Customized Biology Solutions for the Mississippi College & Career Readiness Standards and the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program (MAAP) Biology I

Mississippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology is a next-generation high school biology program that makes biology exciting and relevant to students. Students think, investigate, and talk about biology. They interact with natural phenomena through hands-on and virtual-student-inquiry activities, problem-based learning, and lab experiments. Mississippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology is made of the following program components. 

The program includes:

• Mississippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology digital courseware on Savvas Realize™ includes robust digital tools that give teachers flexibility to use a digital, print, or blended format in their classrooms. Teachers can customize the program to rearrange content, upload their own content, add links to online media, and edit resources and assessments. Program-specific resources, flexible agnostic resources, and assessments are available in one location for easy lesson planning and presentation.

• Teacher’s Edition - Available in digital and print, the Teacher’s Edition provides point-of-use instructional strategies to support students as they make sense of the phenomena, answers to activities and assessments, and classroom modifications to adjust instruction based on the diverse student needs, skills, and interests in their classroom.

• Student Edition - Available in print and digital formats, the student edition is known for its engaging student narrative. The Foundations Reading and Study Guide Workbook includes interactive experiences that improve science understanding and reinforce the three-dimensional aspect of learning.

• The Explorer’s Journal - Problem Based Learning Workbook is a digital worktext that supports student understanding of problem-based learning projects. Within this interactive journal, students participate in a variety of sensemaking tasks, including STEM Projects, virtual simulations, authentic readings and hands-on labs.

Mississippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology immerses students in real-world phenomena. The program drives student learning through a series of investigative phenomenon case studies, hands-on and virtual student experiences, and problem-based learning activities that support their understanding of the phenomenon under study.

• Problem-Based Learning:
  Launch every unit with a Problem-Based Learning activity, where learning is anchored in a local, relevant phenomenon. Connect concepts across multiple chapters through STEM projects, authentic readings, and virtual interactivities. Students design and revise their projects throughout the unit in their Digital Explorer’s Journal.
• Case Study Phenomenon:
  Investigate phenomena with the Chapter Case Studies. Learning connects to the Case Study in labs, activities, and assessment, creating a cohesive storyline throughout the chapter.
• Active Student Experiences:
  Students build Science & Engineering Skills using hands-on inquiry labs, data analysis, STEM projects, and virtual simulations, labs and activities. Easy connections to the three dimensions are found at point of use in the Student and Teacher Editions
• Performance-Based Assessments:
  Mississippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology is rich with assessment types that work in combination to assess three-dimensional learning. Performance-Based Assessments measure students’ mastery of all three dimensions through scenario-based performance tasks.

The Mississippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology program includes a variety of resources and instructional strategies that help teachers address the diverse student needs, skills, and interests in their classroom. There are several techniques that are found throughout the program, including:

• Hands-on Inquiry Labs are available in different versions, allowing instructors to differentiate based on student needs and abilities.
• Assess on the Spot: Quick formative assessments in the Teacher Edition allow instructors to assess understanding of key points in the lesson.
• Differentiated Instruction suggestions throughout the Teacher Edition provide support for modifying lessons for special needs students, struggling students, less proficient readers, and advanced students.
• Teaching strategies at point of use support language proficiency and ELD/ELA standards.
• DOK levels are noted in the Lesson Review Questions and Chapter Assessment
• Key Questions are introduced in the lesson opener and highlighted throughout to help keep students focused on the main concepts as they read. The Key Questions are revisited in the chapter assessment.
• Visual Learning Strand: Core ideas in each chapter are supported by visual analogies, dynamic photos, illustrations, tables, and graphs.
• Virtual Interactivities –available at point-of-use in the student eText require students to manipulate variables to deepen understanding.
• Reading Checks support close reading and provide a pause point for students to evaluate their own understanding.
• The Biology Foundations: Reading and Study Guide Workbook includes interactive experiences that improve science understanding and reinforce the three-dimensional aspect of learning.

 

Click here to sign up for a demo of Misissippi Miller & Levine Experience Biology.

Kenneth R. Miller grew up in Rahway, New Jersey, attended the local public schools, and graduated from Rahway High School in 1966. Miller attended Brown University on a scholarship and graduated with honors. He was awarded a National Defense Education Act fellowship for graduate study, and earned his Ph.D. in Biology at the University of Colorado. Miller is professor of Biology at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where he teaches courses in general biology and cell biology. Miller‘s research specialty is the structure of biological membranes. He has published more than 70 research papers in journals such as "Cell" "Nature," and "Scientific American." He has also written the popular trade books Finding Darwin‘s God and Only a Theory. His honors include the Public Service Award from the American Society for Cell Biology, the Distinguished Service Award from the National Association of Biology Teachers, the AAAS Award for Public Engagement with Science, the Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, and the Laetare Medal from Notre Dame University.

Miller lives with his wife, Jody, on a small farm in Rehoboth, Massachusetts. He is the father of two daughters, one a wildlife biologist and the other a high-school history teacher. He swims competitively in the masters‘ swimming program and umpires high school and NCAA softball.

Joe Levine earned a B.S. from Tufts University, a Masters from the Boston University Marine Program, and a Ph.D. from Harvard University. His research has been published in scientific journals ranging from Science to Scientific American, and his popular writing has appeared in trade books and in magazines such as Smithsonian and Natural History. He has taught introductory biology, ecology, marine biology, neurobiology, and coral reef biology, and currently teaches Inquiry in Rain Forests, a field-based graduate-level PD course for science teachers, through the Organization for Tropical Studies.

Following a Macy Fellowship in Science Broadcast Journalism at WGBH-TV, Levine produced science features for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered and Morning Edition, served as advisor to NOVA, and helped launch the Discovery Channel’s Discover Magazine. He has served as Science Editor for OMNI-MAX films and for PBS series including Evolution, and as judge for Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival. He has designed exhibit programs for state aquarium projects in Texas, New Jersey, and Florida. Joe has led PD workshops across the United States, Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, Indonesia, and Malaysia. In 2016, he served as Outstanding Educator in Residence for Singapore’s Ministry of Education.