Outstanding Educational Performance awards are given to schools that have shown a large amount of improvement in science performance over a five-year period. These awards are provided from the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas. This year BIC has received the ¨Most improved¨ award on the End Of Course Biology exam.

¨Students continue to amaze me,” biology teacher Mandy McFall said. “I had a class last year that had several substitute teachers for their ninth grade physical science class, and we were very worried about their performance. They ended up scoring better than the previous year. So, the science teachers at BIC have done something right.¨

The strategies that McFall used were definitely one of the things done right. Instead of following traditional classroom strategies, she went in a different direction.  

¨I teach basics and build on those,” she said. “Some of the things I think kids know, they don’t, so I have to go back and break things down one topic at a time.¨

This year the EOC biology test will not be given. An alternate test called the ACT Aspire will be provided. It is assumed that the new test will be more ACT based and will showcase a student’s ability to utilize science instead of their memorization skills.

McFall plans to continue on with her current framework, but this year more data and graphs will be included.  

¨We are still not where we want to be, so hopefully we will continue to see an increase in scores,¨ she said.