Miller & Levine biology - how much of it to use?

[klmama]

I'm ready to start to plan biology for the fall, and I'm not sure of the best approach.  When my older dc used M&L, we covered everything but the human anatomy chapters (dc learned that material in health class and in a DE A&P course).  Between the text, numerous supplemental AP bio videos, and weekly labs, it was a meaty course; at times I felt like we should have done a lot less.  I've been looking online at school syllabi for ideas on how better to teach this next dc bio, and I've discovered that many honors bio courses only use about half the book for a full year course.  Someone here recommended some helpful related videos on YouTube (MrDBioCFC) that also only cover half the book.   Is there a good reason to drop coverage of plants, animals, and humans in order to focus more on the cellular level?  It seems like the rest would be more useful knowledge.  And while I understand the emphasis has changed, it just seems... wrong... to only use half of a standard text, LOL!  Am I just being too much of a rule-follower?  ("Use 75-80% of a text for a full credit course.")  Do colleges admissions reps realize how the approach has changed and do any actually care how much of a text is used?  Thanks for any input regarding how you used this text or what you know about why schools would only use half.  

[Janeway]

You won't be telling the college admissions tests exactly which chapters you covered of which books on which days in which years. Can you just imagine all the work admissions counselors would have to do if they had to review all the work every single applicant ever did in every class at high school level? Also, texts made for public school pretty much contain way more than any teacher would ever cover in a class. When we did biology a couple years ago with same book, I obtained syllabi from many biology classes using the same books and found that no one even seemed to do a full half of the book. I no longer have copies of any but if you google and find classroom websites, you will see several. Online classes tend to expect way more than in-person classes. 

[klmama]

Thanks, Janeway. What you wrote makes sense.  I'm just nervous and don't want to mess this up for my dc, who may be headed for a more selective school than the others.  And even more than wanting to be sure I don't somehow sabotage admission, I want to be sure the needed foundation is there for the college coursework. 

I guess I just need to decide what approach to this is the most important/useful - more focus on molecular biology topics or a more general focus.  Any opinions on that?  

[Clemsondana]

Back when I taught at a community college, the teacher's edition of the textbook had a section saying that the textbook was designed so that it could be used to teach different classes, so you could use whichever chapters were helpful for the course that you wanted to teach.  I think that many high school textbooks are written the same way.  When I started teaching at our co-op, they asked that I cover everything listed in the state standards for our state (TN).  When I started teaching online, I checked the standards for CA and NY and found that there was little difference between what I was already doing and what they listed.  I ended up adding one additional optional module that addressed the one topic that CA wanted that wasn't in the TN or NY standards.  

While molecular biology and genetics are my own areas of interest (and I'm thrilled that I get to teach a lot about those topics), there is value in the other topics in the book.  You could design a great class that focuses on types of plants, organ systmes, and comparative biology, for instance.  Despite my love for the topics that are required right now, I hate the loss of 'learning diversity' - I would love for students in public schools and homeschools alike to have choices about whether to take a molecular biology class, or botany, or comparative anatomy.   A truly motivated, gung-ho biology lover could cover the whole book, but I think that a lot of students would be better served by learning part of it well, with brief excursions into other parts that are relevant (for instance, a botany student should learn about photosynthesis).  The basics of 'what is a cell' should probably be taught to everybody, but after that, there are lots of options.  

[klmama]

Thanks, Dana!  I appreciate your input!