The subject matter is not interesting to you. You are learning about cells and not about animal behavior in the wild. You are learning about molecular biology and not about human anatomy. If you are taking the required high school biology class and can’t choose that you are about to learn every kind of biology, know you will eventually reach the unit with Punnett Squares or Darwin’s Theory of Evolution in a future unit in your high school class. But why have you punished yourself to take molecular biology in university? Is it because you are trying to attain a Bachelor of Science as some kind of biology major (e.g. zoology, ecology, environmental biology, marine biology), or because you have positioned yourself towards the career of a doctor and pre-med is the next step?
Within the first years of a child’s academic life, they are introduced to the study of life, which is basic biology. Elementary school (grades K-8) focuses on introductory skills and knowledge in every subject. To younger students, science might just mean volcanic eruptions by mixing vinegar and baking soda or fossils due to their obsession with the Jurassic Park franchise. The knowledge that they glean in life science might demonstrate living organisms to its young students from the smallest cells to the largest animals, from human genetics to human anatomy. Grades 4th to 12th will start showing the various branches of biological science, and each student will see what they are interested in. High School students are taught how to understand living things in each unit and chapter that they are forced to learn. Hopefully, the educator is qualified to approach its class with contemporary and emerging learning styles to progress student achievement. Also, the teacher needs to observe which students gravitate to which branch of science or which part of “life” are they fascinated by.
But what makes biology lessons so hard and how can you overcome it with studying and homework? Conclusively, the main reasons for the difficulty in learning biology are the difficult nature of the material, teacher’s teaching style, student learning and study habits, and the student’s negative attitudes towards the material and lack of resources.
- Difficult nature of the material: Modern biology and modern mathematics tend to combine in learning biological sciences, where some need a basic background in calculus (e.g. molecular biology) and some low-level mathematics with algebra, graphs, and modeling.
- Teacher’s teaching style: For example, vertebrate zoology requires the knowledge of Latin to memorize species’ names. Latin is also useful for paleontologists while they memorize dinosaur names, their period, and their behavior to be able to identify future found fossils. Teachers need to create a constructive learning environment where they are supportive and collaborative with their pupils and hopefully future colleagues.
- Teacher’s teaching style: In every stage of a student’s academic life, the teacher is the number one influence in their student achievement in school. Teachers should promote better test preparation, collaboration, and professional development in their learning. Unfortunately, many unqualified teachers don’t work towards advancement in student learning and achievement, which is why it is important to reach out to professional and qualified tutors for biology homework help who will give reliable answers and provide original essays.
- Student learning and study habits: Students are expected to memorize basic foundational and often numerous facts that students tend to question their educational ability and to be skillful enough in their future careers. There are many ways to try to memorize information through study skills, such as highlighting text, flashcards, or muscle memory where students find knowledge instead of just collecting and mastering it. The learning process of biology has started to include learning experiences that stimulate the students’ mental and physical processes with added resources and media which result in building human curiosity.
- Student methodology and study habits: A student needs to select their methodology in which they can absorb their biology lessons. The various approaches teach them the same information, whether through multimedia, instruction, project-based learning, observation. Choosing the right form of learning will optimize the effort and the right teaching style will be most effective for the students.
- Student’s negative attitudes towards the material: Biology is a large subject, also defined as a “messy discipline” that you could simplify with subfields, even within your chosen major or career: small (atoms and cells) versus large (animals and humans), past (dinosaurs and homo neanderthalensis) versus future (biotechnology and medical research), and studying outside (nature) versus inside (viruses).
- Students’ negative attitudes towards the material: Ask any nurse, doctor, or anyone in the medical field. They spent 4-years of undergraduate studies and 4 years of medical school learning material that might never be utilized in their career. For example, endocrinology is one of the hardest subjects for biology and medical students to understand. Because of this, the curriculum could engage students’ critical-thinking skills so that they can better grasp the difficult topic.
