Engel was teaching the topic of Cells to her students. Previous lessons had already equipped the students with background knowledge of plant and animal cells, but Engel decided to further elicit students' thinking.
She found a diagram of a Euglena cell, which contains features present in both plant and animal cells, but is neither of them; it is a micro-organism (protista) which the students do not learn about. She presented the diagram to students, curious to find out how they would classify it and the reasons behind their choice.
Students first penned down their thoughts and questions about the Euglena cell on paper, which were then transferred online to KF (Fig. 1). Engel classified students notes into four groups: those who thought it was an animal cell, plant cell, both an animal and plant cell, and neither an animal nor plant cell. Consequent lessons consisted of discussions about students' ideas and questions on KF.
Fig. 1. KF view 'Euglena'
At one point, Engel selected a promising question posted by a student “Is it possible for a plant cell not having cell wall?” for her students to build on in a new KF view (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2. KF view 'Is it possible for plant cell not to have cell wall?'