Call Me By My Organelle

By Jason Lapointe , John Abbott College

At a Glance

Discipline

STEM
Biology
Health science

Instructional Level

College & CEGEP

Course

Introductory biology or A&P course (101-NYA-05 and 101-805-AB)

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

Individual
Group
Whole Class

Type of Tasks

Discussing
Solving problems
Analyzing
Reading

Technical Details

Useful Technologies

Pen & Paper

Class size

Small (20-49)

Time

Single class period (< 90 mins)

Instructional Purpose

Application & knowledge building
Consolidation & metacognition

Overview

This activity gives students the opportunity to review the internal organization of the cell, specifically the organelles making up the endomembrane system, mitochondria, and cytoskeleton. Before class, students prepare using a handout that outlines the learning objectives, topics to review, and an introduction to the activity.

In the activity, students work together to learn to associate organelles with their functions and to associate the internal organization of a cell type with its function. First, in groups, students match organelles with their names and functions. Then students identify cell types and their organization of organelles according to their function. During the group work, the instructor pauses several times to review progress and answers before the class moves on.

Finally, students take the remaining 30-40 minutes to work together to complete an assessment task, where they draw each cell type, justify the organization of organelles within the cell according to the given function. In their responses, students are able to apply their learning to differentiate between cell types and illustrate different cell organization.

Instructional Objectives

Describe the structure and functions of the animal cell.
Describe and recognize examples of the major types of human tissues.

Workflow & Materials

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow

Document

Cards

Jason Lapoint

Document

Activity Handout

Jason Lapoint

Document

Review Handout

Jason Lapoint

Contributor's Notes

Benefits

Students get exposed to the idea that cells come in different shapes and sizes, that there are variations within categories of organelles, and that organelles predominate based on a cell’s function. These ideas aren’t always clearly introduced in a lecture. Further, this activity addresses different learning styles, with a large emphasis on tactile learning.

Challenges

Pacing and scaffolding is a huge challenge because this activity asks students to apply an early topic in biology before students have had any experience with higher levels of biological organization. The first part of the activity aims to review organelles and their functions. While the later parts ask students to apply these ideas based cellular functions. I had the most success when I gave 30+ minutes for the last parts of this activity AND went over each cell. This leaves the students to justify the appearance of each cell within the time provided.

Tips

Be ready to address difficulties immediately as the activity may be challenging to many students. I constantly circulate to check in on groups. Directing groups, dropping hints, and providing immediate feedback has greatly improved the quality of student answers on this assignment.

Comments

Graham Hooton says:

2021-09-16 at 18:51

Hello,

I appreciate the idea behind this activity, but I’m feeling a bit stuck in terms of delivering it. I think what’s missing is a sheet containing the actual cells and organelles for each bag. They aren’t on the pdf with the cards.

Do you have an ‘answer key’ available that I could use to represent my own?
Many thanks,

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Published: 22/10/2020

Copyright: © 2025 Lapointe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication on this website is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.