I need to give more thought to detailed timings of lessons than I do
So, will break the 1/2 lesson into 3 10 minute chunks:
1. Go over idea of mind mapping. Look at some good examples of mind mapping. Also contrast with lists of bullet points.
2. Get class to read article on climate change. What are they key words they should pick out?
3. Use the white boards to produce a visual summary of what they have read OR draw up a bulleted list.
Read a good tip in the Times Educational Supplement message board. One school has a staffroom whiteboard that anyone is allowed to add notes to. In the morning briefing, each person elaborates upon the note they left. The key thing here I imagine is the briefing rather than the white board, and also how suggestions are addressed, if at all. It has got me thinking about how we use spaces in a school, and in particular the staff room, or common room. I know of one school where they have a Learning Wall, a physical representation of the curriculum, with rows representing years and columns displaying subjects. It seems an excellent way of showing progression (vertical) and curricular breadth and balance (horizontal). Other staffrooms have old posters and adverts, and redundant INSET flyers. The question is, are staffrooms places of sanctuary away from the curriculum and from pupils..or should they be the very nerve centre of learning and teaching?
The BBC’s Robert Peston offers some good analysis of the cause and subsequent time line of the credit crunch. Here is Economic History in the making; as in all historical events we seek to construct a narrative and to identify caise and effect. Why did it happen? Each event begets the next,. and was in turn the effect of an earlier decision or event.. It is interesting to untangle the numerous threads of individual actions and personal tragedies that make up the so-called credit crunch-the reposssessions, the job losses, the collapse of household names and the general sense of gloom that now clouds just about every story.
The Guardian identifies 9th August 207 as the ket day in the saga; it was the day the ECB and the Fed jointlly injected $47 billion into jittery markets. Up until then banks had been lending increasing amounts to houseolders using all sorts of ingenious lending tools through securisation which packaged bad debt.. With the fall in house prices, these securities looked a very bad deal, and banks began to stop lending, firstly to each other and then to consumers;.
To quote Peston, the cause of our woes is that the banks were too keen to lend money and we were too keen to borrow it. In fact companies and individuals have borrowed about 2.5 times our national output. That’s a lot of money to pay back.
If you make a theory…you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it….the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.”
Richard Feynman
As teachers we all have theories about what makes a good curriculum, what makes for effective learning, what makes some children more challenging than others.Subject or interdiscipinary? Setting or Mixed ability? Chalk or laptop? The current paradigm emphasises the development of lifelong skills, but surely content is vital if learning is to be rooted in a body of acquired knowledge and generations of expertise. Learning can be hard work, repetitive and sheer graft; understanding is not like an instant message; revelation and enlightenment must be earned.
It is the job of all independent minded teachers to question othodoxy and ask difficult questions. What’s the evidence? Where’s the beef? Who says this is a good idea, and why? Are they doing the same in other countries; why? why not?
I am going to spend some time this Christmas focusing on the work of Amnesty International. I love their slogan, “Better to Light a Candle than Curse the Darkness”. Reading their website it is clear that there is a lot we can do, if we only put our minds to it. Perhaps the most poweful tool at our disposal is to start writing letters to prisoners of conscience; I have toyed with the idea before, but never quite got round to it. Given the stories coming out from so many countries; the abuse, the detention without trial, the catalogue of torture, imprisonment, basic lack of freedom, the reports of child slavery and child soldiers, all in utter contrast to the mincepies, mulled wine and Christmas carols we’re enjoying, It seems only right to start writing now.
First year were asked to examine a map for 5 minutes. They were then asked to draw an outline of their chosen continent, and add as much details as possible. I thought this example particularly effective in terms of the shape and proportions for South America. The pupil has also placed the names of selected countries in more or less the right order. What is most interesting is the techniques adopted by my pupils to try to memorise the information. Quite a few traced the outline of the continent on the Atlas page with their finger Some drew the whole outline and then added the detail; others started at the west and moved east, adding detail at each stage before moving on. I think there’s scope for more research into effective ways of how pupils make sense of, and memorise, spatial data.
More examples can be viewed at Flickr.
What kinds of jobs do you think the people of this place do?
Key words:
Classification Site Growth Function
Recap
We have studied:
WHAT is a Settlement (CLASSIFICATION)
WHERE settlements start-(SITE)
WHY some settlements grow more than others-(GROWTH)
In this lesson we are going to ask,
4. What are the main activities that take place in a settlement? (FUNCTION)
The function of a settlement is its main economic activity or purpose. Settlements normally have a number of functions but one may be more important than the others.
Site is the land that a settlement is built on. It is a description of the physical landscape of a settlement. For example, your street may be built on a slope or close by a river. Your town may lie in a valley or beside the sea.
Here are some of the most common features of site
near a river
beside a spring (source of river)
near dry land
on a slope
on high ground
on low ground
on flat ground
near woods
on fertile soil
at a crossing point on a river
What kind of site would prehistoric people have chosen?
Homework Task:
1. Worksheet: Complete the exercise on the worksheets about a prehistoric site in South East England.
Interactive: Click here to try the exercise on site in BiteSize Revision
I help out with Young Enterprise and am enjoying working with my company “Just”. It’s great sitting in on their meetings and hearing them decide on products, prices, marketing and sales. They made an excellent slide show advertising their name which they ran through the school’s screens, and last week they had a successful share launch.
Our design team have made up an eyecatching logo which is generally rendered in 2 boldly contrasting colours. You can see a black and white version of the logo Just on the share certificate.
This week is Enterprise Week, and I would be interested to hear what kinds of enterprise our partner schools are involved in. if you have anything to say about Enterprise or Enterprise Week, please add comments to this post.
