Provide a metaview, lifting students into a wider view of the concept. Use another medium (not reading or writing) to connect students' personal knowing to the concept (i.e. visual arts, music, movement, metaphor, etc.) Involve learners in reflective production that blends the emotional and the cognitive.
Students watch interviews of people with AIDS virus.
Objective: To use selections from purchased video programs to help the students see the connection between their own experiences and the action of a virus on the immune system.
Activity: The teacher shows previewed selections from any one of a number of excellent tapes available on the AIDS virus. It may include interviews with patients who have tested positive for the virus and describe their symptoms and the effect the virus has had on them, particularly in terms of their susceptibility to other illnesses. It should also include a simple, often animated, explanation of how the normal, human immune system works, describing the role of lymphocytes, T cells, B cells, antibodies, etc. As a follow-up to the video, the students can be asked to draw, as a diagram or as a metaphor, a virus attacking a cell.
