Fieldwork: it doesn't have to be epic to be memorable and useful

To me, Geography is a really important subject. It can help develop literacy and numeracy and ties the natural and human worlds together. More importantly, the whole point of geography and geographers is to change the world. Tackling stuff like this:

One of the barriers I often talk about with fellow geographers is around fieldwork. Namely, how do we get a rich a varied fieldwork programme in to place? Here's a series of lessons taught last week with Year 10. In November, they will have to conduct fieldwork for their Controlled Assessment, and field sketching is always a nightmare: usually done badly when they should add value. In addition, the class are currently tackling urban morphology. Our school in in an urban environment, and the sun was shining.

From September, the Field Studies Council are running a Year of Fieldwork to help devellop quality fieldwork skills. With the shift away from extended projects toward GCSE fieldwork exams, it's even more important that students are engaged in high quality data collection from an early age. In addition, it's going to be very important to balance the awe and wonder type trip, the residential that develops interpersonal skills and the need for young people to understand the process of fieldwork enquiry and primary data collection.

1. Pre work - we'd looked at patterns of urban land use and access to services, together with how that would affect the quality of life (health, wealth and happiness) of different groups of people.

2. The class had around 30 minutes to produce a fieldsketch 'over the fence.' Students were stationed around our school and asked to sketch the views at each cardinal and main inter cardinal points of the compass.

3. Back in the classroom the sketches were combined so we built up a picture of the land use and services around the school. These were shared via the awesome Office Lens iOS app. Students also peer and self assessed their own sketches, and set an aspiration for the next sketch.

4. A few days later (to simulate the gap between data collection and analysis), the class used their sketches to answer a range of questions such as 'describe the main land use around the school,' 'describe the pattern of land use.' 'Which part of the city are we in? Provide evidence.' This allowed me to push the high quality of answer that I expect and made explicit the importance of gathering good data in the field.

We shall repeat this a few times over this term so that the class are ready for when it really is high stakes.

Comments

What makes a learning experience profound? Personal reflections and possible implications for classroom practice.

I have recently begun a Leadership Pathways journey. As part of the first core day, we were asked to reflect on a profound learning experience. This got me thinking about how many profound learning experiences I have both been involved in, and how many I have been able to give to others. Our group came up with a huge long list, but these are my five. Emotional Connected Demanding Reflective Collaborative As always, these are personal thoughts and quite mixed up. I put them here so that I can look back on them (plus they’d get lost inside my world-cup-free brain) 1. Emotional I can’t think of a time where deep learning hasn’t engaged my emotions. From being awe inspired to that tingle feeling when a student gets a light bulb moment. From this-is-the-happiest-day-ever, to I-think-I’m-about-to die. How often do we engage the emotions of those we teach? Here, I would argue that having a safe learning environment i...

Banned Word Board

Today I want to share some simple ideas that I have found to be very effective in the classroom. I can't say that they are my own original ideas, although I have played around with them. The first is the Banned word Board. This is a simple display in the classroom that lists a number of words that are not allowed to be used by pupils in their written or oral answers. The effect has been an increase in the quality of written work, and I have almost made comments such as 'Sir it's simple, the stuff just affects the thing and causes people problems'. Pupils are now more able to use specific language, something that is vital especially at GCSE. I have had to make a few modifications, such as the introduction of 'Heavenly Words' This is an additional display placed on the ceiling. I found this necessary as pupils needed some stimulus in finding replacement words. After advice received after posting the idea on the SLN forum , I have also introduced semi-banned words...

Year 10 need your help! Can we get Twitter and Facebook in to a GCSE project?

I’ve been told that social media has no place in the classroom. Now, this post is not to battle that argument head on. Let’s smash it. This week, Year 10 are visiting Hengistbury Head . They are investigating whether this piece of coastline should be protected. They are wondering what you think? You may know the location well, you may not know it at all. But we’d like to hear from you all the same. This will either result in some usable data and comments, or not. Either way, we'll know and I’m sure that your comments will help spark discussion in class! What would Year 10 like me to do? Just simply comment on this post or tweet me, with an answer to this question: ‘Should Hengistubury Head be protected from the Sea? Just answer Yes or No and give a brief reason. It would also be useful if you could tell us whether you know the area or not. Many thanks in anticipation…… Image – my own.

David Rogers

Search This Blog