Biology by Mr Bradford
Start here. Fold your own approach around it.
The rough ER folds polypeptides into proteins. These are the basics I lean on for IB and AP Biology. One input among many toward your own way of teaching it.
Laying the foundations.
Perfect preparation makes perfect. We have to play the game of taking an exam, so repeat, repeat, repeat.
Repetition has a physical anchor in the brain. Each loop strengthens a slightly different stretch of wiring:
- Short-term (working) memory. When you first meet something, it sits briefly here. Limited capacity, fades fast without active attention.
- The hippocampus. A processing and routing hub. Through repetition, the neural signals fire repeatedly, holding the memory active.
- Long-term memory. Continued repetition strengthens the synaptic connections between the hippocampus and various regions of the cerebral cortex. Over time, the memory consolidates into long-term storage.
That same wiring is why the forgetting curve shapes the course: without revisiting, students lose roughly 70% of new information within a day. By the time a concept is discussed in class, they've already met it through pre-reading, Cramly, and a video. Each unit then starts with a student-built one-pager rather than copied notes, which forces genuine processing and is much harder to fake.
Make biology move.
Your textbook drew a mitochondrion that looks like a peanut. Reality looks like a writhing tube. Press play before they have to imagine it.
Static cross-sections sit in short-term memory; motion forces the brain to build a process model rather than memorise a label. Videos are the preparation phase: the second scheduled exposure after flashcards, and they happen before class. By the time we're in the room together, I'm not explaining from scratch. I'm going deeper.
What I actually do: Amoeba Sisters is the staple channel. Then I wrap each video in questions to force engagement: Google Classroom will AI-generate them for most YouTube videos inside the assignment, and tools like Playposit, EdPuzzle, and WeVideo add an interactive layer to any clip. Another approach: hand an AI model the YouTube link and ask it to write ten questions on it.
Biological molecules → Cells → Metabolism →
Many ways to skin a cat, and the IB just made it more interesting to find your path with the grid-style curriculum document.
The new IB grid curriculum is designed for concept-led teaching (transport across plants and humans at once, say), but I use a more traditional sequence with deliberate linking sessions built in. This is an organic document and what works at my school with my learners.
The teacher is lying.
One of my favourite jokes in class: 'Where did I go wrong?'... 'no, I don't mean becoming a teacher.' Also a great bit of formative.
Here is a flavour of the formative tasks I use to test and develop understanding. When teaching DNA, for instance, I open with origami DNA: students evaluate its limitations and design a better model, and that becomes the focus of the dialogue. Other staples like FAB dominos, tarsia puzzles, concept maps, and 'where did I go wrong?' are all built to surface misconceptions and make thinking visible. Defending a pushback in writing is the assessment.
Every unit ships with a little tool.
As teachers we're curators of resources and facilitators of learning. The twist in my class is: if it doesn't exist yet, we build it, sometimes in class.
Custom-built study apps live on the apps tab. I still love building resources like dominos, bingo, and word searches, but now instead of spending three hours on a domino set, I use Splycr to generate a starting point in seconds; just give it plenty of detail in the emphasis section. Every card set it generates can also drop straight into the multiplayer games.
Curiosity is the only grade I care about.
But unfortunately the IB doesn't. So: 'If you fail to prepare, you prepare to fail.'
I formally grade one thing: weekly IB questions, cycled between MCQ (marked fast with ZipGrade) and longer-answer. Notes are never graded: it takes forever and gives students nothing useful. A great opportunity to discuss metacognition instead: write on the test what score you predicted and star the questions you got wrong. Standardised scores are a side-effect of actually caring; they follow, they don't lead.
One underrated advantage of ZipGrade is the speed of feedback: scan the papers, pull class data in seconds, and see exactly where understanding is breaking down before the lesson is even over. I also often (though not always) hand out the corrections during the test window itself and award half marks for self-correcting. It turns the assessment into a learning event rather than just a measurement.
A large component of biology is memorising facts. You can connect them and interrogate the complexity all you like, but to play the test game students still need the vocabulary in their heads first. That is where spaced repetition comes in. I built Cramly because Anki proved too much effort for most students to bother with. The advantage of building it myself is that at least I know the content is on point.
We all love Internal Assessments.
That time of year you mentally juggle 30–40 labs that are definitely 'independent' and you definitely don't have to coach every student to draw a table.
Internal assessments use PEEL paragraph structure and a student-choice topic grid, so the writing stays focused on the research question rather than the mark scheme.
Perfect preparation makes perfect.
Once you have set everyone's hands on fire with methane bubbles, it is time to lock in and have fun with it.
Every past paper under the sun, obviously. But revision should be enjoyable. A pub quiz with teams and rounds, some silly and some genuine review, goes down well. I love a good list: a clean way to scan the whole curriculum and pull at different strands. And Linki is a game that genuinely challenges both me and my students, which is the best kind.
Rapport is the invisible curriculum.
A classroom where students feel comfortable enough to laugh is one where they feel comfortable enough to ask questions and get things wrong.
The classroom league keeps a gentle hum of competition going: Kahoot earns 3 points for a win, 2 for second, 1 for third, and Splycr randomises outcomes enough that consistency beats reflexes. Points stay compartmentalised to defined moments; scatter them through the lesson and students get needy. Keep it to a few anchors and it stays fun.
Birthdays get a . British sarcasm, when it is warm rather than cutting, builds rapport fast. Compassion matters just as much: I don't chase missed deadlines, I ask how they're doing. Students thrive when they feel like humans rather than grade-producers.
AP-tailored approach coming soon.