on constructivism. Teachers also can carry out team-teaching strategy in the
classroom where the students will be divided into few groups and students who’ve got good
grades in this subject will going to teach their friends who are experienced the misconceptions.
Other than that, teachers also can organize Biology Week with some interesting activities such
as explorace, scrabble and etc which blending all the approaches together. Teachers also can
use connectivism approaches which it will make the lessons more interesting with youtube
animations. This strategy is very applicable to those who are teaching biology as well as other
subjects since we are in the digital era. Thus, maximizing the usage of digital tools is one of
the best teaching and learning strategy to make the class more effective and fun.

References:

1. Daley, B. (2010). Concept maps: Practice Applications In Adult Education And Human
Resource Development [Perspectives on Practice]. New Horizons in Adult Education
and Human Resource Development, 24(2-4), 30-36.
http://education.fiu.edu/newhorizons
2. Denton, C., Bryan, D., Wexler, J., Reed, D., and Vaughn, S. (2007) Effective
Instruction for Middle School Students with Reading Difficulties. University of Texas
System/Texas Education Agency.
3. Sari, B. P., Feranie, S. & Winarno, N. (2017).The Use of Conceptual Change Text
toward Students’ Argumentation Skills in Learning Sound, IOP Conf. Series: Journal
of Physics, Conf. Series, 895, 1-5.