During the learning process, the existing knowledge is transformed, new concepts are created and adopted ones are upgraded. This process can be obstructed by wrong ideas or misconceptions. In order to adopt biological concepts properly, it is necessary to replace misconceptions with correct concepts. The success depends on the method of teaching and (self) assessment. The aim of this work is to determine the of the basic biological concepts prescribed by the subject curriculum for learning Nature and Biology among 8th grade students, and to determine the misconceptions and self-assessment of students about the achieved learning success, and to discuss the connection between the teaching method and the successful adoption of the concepts. The research was conducted among 95 students in the 8th grade of elementary school. The success of solving questions of different levels of achievement according to the way of three teachers work was analyzed. By analyzing the videos of the teaching lessons of three teachers, the representation of teaching features important for the acquisition of knowledge at higher cognitive levels was assessed. The students of all three teachers achieved better success in questions that examine lower cognitive levels because observed teachers on average have poorly represented characteristics that enable the achievement of knowledge at the highest levels. Also, an inconsistency between self-assessed and achieved success was recorded, and the possible reason for that is underdeveloped metacognitive skills and the practice of self-regulated learning, because the features of teaching that contribute to this kind of learning are weakly represented or absent in three teacher’s lessons.