Revision... who does it and why?

Another week completed and another week closer to exams for our Year 10, 11, 12 and 13 students and this week there has been a shift of thoughts towards best preparing our students for the exam season.

Even as I'm writing this, I think back to the previous statement I have just made. What is it that we can do to help best prepare our students for the exams they are due to face??

If I think back to my own revision when I was a 16 year old lad, I was totally unprepared and was fortunate to get by on the outstanding teaching I had throughout my time at school which saw me through my exams. However, I have always wondered if the skills I finely tuned at University were with me when I was younger how much better I could of done throughout my time at school. So what can we do as educators to ensure that both the lessons that we teach  are consistently outstanding but also the revision our students do enable them to achieve the levels that they show  throughout the year.

The first issue is to share with students the importance of revision and winning them over into doing it. There are so many distractions available to our students that were not around less that a decade ago when I was sitting on the dining room table with my school books. The widespread access to the internet, the epidemic nature of social networks and the ever evolving computer gaming industry adding further distractions for the students of today. Therefore, getting students to revise is half the battle towards successful results for them. However, this is of course easier said than done.

This year I decided to move from very structured revision sessions to shifting the emphasis on students understanding the importance of revision for themselves. I started off this lesson with an old family favourite game that we used to play as children, "things on a tray". I randomly selected 20 items from my the staff room and placed them, covered up, on a tray. I stood at the front of the classroom and gave the students just 30seconds to come to the front and see have a mooch through the objects. They were then given 30 seconds to write down the objects they could remember. Straight away students that didn't stand up and move down to the front were immediately annoyed they could not get any answers right. At this point they clocked onto  what I was getting at, revision needs to be active and hands on by the students for them to achieve.

We set about to try different ways to encourage students to take ownership of their own revision. The five steps below are the results of a dialogue and discussion with our students about what is important during revision time.

Step One - Get organised.

Create a set revision timetable with planned breaks. If it works for you, why not stick to a similar patten that you have when at school. Manage how much time you have before your exams and work realistically towards those goals you can set, on an hour by hour basis or weekly basis. Secondly get your notes, hand outs, practice exam questions and revision booklets in order. There is nothing worse than getting prepared for the wrong exam!!

Step Two - Start Big and Get Small

We encourage students to start looking at the topics as a whole before gradually breaking up each section and studying in greater detail. There are often many links between the different topics that students learn and it is important that they keep this in mind when revising. 

Step Three - Process the information

One of the biggest pitfalls that students fall into is to just simply route learn or try and memorise the information. Although this may be useful for some people or certain types of smaller assessments throughout the year, the majority cannot learn this way. To truly understand the topics will allow students to explain themselves in detail which will allow them to access higher marks. 

This year we have produced a wide range of revision booklets, they range from very structured, highly content based guides to a more formative approach with set tasks and activities throughout. Either way we made it very obvious to the students that these were to be "live" documents. We wanted to see them highlighted, scribbled on, cut up and torn apart if they so wish. The important thing is that students take the content on and make it useful for them. 

There are many different ways in which the information can be manipulated by students. You have probably already heard of or even tried many different techniques and have decided on ones that work for you. Recently one of the best I have heard of is to use those distractions around us. Students are happy to ask each other questions right before the exam starts, but yet why are they scared to ask each other before?? With a close group of friends why not send text messages with questions a few days or even weeks before the exam. Maybe your teacher can ask regular questions via twitter/email too.

Step Four - Test yourself

The final step is to see if the information you have learned is going into your brain under exam conditions. Write yourself exam questions and see if you can answer them. Cover up mind maps and see if you can remember what was there. If there are gaps in your knowledge, then go back over that information and work to plug the gaps so you are truly ready for those exams.

And finally, good luck to all those sitting exams in the near future!

Getting messy... Oh, I mean creative.

The question above seems so simple. What is it possible to make with the contents of your pockets.... empty your pockets and have a quick look. As I am writing this I have my phone, keys and a safety pin I picked off the floor not too long ago. Could I make anything with this array of items? Not really. So maybe the question is flawed... however the images here show what my year 8 students came up with when asked to do the same.

 To the right you can see a sort of bird with the wings made out of a pair of gloves and a manner of all other things forming the body. The two other pictures here show other innovative ways the students showed what they could do.




To the right is a representation of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy and below it another way of showing how being creative can be found within academia. Although the importance of being creative could be a contested idea the purpose of this post is just to show why we think creative geography can be so important to our students.

To quote Rawling and Westaway (2003), "When young people are encouraged to think creatively and independently about their geographical work, their self esteem increases, as does their motivation and their sense of achievement. These are convincing reasons for teachers to develop this work further".

For me, in my own classroom I can see the benefits for creating geography. Student engagement increases as they are taking ownership for the work they are doing, through the enquiry, planning and making stages. Also creative geography can be an excellent way for students to consolidate their learning.

The image to the left shows one of my Year 7 attempts at creating their own settlement. They received little instruction other than "off you go". The students clearly show the importance of water, however if you had the chance to speak to them they would have also explained the building materials located in the purple forest and where the road network went off to. Other groups in the class came up with even more "out there" designs, the key thing though is if the kids can genuinely explain what they have done then that is great for me.

The image to the right shows an example of our solar cookers that the students designed and made from scratch.

The image just to the left is a monopoly style board game that Year 12s designed to revise their AQA A level different areas of Newcastle case study. The students research each individual area, finding out rental and costs for sale and had to invent the chance and community chest cards with specific things that may happen in the different areas.

I created the two definitions above to try and give an  idea of what I mean by the term creative geography and creative geographers. Creativity shouldn't be just a one way process of teacher to student but rather a working together to ensure that students are enhancing their learning through the work.

So if I was to devise a plan for developing creative geographers in classrooms, the following few points would be incredibly important.

So for now, have a go at getting creative in your classrooms. Don't be afraid to get messy, remember as long as it is worthwhile for the kids then it is worthwhile for you to do too. My year 7s made crisp world maps and have been subject to oil spills. Creativity through enquiry and decision making are both great, just feel free to "let go" and allow the students to have a go without being held back by strict boundaries and limits.

The difference three marks can make...

In January our Year 10 students sat their first of four GCSE Geography unit examinations. The students had revised incredibly hard, utilised revision guides that were produced for them and learnt case studies inside out and knew key facts and figures to help support their answers. However, when the results came through and we searched through the advanced analysis available from the AQA exam board we noticed a remarkable pattern of students answering particular questions rather poorly. 

If we were asked to describe the picture to the above would we answer in different ways? The command word describe is asking to "say what you see" with little emphasis on explanation. However, from the image above it should be obvious to see how the command words "Describe" and "Explain" can mean two completely different things. However, if we move to a more 'useful' (by that I mean a diagram our students are likely to see in their exams) source it is possible to see how ambiguity can begin to sneak in. The infamous hockey stick style graph like the one below can lead to our students structuring perfectly good answers but not the ones that the examiners are after.

If asked to describe the graph above students would be wise to follow the HLGTA anagram to help structure their answer. By finding the Highest, Lowest, General Trend and Anomaly points from the diagram, students should create an excellent description of the information shown on the graph with little or no interpretation involved. However, if the command word for the question asked "Explain" or "give reasons for the shape" then interpretation will be expected and this time credit will not be primarily given for statements but rather the interpretation that was actually missing from the previous answer. How important is it for students to understand the difference between these key words and the others they face in their examinations. 

At this point, it is important to highlight that these command words are not always the same across subjects. A describe question in History may be far more open ended than in Geography, so we have had to make sure that our students take ownership for these keywords within Geography and write accordingly.

For the exam board we use, credit is given throughout for the quality of written communication expressed through students' answers. Therefore we have created this resource that has been printed off on A3 paper, placed back to back, laminated and given out to students across the Key Stages to ensure that the standard of their written answers are as high as they can be.

The title of this post is "the difference three marks can make", this refers to the grade boundaries that were used for the January exams our Year 10s sat. Just three UMS marks was the difference between a grade D and a C. We went through the paper with the students, with the above resource at their side and noted down how and why students had lost marks. The students themselves were so annoyed at the way they let simple and easy marks slip from their grasp. The emphasis for us is how just a few tweaks in practice and routine for the students can have a big impact on the grades they can achieve. The resources are now readily handed out to KS3 students to help set successful and embed a  high quality of written communication in their work, I guess proof will be how students perform in their next season of examinations. However, for now it is great to see how students' work is more free flowing and expressed with greater explanation.

A trip to the Geographical Association Conference 2012

 Over the final weekend of the 2012 Easter holidays we visited the Geographical Association (GA) 2012 conference.  The GA is a UK based association with the objective of furthering geographical knowledge and understanding through education. The conference welcomes over 700 from all over the world to take part in a range of lectures, workshops, field visits opportunities and a large amount of exhibitions showcasing latest news and exciting opportunities for teachers and pupils.
Whilst attending the exhibitions we walked into an exhibition by the tour company taking us to Iceland in 2013 (http://www.discover-the-world.co.uk/). They had just won an award for a study guide of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano. A guide that we will be using when we visit next year. The exhibition was also giving away free packs of "volcanic ash" that will be shown to Year 8 classes when studying tectonics at the start of the year. It was also a great chance to look through the current literature available for the topics we study. However, in terms of revision guides we still think the ones that we have created for GCSE are in far greater depth and detail than those available elsewhere.

The GA conference included 'teacher-to-teacher' sessions which were innovated 20minute sessions that offered a unique opportunity for conservations about classroom practices. Mr. Simmons was selected to deliver a session based on "Developing Creative Geographers at Key Stages 3,4 and 5". The session was showcasing the work we have done in the department over the last term.

The importance of developing creativity will be discussed in the next post in greater detail, but just two photos shown here can give you a quick taste of how creativity can be used. To the right is a solar cooker designed by a group of Year 9 students out of scrap materials they found from home. Students could see the importance of utilising the energy produced by the sun in a UK context but more importantly could infer about how life saving this could be in the least developed countries.

The photo to the left shows a skills based starter that we used with Year 8. Students were given the task of using the contents of their pockets to design something. No other instruction was given, but it was great to see how creative the students could be.

The session was attended by approximately 30 educators ranging from PGCE students and NQTs to experienced teachers, PHD students and retired ITT tutors. Delegates came  from all over the country and even some from other countries as far away as Singapore. All delegates were engaged with the topics shown and seemed really impressed with the creativity that the Arthur Terry students had shown in the work showcased.

In the afternoon, Mr. Simmons attended a workshop by the GA Assessment and Examinations Special Interest Group about setting 'good' examination answers and has been invited to attend their group in the future. This should mean that Arthur Terry Geography can keep an up to date handle on the changing shifts of assessments within Geography, in particular the uncertainty of the future when National Curriculum levels for Geography are disbanded.

The involvement of Arthur Terry Geography on twitter has been slowly developing over recent months. The account is used in two realms, the first to respond to student queries and to pinpoint extra background reading to students. The second realm is to be part of the ever growing range of educators that share ideas and good practice across this social network. Arthur Terry Geography was being quoted, tweeted and even retweeted by some of the most important people involved in the conference! Raising the profile of Arthur Terry Geography and expanding the network of educators that we are involved with can only have positive impacts for the teaching and learning that will occur in our classrooms.

The trip to the  GA Conference has proven to be very fruitful, raising the profile of Arthur Terry Geography nationwide by sharing good practice and more importantly relishing opportunities to develop taking another step towards becoming a world class department. Bring on the conference in 2013!

Stranded on a deserted island...

So far this term the KS3 Geography students have been very busy! 

The Year 7s imagined they were on a plane that was taking them on a fieldtrip to a far off destination. However the plane crashed in horrible storm over the ocean and the 30 students have been stranded and left to survive on a desert island. They have been mapping the island with four and six figure grid references, drawing field sketches, designing a map of the island, planning and creating their settlements whilst making important decisions on how they can survive for as long as possible! 

It has been great to see the students so engaged and involved in such key geographical skills in a different way. 

Fairtrade Fortnight

Fairtrade Fortnight

This year the Fairtrade logo has been plastered across the halls and being spoken from the lips of students along the corridors of Arthur Terry. The theme this year was to "take a step" for fairtrade. Students across the school were given an assembly on what is and the benefits of fairtrade for people around the world and why we pay a little bit more for the products that carry that logo. The fairtrade week culminated in a fairtrade cake sale where students were encouraged to swap at least one ingredient in their cakes for a fairtrade produce. As a school we managed to raise over £170 and received this amazing thank you letter...

Add caption

 A massive thank you must go out to all the students, staff and people at home that got really involved in spreading the good work of the fairtrade companies!!

Geography at the Movies

Every year around February time Year 8 students have to decide which subjects they are going to opt to study at GCSE. This year we decided to invite all of our Year 8 students to attend a week long analysis of Geography themes they may see in films. We started off by showing 2012 and this sparked some lively debate surrounding the impacts of climate change, how and why jet streams and thermohaline circulations work. Of course all this was supplemented with some free popcorn!! A great idea that we will continue to do next year, perhaps throughout the cool summer months to really build up some geographical discussion!

Keeping Up Appearances...

The Geography department at Arthur Terry has been very successful in the past. However as outstanding educators it is our responsibility to ensure that the students have the very best opportunities available to them, it is time now to step on and strive to become a world class department.

We are fortunate to have class after class, year on year of excellent students that crave education. With well paced and engaging lessons; our students can learn, understand, achieve and most importantly enjoy their learning experience within our classrooms.

This blog will have several different roles. We hope that it can be used to shared the excellent work we do outside of our department by making links with other departments that share a forward thinking, creative, independent and technologically driven practice. Our involvement on twitter (@arthurterrygeog) has already helped to bring exciting concepts shared by others, back into our classroom and we hope that this will only continue in the future.

It is also hoped that the students and people at home will be able to see the great work that students do within Geography on a regular basis within an accessible way, rather than just catching a glimpse of student work whilst walking down school corridors every now and again.

The title of this post is "keeping up appearances"... taking the popular 90's sitcom as muse. We are hoping that this blog will be a very transparent look into our classrooms. Showing the work that both our students and teachers do on a regular basis.

In a slightly ironic way, the first few posts  will be a slightly retrospective view on the exciting work that was done over the last term.

Thanks for reading.

Mr. Simmons