Coming up to revision time....

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

The final push...

Students around the country are preparing for the final days and weeks of the Summer 2012 exam season.
Make sure that you have prepared as carefully as possible.
The Badger book provides various strategies for revision.

Best of luck to everyone sitting exams this week.

Final push for the exams...

Very best wishes to all those who are sitting their GCSE Geography exams next week, and the teachers who have been preparing them for those exams.
Remember that there are plenty of materials online from the NINGs, to the awarding body websites, to the SLN Geography Forum to check for what teachers are sharing...

At least the weather this week has been good for revising: wet and windy. There are few worse things as a teenager than trying to revise when the sky is blue with the promise of a wonderful day spent outside.
A reminder that when teaching mid-latitude depressions a wet and windy day might be good...

There are also some apps that have been produced to help students with revision.
There is one for AQA that can be seen here. I don't have the app, but several teachers I know say that it has proved useful.

The Badger book describes the value of apps, and also includes an activity where students create content for their own revision app.

Revision Podcasts

One of the key elements of revision is to get involved in some way, and make the experience interactive. The Badger book provides some ideas for revision in Chapter 7

Paul Berry has produced a very useful resource using a tool called PRESENT.ME
This links video with powerpoint material.
You can produce up to 3 x 15 minute presentations per month with a free account.

Here's Paul's video, for his OCR GCSE group.
It's based on the Geography Themes exam

Why not give it a go...
I also like Paul's idea of the MAGNIFICENT SEVEN - that could be added to some of the mnemonics in Chapter 9 of the book...

Wordfoto

One of the techniques in the Badger GCSE book is the visual linking with the content in the exam by creating diagrams called calligrams. Google the term to find out more. I like the effects that you can get with the WORDFOTO app. This creates a nice effect with a bit of tinkering...
Here's a photo of a pebbly beach for example.
What other visual cues can you produce ?

Graphic Organisers

Graphic Organisers are mentioned in the Badger book as one important strategy in helping students to revise.
There are various strategies to help them become more expert described in Chapter 4.

A sample of over 60 types of graphic organisers are available to download in PDF format from this website.

GCSE Geography Revision Questionnaire: 4 of 4

We are at the final of 4 posts which summarise some of the responses from the 94 students and teachers who answered my questionnaire earlier in the year...

This final question asked about Smartphones and whether they were used for revision and teaching and if so, which apps or features were used....

One teacher provided these specific recommendations:

Geography GCSE Revision App (£1.49)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/geography-gcse-revision/id340221590?mt=8

GCSE Geography Bitesize Last-minute Learner (£1.49)

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/gcse-geography-bitesize-last/id410791814?mt=8

GCSE Geography Bitesize Podcasts

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/audio/geography/

Think Geography GCSE Geog Podcasts

http://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/think-geography-gcse-geog/id374013012

About a quarter of the respondents didn't own a smartphone, and one teacher said nicely "I am a technical dinosaur and my phone is a brick".

There were 15 people who owned a smartphone but hadn't as yet made use of many apps in their teaching, but that they would investigate further.

Some apps that were mentioned by name:

• iPlayer (for iPad)
• Flipbook
• The Guardian
• Bitesize App
• USGS Earhquake App
• AQA App
• Twitter
• National Geographic Atlas

One colleague had turned powerpoint slides into JPEGs so that they could be viewed on the phones.

Several teachers pointed out that many students had Blackberries because of the messaging, and wondered about the apps that might be available for these... any ideas ?

Google Docs are an area that could be more used.

James Mutton has just created one with the hope of creating a collaborative resource for Edexcel B

Check it out if you'd like to be involved...

Thanks to the teachers and students who took the time to fill in the document.

I shall be creating another document with some questions on the new curriculum later in the year to help guide another product. As before there'll be a prize on offer for all who take part...

GCSE Geography Revision Questionnaire: 3 of 4

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...

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....

Think Link

Coming up to peak revision time as the exam season arrives....
One sign of that is the World Snooker at the Crucible, which certainly had a part to play in my revision at the time...

If you are coming to that time now, why not install the TRIPTICO resource, and make use of the new THINK LINK resource as part of that suite. Triptico is featured in the Badger book.

Add hexagons, with labels and notes - in different colours - stack them - re-arrange them, explain the links between them, arrange them in sequences, stack them in pyramids... Group them by recolouring them...
A great tool for visually working through a unit of work with the key ideas, or beginning to make connections between different parts of the course...

Purchasers of the book should turn to Chapter 7 for Revision Techniques

Editing and improving...

Spent some time yesterday with the manuscript of the book making some final checks and changes, which always improve the finished result of something.
Also checking through the illustrations and other resources.
It's clear that I've written a lot more than can fit within the 100+ pages of the book, which means there'll be plenty to add to this blog over the months to come.
Plenty of good stuff didn't make the director's cut, so will be in the 'DVD extras' :)
We're still on schedule for an April publication date.... It's looking good !

QR Codes

If you are here at this blog, then you don't really need to use the QR Code that is shown below:

A QR code is a type of bar code which can be scanned by a phone equipped with a (usually free) app.
Scanning the app will decode the pattern and reveal an image, or a piece of text (which could be a question) or provide the URL of a website which can then be visited using the smartphone's web browser.

This QR code could be printed out and placed in locations to suit you, and anyone scanning it would have the details of this blog... or it could be the homework....

I've got it covered...

Today, I was shown some possible designs to potentially use for the front cover of the book, and asked which one I preferred. The book is going to look great.
I've been writing some sections related to the assessment of the exam: looking at tips for Controlled Assessment, and also the value of reading the Examiner's reports each year to get tips on how exams are marked.
I also have some thoughts on fieldwork and its use to reinforce learning.
More details on the book shortly, once the marketing material is finished and distributed.