3 posts published by Jo Castelino during September 2025| Memory, meaning and motivation
See the bigger picture and the world shows you patterns and connections you once missed. This is how I feel about teaching the Homeostasis and Response unit. When I first started teaching, I used to just list all the facts that students needed, with not much thought into how students could develop meaning. Mianly this […]| Memory, meaning and motivation
This is based on the AQA unit of Homeostasis and Response. I used to be scared of teaching homeostasis. As someone who studied Biology, I struggled with how to best explain it without overwhelming my students, reducing the unit to a list of disparate facts, and somehow help them succeed at assessments. There is the […]| Memory, meaning and motivation
I used to think that success was about students doing well in a single lesson. If they could answer my questions correctly, I believed I had achieved what I set out to do. I now realise that this v…| Memory, meaning and motivation
When I was younger, I used to struggle with maths. I simply could not get a concept quickly enough, while nearly everyone around me seemed to pick things up straightaway. I would get homework that …| Memory, meaning and motivation
I used to utterly dislike teaching the menstrual cycle. Difficult hormone names, lots of facts to remember, confusing graphs (I mean if you don’t know what you are looking at, how confusing i…| Memory, meaning and motivation
Homework has the power to elevate learning. This is the first line of my book, The Homework Conundum, and I stand by it. When done right, homework is a way for students to take ownership of their l…| Memory, meaning and motivation
Harriet used to love talking about what she learnt at school. She would come home and tell her Mum all about the different states of matter, rivers, and her times tables. As the years have gone on,…| Dr C's Science Classroom
Recently, I heard a teacher say how good they were at building relationships in their classroom. They suggested that their subject (PE) meant they found it easier to do so and that as a result the …| Dr C's Science Classroom
A few years ago, I developed a mantra of sorts to help me be a better teacher. With everything I do, I ask myself this question: ‘have I given my students every resource and tool needed in order to be successful?‘. I believe this has improved my teaching: I have even thought hard about how... Continue Reading →| Dr C's Science Classroom
Consider this scenario: Ms C is having a chat with a colleague, Ms J, about how to best help a student they both teach. They are thinking about the different strategies they can use when Ms J says, ‘Also, they are a visual learner so we need to have lots of diagrams and dual coding... Continue Reading →| Dr C's Science Classroom