Physical Geography course from the OS

An exciting opportunity for teachers who have been 'around' for a while...

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. 

You know you want this book :)

One way to kickstart a new term is to get yourself a new book with lots of ideas in it...

At the start of the year, I spent rather longer than anticipated putting together a book for Badger Publishing. 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.... :)

We made it

Will be happening...

Thanks everyone for your support....

Please 'pre-order' a copy by supporting the production of MISSION EXPLORE FOOD.
This is the FINAL DAY to fund us.
If we don't get just over a thousand pounds by 11 tonight we don't get the funding to make what will be a superb book for young and old alike...

An Inspector Calls

This is well worth reading...

A post by NQT Max Rayner on his first experience of OFSTED, and the triumph of the tick box over common sense... Really well written, particularly the dialogue with the inspector...

Doubtless the inspector who graded him has a much more useful, reflective teacher blog by which they support colleagues ?? Thought not...

Anyway, they've gone now, so Max can carry on teaching enjoyable geography lessons...

SOLO Taxonomy

Thanks to John Sayers for volunteering to join me to present a VITAL CPD Teachshare on the 9th of February at 7pm.
It's on the use of: SOLO, which stands for Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes.
It really asks students to place their understanding of work on a scale of 1-5, depending on their ability to make sense of connections. It's a useful technique for discussing progression.

So, although I'll be talking SOLO, I won't be on my own....

A reminder that you can still subscribe to the VITAL CPD GEOGRAPHY portal for a very low price - if you go to the pub tonight and buy a pint and a packet of pork scratchings it'll probably cost you more than a subscription would.... although admittedly they'll taste better....

New Discovering the Arctic module

At the end of last year, I completed some projects for the Royal Geographical Society, one of which was to author a new unit for the Discovering the Arctic website.


My unit is related to the materials produced by SWIPA.
(Snow, Water, Ice and Permafrost in the Arctic


Click the image at the bottom of the home page to go to the materials

The attention of the world is on the opposite hemisphere today, but I hope you get the chance to check these out over the next few days.
Thanks to the designers who made sense of my notes and scribbles and have put together what I hope you find a really useful set of activities and questions...