Some summer homework....

Summer is over, but the Geography you can find is not... so below is list of easy things you can do over the holidays to keep your geographical brains ticking over until September!

Year 7 – On the way to visit a place/attraction during the holidays, use a road map to track your journey. Highlight what you might see on the way paying particular attention to physical and human features of the landscape.

 

Year 8 – Create a collage or diary noting down any news stories or TV programs that you have watched over the summer that can link to Geography. Consider the 5Ws – What happened? Where did it happen? Why did it occur? Who was affected? When did it happen?

 

Year 9 – In preparation for studying extreme environments, watch programs such as Bear Grylls and Ray Mears or read books with a similar theme, and think about people’s experiences of these environments and how they have adapted to living in them.

 

Year 10 –While visiting a tourist attraction (this can be from Birmingham city centre to The Bahamas), reflect on the advantages and disadvantages tourists can have on the area. This will prepare you for the tourism module you will begin studying in September.

 

Year 11 – Using the internet, research how to carry out fieldwork techniques such as land use surveys and environmental surveys; and their advantages and disadvantages. Also practice your data presentation skills (in particular producing high quality graphs) using Microsoft Excel. Both of these will help you in the controlled assessment.

Have a great break everyone.... see you in September!!

Dorset Review!

Setting Spooky Questions

As the exam season hits it's peak we are starting to see more and more students attending the revision session we have been offering all year. Although not desirable but still totally understandable, as time has gone on and students have sat exams their priorities switch to the next exam with short sharp revision in-between and revision session offered by school and subject teachers become a lifeline for the students.

However, how should we as teachers be using these revision sessions?? With the importance getting ever greater as we get closer and closer towards the exams. We tend to go through a cycle of revision activities so those students that come every session get something different but will still provide a "snapshot" revision for those that may only come to one session. 

The Teacher Led Revision Session

Within these sessions, the work and emphasis is placed on the teacher and there is a high expectation of content delivery. These sessions work well when students need a "refresher" of the whole topic with extended links between different sections after an extended period of time away from the subject or exam based material.   Within these style of sessions students are required to listen and make their own notes and are encouraged to ask clarifying questions when necessary.

The Student Centred Revision Sessions

These sessions have a larger shift of emphasis on to the students. This type of session gets more and more important as the time before the exam gets shorter and shorter. There may be many types of activities based in these sessions. The teacher may act as a point of reference to help support the students lines of enquiry and thoughts or particular areas of weakness. At times students can become disenchanted with this type of revision as it is similar to work they are doing at home and may from time to time be off task. The activities that spring to mind may include students creating their own placecards of casestudies or mindmaps of specific areas they decide.

Working Together

Sessions that prove to be most successful are the ones where the teacher and the students work together to go through material. However, for these to be most successful there will be a reduction in the content that can be discussed in a session. The playoff is that the content will be discussed at a greater depth and should enhance the learning. Activities will involve many questions or designed tasks that students will need to use their knowledge to answer. These style of sessions are useful over a longer period of time and benefit those students that are likely to turn up week after week.

Last Minute Spooky Questions

This year I have been working with utilising the last minute revision sessions that we offer at school. Sometimes these take part during breakfast or lunchtime immediately before the exam. At this point the ways mentioned above may not be appropriate so I have started to implement a very simple idea that I call "Spooky Questions" to the students. These are the questions that straight away students read and 'shut off' or worse, leave the answer section completely blank because they feel they don't know an answer. Basically this is improving exam technique within the students but also making them understand how even though they may not think straight-away they will be able to formulate an answer! So these sessions support those students that are completely ready for their exam and have secured excellent knowledge but also offers a chance for those who need some last minute revision of content too.

A question was simply placed up on the board and students had to explain back to me how they would answer the question and what case studies they would include. So with my year 12s this year immediately prior to their exam we looked at different ways questions could be worded and the different vocabulary that may come up. It is staggering to see students occasionally stumped by the term "opportunities and challenges" rather than "positives and negatives" or to take this year as an example after talking about supply and demand all year a few students were still stumped by the term 'supply and consumption'. What I did the night before was to construe the most difficult questions or terms I could think of and showed these to the students. Initially some of them had that fear of "I don't know this" but when they actually stopped and worked out what the question was asking they could confidently construct an answer.... students left the session feeling very confident about facing the exam.

What we must remember however is that the purpose of revision is to support our students and ensure they are prepared to enter the exam and do the best they can do. By offering these optional revision sessions that don't always follow the same pattern we are hoping that despite what the students do they can be totally prepared for the exam as they walk into the exam hall!

An Inspection Trip to Iceland

As part of the services provided by Discover the World Schools, I attended a teacher inspection trip to Iceland ahead of our trip in just over 7 months time to check out the quality (and safety!!) of the activities and the accommodation that our student will be using whilst out there.

The first task was to get to London Heathrow and meet the other 21 teachers that are also using the same company as us. Those teachers were there for the exact same reasons as me and it was great to see how we all had different ideas, activities and itineraries planned that were being tailored to our own students.

I met the representatives from the Tour company after the short 2hr 30mins flight in which I was pleasantly surprised to find a TV in the seat infront and a selection of films. TV shows and Icelandic documentaries our first stop was the world famous Blue Lagoon.

This is our first planned stop on our trip in February and I am so glad that we have selected to do this. What a perfect way to shake off the "flight hangover" that is so easier to get even on a short flight. Students will thoroughly enjoy this first stop, but even picking up a few tips will make our journey run much smoother. Students will need to back their swimming kit and towel in their hand luggage to make life easier when we arrive.

We made our way to the Youth Hostel that many of the schools stop at when in Reykjavik, which was pleasant and totally appropriate for the wet weather that students will face in Iceland. However we have already selected to stay in the Hotel Cabin which is of a much higher standard.

The two pictures here show a typical twin room with private en-suite facilities which all of our students will have. We had breakfast here and was very satisfactory, however it will be worth pointing our to students that a cold continental  breakfast similar to other countries of Northern Europe. Another great plus for us staying here is that next to the hotel their is a small supermarket so students can get anything extra they need.

Our planned evening activity on Day One is to go on a tour to the countryside and try and see the Northern Lights, however as there are only active in the Winter months this activity wasn't available, so instead we all had a relatively early night after being up early to catch the plane from Heathrow.


Day two was great and we managed to do and see lots of the activities and sites we are going to do and see so I don't want to spoil anything too much here but the glacier walk was truly amazing. Although it will be so important that students are aware that this is natural, there are no natural paths and very real big holes. Students will have to be fully aware of their surroundings as they make there way across the glacier!







The rest of Day Two was spent seeing some fantastic waterfalls but you will have to wait to see pictures of those! The evening accommodation was in a different hotel which was very similar to those that we will be staying in. One thing that became very obvious to me was that we will be living out of our suitcases and so to pack sensibly!

Day three took us off to see more of the incredible sights that Iceland has to offer, with a particular highlight being Geysir and the other hot springs. Again, don't want to give away too much of the magic here so Going to stop here!

The final day was again action packed and we had  some time in Reykjavik centre. There were a few shops and places to eat but students may be unimpressed to hear that the only McDonald's to ever close due to lack of custom was in Reykjavik!! However, the Icelandic favourite of HotDogs were very easy to find!

The four days away were absolutely brilliant and really insightful. We are looking into making a few tweaks to our schedule but on the whole I am delighted at what we have planned such an interesting trip which the students will remember for many years to come.

The company we are using can be found on twitter @DTW_Schools or their schools webpage http://www.schools-discover.co.uk/ if you want any further details!

Controlled Assessments - A plan for the future

The Future for Controlled Assessments

Controlled assessments have dominated a large proportion of Year 11 time in recent weeks and months. As an extended activity we rely on students to be confident in their own approach to answering the question through their own research. Through the design of controlled assessments students require to be independent learners from their teachers, other friends and people at home. Towards the end when students reach the "high level" parts of controlled assessments they are even independent from the internet and the only safety net is their own research. What a great way to enforce student independence. 

The worry we have is that learner independence should be a skill that students develop throughout their time at school and there has been nothing more frustrating this year than seeing students struggle when there is no room for interventions by the teacher. So as a department we decided to take action to ensure that all our students are prepared with the skills required to be successful with the controlled assessment process. 

Developing learner independence is a long process and will be the basis for posts at other times on this blog however what is important is allowing students the chance to feel confident in their approach to researching and analysing. 

So the key steps we have decided to do:

- Informal but structured research based projects at KS3 where the focus is on creating a hypothesis and working towards finding out if it was true or not. KS3 projects will also focus on generating accurate and appropriate graphical representations depending upon what data they have. Allowing students to make guided decisions at this age will allow them to make informed decisions when they are on their own. 

- During Year 9 and 10 we have planned to take a more active approach with the method making process and analysing of data. Students this year have again struggled with explaining why they are doing the methods that they have decided are appropriate for the information they need to find out. We decided to plan lessons that look at research design and when/why we use different methods depending upon different data required, again allowing students to make mistakes during this low pressure year. Again inferring what they can do in Year 11 when on their own.

When analysing data sets students get into the routine of manipulating the raw data into patterns and %s and use the acronym HLGTA to help them with their explanations. 

Another line of investigation we are going to try is to see if students can access the regulations of controlled assessments tasks with different media such as movie maker or a verbally given power point presentation. Only ideas at this stage though, we will be having conversations with the chief examiners in the coming weeks to see what we can do.

Who knows if this will work? Only time will tell. However, the key thing is to give it a go.... what we can't have are students afraid in their own ability to access the requirements of the controlled assessment process. 

For now, Year 11s can take a breather.... but watch out the rest of you! 

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.