Leeds: future case study - your help required to build it.....

Comparison of new Geography GCSEs

Nice work by Graeme Eyre 

Comparison of new geography gcse specs from Graeme Eyre

Visit his page for links to download them too.

Teach in London ? An opportunity for you to give us a hand...

Earth Primer: for GCSE geomorphology

A month or so ago, I picked up on an app that was getting ready for adding to the App store. I contacted Chaim Gingold, who worked on the game called SPORE some years ago, and found out more about it, and started to get excited about the potential for teaching the ideas that underpin geomorphology to a lower school audience, and those who may just be interested in finding out more about how the Earth works.

The app is now live on the App store at a cost of £7.99, and is called Earth Primer.
Take a look here.

It allows the user to explore the world in an exciting way and explore how processes that shape the earth work.
There are several sections which are possible to work through and these include a look beneath the surface of the Earth as well as the range of processes which change the surface.
Work through the book to unlock tools which can then be used in the Sandbox section of the app.

I'm working on some education materials for the app, which will be available in a few weeks time.

10 000 views...

Thanks for reading!

Happy New Year

Two weeks of term in - how's it going ?

This is an important year for year 11 students as they move towards the exam season.
Use the Badger book to help hone the revision...
Important to enter students for the correct tier of course. Think carefully about this choice. The removal of the intermediate tier can make it more difficult. New GCSEs will remove that as an issue.

Taking a Christmas break...

We'll be back in 2015, as the countdown to the Summer 2015 exam season gets underway...

Don't forget there's still time to get a copy of the Badger book for a loved one's Christmas stocking...

GA Webwatch Crowdsourced issue...

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...

Over to you ...

Sutton Trust report on what makes great teaching...

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:

1. 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.
2. Allowing learners to discover key ideas for themselves Enthusiasm for ‘discovery learning’ is not supported by research evidence, which broadly favours direct instruction.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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 

students’ common misconceptions. 

Download as PDF from this link...

Concept Cartoon resource on Sand Dunes

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 dunes in 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.