Geography Awareness Week

The theme of this year's GA conference was Geographies of Difference .

Geographies of Difference is also the theme of the Geography Awareness Week for 2012. I became aware of the theme earlier in the year, as I was asked to write a section of the teacher booklet.
This is now available to download from the GA website (link goes to a PDF download - 6.1 Mb)

I wrote a section on differences in access to technology, which starts as below....

This year's UK event runs from the 25th to the 29th of June.... what are you planning ?


It would be a good opportunity to involve Year 10s in looking back at the differences that geography has made to their understanding of the world so far on the GCSE course.

How has their understanding changed ? A good chance to reflect on the first year.
Also a chance for them to think about what they might do differently in the final year of their compulsory education. How are they going to ensure that the grade they gain at the end of the course is as high as it can possibly be ?

Think differently... More ideas for how to do that in the Badger book - out soon - the excitement is building....

GA Conference 2012

Spoke to quite a few people at the GA conference on Thursday and Friday this week about the forthcoming Badger book - a lot of people asking when it was going to be available. Had some further discussions and questions over the last few days with the designers and editor, and I think most of the final queries are now sorted. Have seen the artwork and layout and the book is looking good. A good mix of advice, and photocopiable sheets...

So to all those at the conference who I told about this blog, welcome...

For all the news from the GA Conference, I am posting it all on LIVING GEOGRAPHY and also at my VITAL CPD portal.

Physical Geography course via the Ordnance Survey

Would your GCSE Physical Geography teaching benefit from a little personal CPD ?

An exciting opportunity for teachers who have been 'around' for a while is available if you're quick. A special 6 day course has been organised by the Ordnance Survey, along with the Goldsmith's company.

Science for Society Course: New Developments in Physical Geography 15th-20th July 2012

This course is designed for mid-career specialist geography teachers in secondary schools who are teaching GCSE / A level students.  The emphasis is on physical geography, providing an intensive immersion in new technology for data collection, analysis and modelling.  The course includes an introduction to new equipment for field and laboratory, and explores recent developments in remote sensing and GIS technologies, and their application to teaching. 

Full day visits to both Met Office and Ordnance Survey are included.

The course is provided by the Geography Department of the University of Southampton and Ordnance Survey in association with The Goldsmiths’ Company, under their Science for Society initiative. 

On Thursday 19^th July delegates on this course will join all the teachers on the 2012 Science for Society courses for a Gala Dinner at Goldsmith’s Hall, London. 

Tuition, accommodation, food and travel during the course are all provided free of charge. Delegates must fund their own travel costs from home to Southampton University.

For more details, see the Ordnance Survey and Goldsmith's website, where you can download an application form.

This is certainly something which I would have applied for if I was teaching, and has the added bonus of being in the final week of term for most parts of the country, which means that it would be a reasonable time to take off school as a lot of schools would be running activity type days for part of that, so there would be less teaching time missed.

* (From the application form)

 You must be a teacher employed at a secondary school in Great Britain teaching GCSE/A level standard qualifications in geography. 
Mid-career teachers are expected to benefit most from this course, but there are no specific upper or lower age limits. 

The power of Twitter

One section in the new Badger book deals with the power of Twitter to support teachers.

This recent post in the Guardian Teacher Network blogs is another reminder of the power of Twitter.

The book features some ideas on harnessing Twitter for teaching and learning in Geography.

There are also some lists that I have created.

One list, produced by Creative Education of Tweeting Geographers is here.

Thanks to Creative Education for the Twitter image to the left....


Don't forget to follow BADGER LEARNING too...

Draw Something for Revision

One of the teachers who features in the book is Tony Cassidy. I've 'known' Tony for about 8 years, at first through SLN Geography Forum. I've also done various bits of work with him over the years.

Tony has produced a nice idea which builds on the current publicity of the Draw Something App.


It's a geographical version as a powerpoint.
It's available from Tony's SHARE GEOGRAPHY website which has plenty of other interesting ideas to support your GCSE students.


Ready, steady, revise....

I've also been interested to see JUST A MINUTE on BBC2 at the moment.
I used this format as a context for student revision.

Speak for one minute on a topic drawn at random (or generated using a TRIPTICO random generator tool)
Students must speak without:

REPETITION
DEVIATION
HESITATION

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 !

Shakespeare in 140 characters...

The GCSE Grade Booster book has a section on the value of Twitter for teaching and learning geography.
As an example of how it is being used at the moment for History (don't forget that there's also a HISTORY title in the series too) check out this competition.

The competition is being run by the National Library of Scotland - and if they encourage Twitter use then it shows that it has a value for developing literacy.

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.

Thanks to Graeme...

A nice tweet last week from a friend of mine who teaches in Essex with an image of the order form he'd just filled in to get a copy of the book when it's released...
Nice work !!

The book is currently in production....


To order your own copy, go HERE....

Geography GCSE Booster now available to pre-order

Badger Learning is now live.

Badger Publishing's new site.
You can visit the site to see my new book. It brought together some of the ideas I'd been working on for a while, along with a few more that were kindly  lent to me by colleagues (who are all acknowledged in the book, and will also be listed here once I have my hands on a physical copy of the book....)

The book will be useful to those who are preparing students for external assessments, but I would say that a lot of the ideas are transferrable - they are basically good geography....

The book is now available to pre-order (it will be out in April)

GCSE Grade Boosters: Geography Contents

• Introduction – what does a C grade geographer look like, and how can students raise their grade to a C and beyond.
• Memorable geography – a range of geography activities which can be re-versioned for other topics or particular pupils; includes thinking graphs, lucky lines, maps from memory, and ideas funnel to name just a few.
• Students as experts – establishing students as experts and joint creators of resources.
• Enquiries – how to introduce, explore and communicate the Big Geographical Questions.
• Controlled assessment – how to approach controlled assessment, complete with examples to illustrate the support that can be provided.
• Revision techniques – graphic organisers, memory techniques and the power of blogging.
• Help from the examiners – exam specs and question types – where and how marks are gained and lost.
• Memorable vocabulary – key vocabulary for exam success plus techniques for learning it.
• Exciting new tools – word clouds, triptico, google docs and google earth.
• Geography after the exam – why a good grade in geography can take you places.

Author: Alan Parkinson an experienced and award-winning teacher with an international reputation for creative and innovative teaching. He has worked with thousands of teachers at hundreds of CPD events in the UK and Europe. This title draws extensively from the experience of successful schools around the country.
Featuring:

• A wide range of activities to make the topics covered memorable. Activities can be used for class, group, pair and homework tasks. They can be versioned by you for other topics or particular pupils
• Support for exam preparation including a distillation of examiners reports to pinpoint common errors and show
• how easily marks are lost and gained, as well as revision and memory techniques that have been shown to work
• Help with controlled assessment and how to approach it to get the best results
• The key vocabulary for exam success plus techniques for learning it
• 80 page photocopiable book with re-versionable activities on accompanying CD-ROM. 

A perfect gift for Easter.... :)