GCSE Geography Revision Questionnaire: 2 of 4

Second of 4 posts summarising the 94 responses I had to my GCSE Geography revision questionnaire that I had on a Google Form earlier in the year....


The second part of the questionnaire asked teachers and students to assess the value of various common methods of revision.


I asked students to rate them on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 was never used / not useful and 5 was always used / really useful


Here are the average scores for each of the methods....


Copying out Notes: 2.4
Summarising Notes: 3.7
Flash Cards: 3.4
Revision Sessions at School: 4
BBC Bitesize: 3.2
Practising past paper: 4.3


The next question produced some very lengthy responses from some respondees, some of which are repeated below.
I hope that these might be useful for some last minute revision as we move into exam season after the May Day Bank Holiday....


How else do you revise / help students revise other than what has already been mentioned ?


I don't have room to go through them all here, but will be using some of them for future posts for purchasers of the Badger GCSE Book....


One teacher provided a 7 point programme for revision, which sounds quite useful:

Usual exam practice in class with students goes like this... 

(1) Deconstruct question by examining command words. 

(2) Identify content that needs to be addressed in the answer

(3) Generate a writing frame

(4) Have a go at writing an answer

(5) Peer assess work

(6) Compare with a model answer 

(7) Identify individual points for improvement.

Here's another sample of the respondees ideas that I particularly liked... a quick ten to kick us off...

1. Pass the parcel exam question answer formation

2. I use a lot of spider diagram / mind maps over a single sheet of A3 per section - colour them, use images etc

3. Blog with daily 20 minute activities in the run up to the exam

4. Dart board games - checkout requires students to hit the correct words in order.

5. Rely on good classroom teaching!

6. We have an integrated system of GCSE revision which we are gradually building. I have written 3 revision guides - one for each unit - specifically tailored to the course and the case studies we use - they are quite chunky but they become active workbooks during the revision lessons

7. Dealing with dyslexics - we make audio recordings for them to listen to on their MP3

8. Tarsia puzzles

9. Ridiculous actions to remember things 

10.  Visual prompts around school (this idea features in the Badger book with some examples....)

Next post - which topics are the 'hardest to revise' ??

GCSE Geography Revision Questionnaire: 1 of 4

Earlier in the year, as part of the preparation for the publication of the new Badger GCSE Grade Booster book (have I mentioned that  ?) I put a GCSE Revision Questionnaire online as a Google Form.

The Badger book has a section on using Google Docs to help revision by the way.

In this and the next three posts, I shall go through the results that came in.

Thanks to the 94 people who answered the questions...
There were 64 teachers and 30 students (thanks to Liz Smith's class who answered the questions in particular)

Specifications being taught (teacher responses only)

AQA A: 17 - the most popular

AQA B: 7

Edexcel A: 5

Edexcel B: 10

OCR A: 3

OCR B: 12 - the 2nd most popular

WJEC A: 5

WJEC B: 3

CCEA: 1

iGCSE: 1

Websites used to help with revision

BBC will be pleased to hear that BBC Bitesize got 65 mentions, the most of any other website by a long way.

S-Cool: 21

Nings: 8

You Tube: 2

Geography all the Way: 5

Anthony Bennett's seminal Internet Geography: 5

Cool Geography: 6

GeoBytesGCSE (Rob Chambers): 1

SAM Learning - mentioned by some of the students but not the teachers - probably relates to a school subscription

Funky Geography: Liz Smith’s blog

BBC Class Clips: 3

Staffordshire Learning Net and Forum: 5

Terry Jones also shared some Revision Flashcards on SLN: http://learningnet.co.uk/geoforum/index.php?topic=7122.0

Well done to Henry Scott for starting his own revision blog too....

Letts Revise: 1

Geography Lost: 1

School's own VLE: 7

Abbeyfield Humanities Blog got 2 mentions - nice work by Mr. Drake

Blythe Bridge School website - which apparently has "good revision sheets": 1

Share Geography: 1 

Geography Clinic: 1

Worldlywise Wiki from Chesterton Community College: 2

GeographyPods.com: 1

Revision World: 2

Revision Centre: 2

Geographyfieldwork.com: 1

NGFL: 1

Kerboodle: 1

Radical Geography: 1

NGFL Wales: 1

BBC News: 2

Edmodo: 1

TES: 3

In the next 3 posts: 

- how best to revise - techniques and tips from colleagues

- which topics are hardest to revise ?

- how can smartphones and apps help revision ?

And of course you know what to do if stuck for ideas....

Prize Winner

Congratulations to Catherine Hardman, whose name was drawn at random from those who had left their e-mails on my GCSE Revision questionnaire, which was set up to help provide information for the forthcoming launch of the Badger GCSE Grade Booster book. She wins a copy of my award winning KS3 Toolkit book: "Look at it this Way"- you can buy a copy of the toolkit at the GA Conference next weekend (ah ! - it's next weekend !)

Come and find me to get more details about the Badger book.... I saw copies of the design of the covers last week and am looking forward to seeing the interiors too...

If you want to contribute to the questionnaire it's not too late...

You can find it here...
Special thanks to Liz Smith, who did the questionnaire with a group of students too.