OK - so we're coming up to
REVISION TIME for GCSE colleagues.
The IB Geography papers are also being sat next week, so there's a lot of teenagers trying to revise.
Remember that there are some key revision tips in Chapter 7 of the
Badger Book
This is the 3rd of three posts summarising the 94 responses I got to my Google Doc on GCSE Geography revision earlier in the year....
Two more questions are summarised in this blog post....
The first one asked about the
topics that people found the hardest to teach / revise....
There was a broad range of over 20 topics that were mentioned (most of the course really by someone) including some topics that I wouldn't have expected to be there..
The areas that were featured the most were:
- Weather and Climate, particularly depressions
- Industry / Economic Activities
- Map Skills
- Population
- Economic Development
It seems that there are also some issues with
Case Studies: from their frequency to the depth that is needed.
- Some colleagues were concerned about the amount that needs to be revised compared to the amount that is actually examined.
- Level marking
- Timing
- Depth of answers that are required (sometimes too much, at other times not enough...)
- Use of Diagrams
You will be pleased to hear that
Chapter 7 tackles revision, and
Chapter 8 looks at exam preparation and skills....
Which brings us on to the next question:
What additional help would students / teachers want to help them with revision ?
This might lead on to some actual resources that need to be prepared, or perhaps some collaborative efforts from teachers. I will share some ideas for these (and the previous question) in future posts on this blog.
Quite a few teachers were fine without any further support, and others suggested that greater consistency from the Awarding Bodies, better Specifications and better questions would help.
Some interesting comments worth mentioning...
- Case Study notes with tasks to help unpick them (have been producing some KS3 resources for Harper Collins very like this...)
- Online Videos
- 'Current' Case Study material (no shortage of ideas for that on Living Geography of course)
- Podcasts
Ready made display and other material was mentioned, although I always enjoyed creating my own displays in my room...
Finally, a multimedia resource / textbook of some kind was mentioned - the arrival of iBooks Author earlier in the year makes this sort of collaborative resource a possibility, and we are planning something related to this for the GA Conference 2013.
The final post in this series will look at the Apps that people have found useful when revising and teaching GCSE Geography...
