I have been writing the Webwatch Column for the GA Magazine since Issue 3, in the Summer of 2006. Here's a flashback to the first issue that I edited... I haven't changed a bit ...
Each issue since then, I've provided a range of web based ideas and resources.
These have included:
website suggestions, along with reviews on their usefulness
apps for smartphone and tablets
details on GIS software, data and other fieldwork related resources
CPD events and associated resources linked to the internet and training
links to TV programme and other support material
ideas on the use of social media
Twitter accounts which are relevant to geography and education
details of projects that are of interest (particularly ones I'm interested in)
suggestions for blogs to read
The most recent issue featured a review of Illustreets and LondonMapper websites and information on the School on Cloud project, details on ArcGIS Online, StoryMaps and the Internet of Things, a selection of Twitter accounts that are relevant, ideas for teaching about soils, and finally details on a World War One collaborative document.
In the spirit of crowdsourcing, the Summer 2015 issue of Webwatch is going to be thrown open to anyone to suggest some content.
I'm really after suggestions for resources like the ones above. They shouldn't have been featured before in Webwatch, and be of general interest to geography teachers, and ideally have been used in your classroom - perhaps with some pictures showing some student outcomes.
All suggestions that are included in the final piece will be given a full credit to you and your school (plus Twitter link if you have one)
Details of this opportunity will also be included in the Spring 2015 edition of GA Magazine, but because of the lead in time needed for submitting copy to the editors, there won't be very long between the arrival of that issue, and the deadline for suggestions, so I'll be reminding you here a few times between now and then...
All suggestions can be sent to my e-mail - add a comment below or contact me via Twitter...
Earlier this week, a report was published by the Sutton Trust which explored some ideas about what makes great teaching (and some things that don't)
The website explained the background and the results. The BBC picked up on the praise issue...
Lavish praise for students is among seven popular teaching practices not supported by evidence, according to a new Sutton Trust report which reviews over 200 pieces of research on how to develop great teachers.
What Makes Great Teaching, by Professor Rob Coe and colleagues at Durham University, warns that many common practices can be harmful to learning and have no grounding in research. Examples include using praise lavishly, allowing learners to discover key ideas by themselves, grouping students by ability and presenting information to students based on their “preferred learning style”.
On the other hand, some other teaching approaches are supported by good evidence of their effectiveness. Many of these are obvious and widely practiced, but others are at odds with common assumptions. Examples include: challenging students to identify the reason why an activity is taking place in the lesson; asking a large number of questions and checking the responses of all students; spacing-out study or practice on a given topic, with gaps in between for forgetting; and making students take tests or generate answers, even before they have been taught the material.
Previous Sutton Trust research shows that the quality of teaching is by far the biggest factor within schools that impacts on the achievement of children from poorer backgrounds. It found that over a school year, poorer pupils gain 1.5 years’ worth of learning with very effective teachers, compared with 0.5 years with poorly performing teachers. In other words, a great teacher can produce a whole year’s extra learning.
Today’s report offers a “starter kit” for thinking about what constitutes effective teaching. This is based on behaviours, approaches and classroom practices that are well-defined, easy to implement and show good evidence of improvements in student outcomes. Six key factors that contribute to good teaching are identified. The two factors with the strongest evidence in improving student outcomes are:
Content knowledge. Teachers with strong knowledge and understanding of their subject make a greater impact on students’ learning. It is also important for teachers to understand how students think about content and be able to identify common misconceptions on a topic.
Quality of instruction. This includes effective questioning and the use of assessment by teachers. Specific practices, like reviewing previous learning, providing model responses for students, giving adequate time for practice to embed skills securely and progressively introducing new learning (scaffolding) are also found to improve attainment.
The other four elements of effective teaching have fair to moderate evidence showing a positive impact on results. They are: classroom climate which includes the quality of interaction between teachers and students as well as teacher expectations; classroom management which includes efficient use of lesson time and managing behaviour with clear rules that are consistently enforced; teachers’ beliefs, the reasons why they adopt particular practices and their theories about learning; and professional behaviours which relates to professional development, supporting colleagues, and communicating with parents.
As well as summarising what the research says about effective and ineffective practices, today’s report also looks at the different methods of evaluating teaching. These include: using ‘value-added’ results from student test scores;, observing classroom teaching;, and getting students to rate the quality of their teaching. The report finds that when done well and used cautiously, all these methods can be useful, but it warns they are easy to get wrong should not to be used in isolation to assess teaching.
The seven examples of strategies unsupported by evidence are:
Using praise lavishly For low-attaining students praise that is meant to be encouraging and protective can actually convey a message of low expectations. The evidence shows children whose failure generates sympathy are more likely to attribute it to lack of ability than those who are presented with anger.
Allowing learners to discover key ideas for themselves Enthusiasm for ‘discovery learning’ is not supported by research evidence, which broadly favours direct instruction.
Grouping students by ability Evidence on the effects of grouping by ability, either by allocating students to different classes, or to within-class groups, suggests that it makes very little difference to learning outcomes. It can result in teachers failing to accommodate different needs within an ability group and over-playing differences between groups, going too fast with the high-ability groups and too slow with the low.
Encouraging re-reading and highlighting to memorise key ideas Testing yourself, trying to generate answers, and deliberately creating intervals between study to allow forgetting, are all more effective approaches to memorisation than re-reading or highlighting.
Addressing low confidence and aspirations before teaching content Attempts to enhance motivation prior to teaching content are unlikely to succeed and even if they do the impact on subsequent learning is close to zero. If the poor motivation of low attainers is a logical response to repeated failure starting to get them to succeed through learning content will improve motivation and confidence.
Presenting information to students in their preferred learning style Despite a recent survey showing over 90% of teachers believe individuals learn better when they receive information in their preferred learning style, the psychological evidence is clear that there are no benefits to this method.
Being active, rather than listening passively, helps you remember This claim is commonly presented in the form of a ‘learning pyramid’ which shows precise percentages of material that will be retained when different levels of activity are employed. These percentages have no empirical basis and are pure fiction.
I've got a few events coming up where I've been asked to relate what I'm talking about to the issue of teacher development, and also about the idea of student progress...
You'll see my thoughts on the sections in red over the next few weeks, as I develop some connections, and a few additional slides and activities, for example, here's the section on (Pedagogical) Content Knowledge
The most effective teachers have deep knowledge of the subjects they teach, and when teachers’ knowledge falls below a certain level it is a significant impediment to students’ learning. As well as a strong understanding of the material being taught, teachers must also understand the ways students think about the content, be able to evaluate the thinking behind students’ own methods, and identify
Thanks to Emily from Millgate House Education for getting in touch about a new resource they have produced.
It makes use of Concept Cartoons, which have previously been used for teaching a range of subjects, but this is the first time they have been used to teach Geography.
Concept Cartoons have been used successfully in classrooms internationally to teach maths, English and science. We have recently started producing bespoke sets of Concept Cartoons focusing on smaller subject areas. Concept Cartoons encourage students to discuss their ideas in a real life context and often lead into individual or group investigations. They are particularly valuable for highlighting common misconceptions in learning.
This new resource was developed to support students undertaking fieldwork on Talacre dunesin North Wales, but is now being made more widely available...
You can download a sample of the resource from the website to see whether it looks like it might be useful for the pupils that you teach.
A few months ago, I had a conversation with Charlotte Graves, who is developing some teaching materials and approaches for QGIS (a free Open-source GIS package)
There is a questionnaire connected to the trial, which will help Charlotte to create further materials, and those which are of as much relevance as possible. This was part of her research, as she explains here:
The aim of my research was to create a plugin for QGIS that would encourage and support the use of GIS in schools at minimum cost and with as much ease as possible.
I am now in the final stages of my dissertation and the QGISforSchools plugin is ready for testing.
It takes the form of a QGIS plugin that provides 3 units (on Population & Development, Tourism and Earthquakes) that provides a student (or teacher) who is new to GIS with a step-by-step introduction to the software. The intention is that the software is simply used to explore the Geographical topic, rather than to teach the user how to use the software on his/her own.
I would be very grateful if you could spare some time to test the plugin and provide some feedback for my dissertation, and to inform the future development of the plugin.
The steps for testing the plugin can be found at the link above.
Charlotte has also provided a useful list of suggested resources for those who want to explore GIS in more detail.
If so, there was one in the Guardian this week.
I'm currently reading the rather excellent 'Walls' by Marcello di Cintio. It explores a number of boundaries around the world. The chapter on the US-Mexican border is particularly powerful with some fresh perspectives on this contested part of the world, and the boundary that reinforces a divide which wasn't as obvious before 9/11, after which the border patrols became part of Homeland security.
My HoD Claire has written an article for a future issue of 'Teaching Geography', which features some ideas developed from this book. Check my TEACHING BLOG for some further materials that we have used.
Good to see the conference programme and booking form for October's SAGT Conference is now up on the website.
I've been attending since 2005, and it's one of the highlights of the year.
This year, there are plenty of workshops on the conference theme of MAPS and APPS.
Even if you're not an SAGT member, you should really get yourself up to Perth for the event (it's during the half term holiday) and great value for money. Download the documents now and take a look.
Here are the details of my seminar:
If you're coming along, you could also choose to see Steve Dunn and Mark Smith from the Grammar School at Leeds talking about their use of ArcGIS Online, or Dan Moncrieff from the FSC, or Jamie Buchanan Dunlop, or several other speakers... all of them leading interesting sessions. Add in two keynotes, an exhibition and some good food and you have the makings of a great day of CPD...
A rare chance to work with Richard Allaway of Geography all the Way fame, on an IB Geography course in the UK takes place in 3 weeks time.
The course is held at Heathrow Airport, and is on a Saturday so no cover needed (probably)
“Our aim is to provide unbiased information about London's social, environmental and economic issues.
“These maps are like fancy pie charts, and if something is twice the size of something else it is obvious. We just want to spark a debate about the differences in one big city.”
Professor Danny Dorling
London called me on Thursday this week, and I went down to the RGS to meet with Ben Hennig.
Ben and I are working on some educational materials for a project called LondonMapper - a website which officially launched today, funded by the Trust for London.
The educational materials are being funded by an Innovative Geography Teaching grant that we have been awarded by the Royal Geographical Society.
Ben's maps will be familiar to many from his work on WorldMapper with Danny Dorling and others from Sheffield University.
Ben now works at the University of Oxford, still with Danny Dorling, and LondonMapper is one of several exciting projects that he is working on.
The site got a lot of early publicity and was featured in quite a few of the newspapers today. - the Guardian - Daily Mail - the Independent
for example...
The site will be expanded in the next few weeks with a whole tranche of new maps.
By the end of the summer term, there will also be a teaching resource which I will have created. The bones of the resources already exist, and I will be working on that over half term.
Also keep an eye out for further London Mapping resources that I'll be creating in the Summer term.
Plenty of Geography revision tweets coming through the feed this weekend in advance of exams next week and beyond...
A few Twitter accounts to follow that have been sending out messages and brief reminders of case studies etc.:
If you've been using Twitter to support students with revision and want to be added to the list, get in touch or add a comment below... Keep up the good work.
There are plenty of ideas for helping you with revision in the Badger GCSE Book that I wrote - over two years ago now...
I came across two useful posters of advice today.
These are taken from the Twitter feed @TandLToday of Archbishop Sentamu Academy.
Thanks for making these available for sharing
As we enter the peak of REVISION time now, there's plenty of focus on what we might be teaching next year...
I've been spending a bit of time this week doing some writing for next week's TES Geography Week.
I'll be checking in next Monday to see what Matt Foulds has to say about the new Geography curriculum - get your questions ready for him....
Here's the full timetable for the week...
Monday 28 April
Join us for a live chat at 6pm with an expert from the Department for Education to discuss the changes. Send us your questions here.
Paula Owens, primary curriculum development manager at the Geographical Association, will be blogging about the changes to the primary geography curriculum:
1. Key changes, essential messages and how we ought to interpret them
2. How geography can contribute to school improvement
3. How to evaluate geography provision
4. Thinking geographically: Enquiry, mapping and fieldwork
5. Global Learning: How do we teach about the wider world?
Dr John Hopkin, head of accreditation for the Geographical Association, will be blogging about the changes to the Key Stage 3 geography curriculum:
1. What’s changed, with some first thoughts on getting started
2. Some of the key challenges
3. Curriculum making, key concepts, and going beyond
4. Geographical enquiry
5. Progression: Despite the government’s decision to abolish level descriptions, many practices which support progress in the classroom will still be useful
Tuesday 29 April
The Royal Geographical Society has produced a resource pack to help you unpick the new geography curriculum. This will focus on: i) how the curriculum has changed; ii) teaching about the UK; iii) teaching about development issues. We will be launching this here on Tuesday.
We will also have podcasts from Paula Owens and Dr John Hopkin on a range of issues relating to the new curriculum.
Wednesday 30 April
Dr Rita Gardner, director of the Royal Geographical Society, who has been particularly influential in shaping the new curriculum, will be blogging about the major changes and explaining why the curriculum is as it is.
Thursday 1 May
The Department for Education will be releasing a video about the changes to the geography curriculum.
Alan Kinder, CEO of the Geographical Association, will be blogging about the changes to the curriculum for the Department for Education.
Friday 2 May
My favourite resources: Teachers will be recommending their favourite resources. Tell us about yours in the TES Geography forums or by tweeting @tesResources.
We will have a range of blogs from practising teachers bringing you the best of the Geographical Association’s 2014 conference.
Plenty of useful content for those teaching GCSE Geography to be gained at the GA Conference 2014
Materials from many of the sessions will be added to the GA Conference page in the weeks to come...
Here are some delegates looking at a really useful book for GCSE Fieldwork...
Some interesting clarification on content, use of GIS, nature of FIELDWORK etc.
This includes the loss of Controlled Assessment as fieldwork is assessed 'through examination only'
There is mention of GIS to be used for certain tasks, and also guidance on the use of statistical techniques.
Some interesting physical and human geography also emerging.
I quite like the focus on urban challenges, something I've written about before... Download the document and have a look yourself...
It's what you'll be teaching in a few year's time... Remember that you can get ahead of your planning by checking out the BADGER BOOK
An interesting campaign to tackle low birth rates in Denmark, which could well have been an April Fool's joke given the date...
Called Do it for Denmark, it is being organised by a travel company in Denmark, and those who participate in the scheme have a chance to earn prizes if they can prove that they conceived a baby while on holiday with the firm.
An interesting one for pro-natal population policies.
At the GTE Conference in January 2013, I heard about the work that was underway on a new area of the Geographical Association's website.
This was being led by Andrea Tapsfield and colleagues on the GA's Teacher Education Special Interest Group.
The background was that with an increasing number of teachers being mentored within schools as part of their training, alongside the needs of NQTs who would need continuing support. There has been considerable effort to prepare a range of materials on all aspects of the task of MENTORING colleagues since then.
You will find that it is useful for any teacher, not just those who are mentoring others, or being mentored. This is a wonderful addition to the GA website.
There are resources for FIELDWORK for example - dig deeply and you will find some really important resources here.
One of the things about being a prolific blogger is that things you write disappear off the main section of the blog quite quickly.
I thought it was worth reminding you of something that I created a while back with the guy on the left here...
Good GCSE teaching needs good up to date case studies, and the current flooding affecting large parts of the country is perfect for that - although its misery for those caught up in it...
This is an excellent resource for the current times, when we have COBRA meetings (bonus points for those who tell me why they are called that)
The Conversation offers a perspective on news stories, and would be a useful resource for geographers preparing for GCSE exams.
Ministers should be applauded for recognising that there’s simply no way we could tell the thousands of key workers and low income families, desperate for a decent home, that we can’t build any more new homes because of concerns about flood plains.
David Orr, National Housing Federation, BBC News, 2007.
For the past six weeks, Somerset has experienced its most significant flooding in decades that have at last required calling out the army.
While commentators fixate on dredging rivers, or more sustainably planting trees, or reintroducing beavers as the solution to prevent more homes from being flooded, those with longer memories may cast them back to 2007, when much of central and southwestern England was underwater from some of the worst flooding in living memory.
Communities Minister Eric Pickles might like to consider the inconvenient truth of his own words in 2007 while in opposition. Following the floods, he said in response to Labour’s housing strategy that: “if you build houses on flood plains it increases the likelihood that people will be flooded”.
A flood of water and bad ideas
As the still-beleaguered residents of the Somerset levels will recall, the floods of 2007 followed the wettest May, June and July since records began in 1766. The airwaves and newspapers were similarly awash with opinion in response to the government’s ambitious plans to build 3m new homes by 2020. Inevitably, it was said, so long as the proper defences were in place, some of these new homes would be built on floodplains.
The cost of 2007’s wettest-ever summer: 7,000 businesses and 48,000 homes were flooded in the South West, Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, prompting 120,000 household insurance claims, 27,000 commercial claims at a £3bn overall cost to insurers.
The subsequent inquiry led by Sir Michael Pitt published its review the following summer. It found that around 10% of properties in England were located on floodplains, with 11% of new homes since 2000 built in flood hazard areas, and 16,000 dwellings since 2006 built in high flood risk areas. Roughly a quarter of properties flooded in summer 2007 had been built in the last 25 years. This, the review pointed out, emphasised the vital importance of strong planning controls and well-informed planning decisions.
Sandbags do not a flood defence make. Tim Ireland/PA
Realising there needed to be a balance between development needs and flood risk, the idea of “environmental limits” was discussed within Defra. In putting “the green back into the Green Belt” as then environment secretary David Miliband said, this stressed the importance of the ecosystems approach.
For example, planting urban woodland improves biodiversity and wildlife, provides a degree of flood control, renewable wood to offset climate change, and attractive environments for exercise and recreation. Strips of planted green space alongside city river banks are cheaper than expensive concrete barriers, and provide a fall-back area, a “turquoise belt”, that could be flooded without great risk or expense, and also provide for leisure and biodiversity at the same time.
Recommendations made
Of the 90 recommendations in Pitt’s review, two clearly stated there should be a presumption against building in high risk areas. This was in accordance with the government’s planning policy on flood risk, known as PPS25.
The review also called for the effectiveness of PPS25 and the Environment Agency’s powers to challenge development to be kept under review, and strengthened if necessary. Another recommendation stated that Defra, the Environment Agency, and Natural England should establish through Catchment Flood Management Plans a programme that would find a way of working with, rather than against, natural processes.
These approaches, which included setting back river defences and relocating buildings if necessary, were considered particularly important in the face of the predicted increase in river flow levels. Flood risk had to be managed co-operatively between local authorities, the Environment Agency and developers, in a more sustainable way and also as a means to provide more attractive places to live. Newspaper editorials at the time called for there to be “no backsliding on commitments to be better prepared in future” and that there should be “no cherry-picking of the Pitt recommendations for quick political gain in the run-up to a general election.
Flood Risk Management - A Little More Complex Than Dredging. Tim Ireland
Recommendations ignored
But a general election later, in 2012 prime minister David Cameron is pledging to “cut through the dither” that is holding Britain in “paralysis” and has brought forward by contentious measures to relax rules on planning applications with an eye to boosting growth, and providing 75,000 new homes. The National Planning Policy Framework is proclaimed “simple”, and had reduced planning policy from more than 1,000 pages to under 100, said to pave the way for swifter, clearer decisions.
Otto Thoresen, director-general of the The Association of British Insurers, expressed immediate concern that the framework could lead to greater inappropriate development in flood risk areas, something that the current “rigorous planning system” was a bulwark against. The result, he predicted, would not be the “stimulation of the economy,” but “misery for people when their homes are flooded”.
The National Flood Forum’s chairman, Charles Tucker, similarly argued that the new framework “has, at a stroke, scrapped the carefully constructed raft of technical guidance, context and definitions built up over years” for flood protection.
Dredging as a solution was raised following the Cumbria floods of 2009, to which Professor Colin Thorne, fluvial geomorphologist at the University of Nottingham, responded that floods caused by a huge amounts of rainfall cannot be entirely prevented. Constantly dredging rivers and clearing vegetation to do so would be unsustainably expensive, financially, socially and in terms of biodiversity and habitat loss.
It is clear to see, reflecting back on the floods of 2007 (and those in 2005 and 2009), the lack of integration and disjointed policy across the two central government departments has still not been resolved seven years later. The fixation with dredging continues, and David Cameron has called for dredging to start as soon as possible, reversing previous statements that it would be little help.
Perhaps instead if the media turned their attention to dredging the Defra archives, they’d find the “inconvenient truth” of floodplain development – that houses built on floodplains could flood – a truth currently lying buried in the sediments of their own filing cabinets. Karen Potter receives funding from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), Welsh Government and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
This article was originally published at The Conversation.
Read the original article.
Over the Christmas holiday, the Pole of Cold teamwere making their way towards Oymyakon: the Pole of Cold (coldest inhabited place in the Northern Hemisphere)
Meanwhile I was a little closer to home... in fact I was at home, working on a resource for the From the Field section of the Royal Geographical Society website.
These resources are now live on the KS4 From the Field section of the RGS website.
Check them out here:3 lesson plans with all the materials, plus plenty of extension ideas and other materials, with more to come... Thanks to Matt Podbury for some kind words already. Let me know if you use them or take a look.
Dr. Simon Carr of QMUL is currently co-ordinating the new programme.
Here's the details:
FREE Launch Event
The London 2012 Olympics: Evaluating the Legacy of the Games
5.30 - 7.30pm, Tuesday 14 January
School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, E1 4NS
Nearest tube: Mile End and Stepney Green; bus routes 25 and 205.
The Geographical Association East London Branch would like to invite you to join us for a launch event hosted by the School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London.
The launch will comprise two talks examining the legacy of the London 2012 Olympics given by: Professor Steve Cummins (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine) Emmanuel Gotora (The East London Communities Organisation, TELCO).
We hope the evening will provide insight and inspiration about our East London location as well as examine the theme of a popular case-study and fieldwork component used throughout the National Curriculum and at GCSE and A Level. There will also be a brief introduction to the new GA Branch and an invitation to join and be a part of its future development.
This event is free to attend and is aimed at teachers, teaching assistants and others involved in the preparation, teaching and evaluation of teaching, whether they are members of the GA or not. Refreshments will be provided.
If you have any enquiries about the GA East London Branch or the launch event, please email Dr Simon Carr. We would be very grateful if you could email to confirm attendance for catering purposes.
The materials are now available to use and trial. Details are available HERE.
Good to see the conference programme and booking form for October's SAGT Conference is now up on the website.
This is an excellent resource for the current times, when we have COBRA meetings (bonus points for those who tell me why they are called that)
