Tuesday, 13 March 2012

OK, this is for GCSE but..

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.... :)