David Rogers

Disclaimer: I was provided two copies of the GA's KS3 geography Teachers' Toolkit for free in return for an honest review. I've wrote back in 2009 that textbooks are everyone's guilty pleasure. The fashion at the time was for textbook bashing, especially amongst members of the Geographical Association  (The GA) which was a bit strange as they are also a publisher. Now I have a confession to make: I write textbooks. There, get over it. The problem with the discourse around textbooks is that they focus on the artefact and publisher rather than their use in the classroom. In my view, the appropriate use of textbooks is just like using an anemometer, a bunsen burner or a computer: a tool in the shed of the great teacher. Yes, textbooks have limitations and the department I led even used textbooks to create bunting, but used well they are a timesaver. I'm also neither in the progressive nor traditional camp (not that I'm entirely sure what each one actually is...

As a school leader I've had the privilege to visit many, many classrooms.  I learn something during most visits, whether my stay be five minutes or longer.  As a teacher and school leader, I've looked at loads of outcomes and progress data over the years and used these to start and inform conversations about teaching and learning.  I've also been lucky enough to visit and teach in classrooms other than in the UK.  Based on this rather flimsy experience of successfully increasing attainment and progress at different scales continually over my career, I've come to the following conclusions: The core purpose of education is to ensure that every young person makes more progress than they ever expected through developing their skills, broadening their knowledge and deepening their understanding. However, if we are to succeed in this goal, the purpose of education has to be much broader and contextualised to each individual institution's context.  There's no poin...

In many, many ways educators stand on the shoulders of the giants that go before us.  In this post, it’s the many sources of inspiration out there, especially the Staffrm crowd who fed into the feedback.  You see, I only ever hold my ideas lightly, but I’ll still fight you for them…. It’s struck me over the past year that the online community is not wholly healthy for education.  To me, it represents a healthy dose of state the obvious (dressing old ideas up with new language and buzz words) blended with utter pointless arguments.  Don’t get me wrong, I love a good argument, but there are many offline colleagues that provide endless inspiration and challenge.  I include myself in this. It’s been a brutal year, one characterised by redundancies and a drop in outcomes with all of the pressure that generates.  What’s important  is that we dust off and continue to face the storm.  This post comes about as the result of countless runs and a certain...

Some words are so prevalent in teaching that it’s easy to assume that everyone has a common understanding of them.  Try sitting down a group of teachers from within the same school, then ask them to define the following: Challenge, Pace Learning Objectives Learning I suppose the most extreme example is what the Ofsted Chasing culture has done to the words ‘good’ and ‘outstanding.’ So what’s the problem with this?  Well, firstly, without a common understanding of key terms, it’s almost impossible to develop a way of giving meaningful feedback to teachers about their teaching.  I’m not talking about the judgemental feedback here, but the formative type that drives forward quality teaching (it’s not revolutionary in my view not to give lesson grades to do this as monitoring is an essential part of improving learning .) For example: Improve questioning. I’ve seen this given often as a development point. Indeed, I’ve been on the receiving end in the past.  The...

Delighted to be involved in the Teaching and Learning Takeover event taking place in October.  I’ll be speaking about Progress and  Assessment: Am looking forward to the event and will put the resources up here in due course.  There are going to be a great line up of speakers .

The image above was taken by a rather cool laser scanner just after the final picnic lunch of The Goldsmiths’ Company Science for Society course put together by the lovely people at Southampton University's Geography Department .   The course is supported by Ordnance Survey and The Goldsmiths’ Company, one of the ‘old school’ livery companies within the City of London. Rather than give you a full rundown of the content, you can head over to the Earth Surface Dynamics Blog here for a list of resources and links.  I wonder how many geography departments could rebrand some of their Geography as ‘Earth Surface Dynamics’…..? The week long course was an excellent opportunity given to me as a result of this .  First, the week long course is well worth the effort, although those that are rather ‘out of touch’ with current developments in geography would benefit more than those either new to the profession or fairly active geographers.  I went along to a simila...

One of the things I'm really going to miss about working at Priory School is working with the fantastic and inspirational team that is Priory Geography .  You may have read recently about Director of Microsoft UK Education Steve Beswick's visit to the department. I am always keen to ensure that any visitor to Priory a geography finds us as we are.  Step in Sam Atkins : The purpose of this post is to share the lesson I delivered as part of Microsoft Education’s visit to  Priory School  on 15 th  May, and the inspiration behind it. For an overview of the visit  itself , please read David Rogers’ post  here . On 15 th  May  Priory Geography   were delighted to host  Microsoft Education .  The inspiration behind their visit came from a lively meeting of minds at  BETT   in January, where  David Rogers  had been invited to showcase the work we do here at  Priory Geography  using some of what Microsoft ...

As my time at Priory Geography draws to a close, I’m trying to capture all of the little things that have been set up.  I have already described the front view of a classroom in our department. This post describes the desk set up which is similar in each of our three classrooms.   Of course, Jo Debens , Sam Atkins and JP will say that it’s never this tidy….. Of course, there is room for individual takes and each desk is not the same.  What is si,ilar is the teacher desk position which is not the dominant feature in the classroom.  My desk is pushed to the back of the room in one corner while the other two are pushed into the front corners.  This creates ‘performance space.’ In my view, you shouldn’t be sat down at a desk when teaching.  Also, there shouldn’t be a barrier between the teacher and young people in the form of a monitor or desk. In some ways, this post linked closely by this one by Ollie Bray that sets out the minimum technolog...

So, there I am talking about some pebbles. What's that you say? How big is your bag?!? I come from an outdoor education background, and have been taking groups into the hills for around 14 years now.  I have to say that those years have been free of major incidents.  However, the everyday geography fieldtrip has often caused a few issues! Although I tailor the contents of my bag according to the trip, there is a fairly standard setting.  Here I'm going to list and explain the items I've been taking with me during the last few days.  I should add, that I am one of three staff. Another caveat is that we ensure that the pupils who go are well prepared - indeed, I won;t let them on the bus if they aren't. Many of these items are for comfort, enjoyment and, most importantly, safety. Clothing The Rucksack is a Mountain Equipment Diamond 50+ - I love this sack and have had it for 8 years.  It's been everywhere with me.  However, I use it on tr...

I've just finished our report on the department's 2009/10 Innovative Geography Teaching Grant project.  The project facilitated the Space Explorers workshop as well as some transition work between Years 6 and 7. The project linked into the 21st Century Learning Alliance Fellowship project that had a wider remit about using new technologies. This type of action research and funding is very useful for geography departments and I would encourage others to apply for the grants .  The closing date is the 15th October.

This post is aims to consolidate most of the information on using Social Media in the classroom.  Regular readers will find much of this familiar. The overview of the project is contained in this Virtual Classroom Tour submitted to the UK Partners in Learning network: Pirates and Social Networking View more presentations from David Rogers . The original lesson evaluation and story can be viewed at this post . This webinar given to European teachers and initiated by the Croatian branch of Partners in Learning also sums up how Twitter can be used to support learning. In particular, additional applications of the method are discussed. The webinar was recorded live, and starts 6 minutes into the recording, so you may wish to skip there! The file is available to download here . This post describe how the same methods were used to explore the Haitian earthquake. I have tried to share the technique widely, through this blog and also through face-to-face training sessio...

I’m very fickle when it comes to internet browsers, and I have no real affiliation to any.  I also don’t use extensions or plug ins and I’m rubbish at keeping bookmarks or favourites! I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while since Microsoft’s Fun Free Friday event a while back. One feature in particular struck me as being simple and effective in supporting learning.  These are the Accelerators that are part of Internet Explorer 8. To me, this is a great example of where learning takes centre stage as the tool uses both Bing and Google tools. I’ve created a screen cast that attempts to simulate a typical student search experience. Like a similar post , I’ve chosen the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. I also make no apologies for the rough and ready nature of the screen cast. As mentioned before , if I can’t run with a tool after a period of not using it, then it’s value in a classroom could be questioned. I do apologise, however, for the slow running nature of the inte...

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...

Competency based learning is a hot potato.  I was asked to sit on an expert panel at the GA Conference last week that discussed this issue. There were two very good examples of competency based learning provided from Gillots School, Henley on Thames and Bremrose School in Derby . Both schools gave good examples of how geographical learning can be central to such initiatives and how the decision, and implementation of, their schemes were as a result of their learning context. Below are some thoughts about competency based learning that I have. I am not an expert by any means on competency based learning and would welcome any stories where it has been a success or challenge. Lots of GA members are concerned about the erosion of Geographical skills and knowledge as a result of these approaches. The GA should be supporting Heads of Geography to ensure that project based learning is centred around geographical themes. I think that there is little point in arguing against ...

Have been reading and thinking about this blog post about Do, Discover, Design after a number of tip offs from Twitter. As I'm heading to the Burgate School this weekend to train staff on a Duke of Edinburgh course it strikes me that there is a similarity between 'Do, Discover, Design' and the ' Plan, Do, Review ' processes. (Link to Hampshire's Outdoor Service Newsletter in 2002, and mentions that the four Hampshire Centers use the model or learning) I was introduced to the latter during my Mountain Leader training and assessment and during my work with the Hampshire Outdoor Service. I'm going to think some more about this and hope to post at a later date. In the meantime, are there any other models of learning that you consider valuable? www.liverpool.gov.uk/Images/tcm21-97510.doc

Presentaion To Staff View more presentations from geogrocks . This was a presentation given to staff during a recent interview for a Director of E-Learning post. I decided to use pictures to illustrate my points. From experience, I have found that doing simple things well and using old technologies more effectively (those that have been around for a while but not used effectively to support learning) are the key to transforming learning, especially in schools where the e-learning journey has just begun. The presentation was aimed at the school in question. The first two slides sum up what I believe to be the fundamental points in developing e-learning: 1. that technology is just a tool in the box and needs to be used appropriately. Also, technology needs to be developed in conjunction with curriculum innovation and in partnership with teachers and pupils. Many thanks to @GeoBlogs for the quote via Twitter. 2. Existing technology is often not used to support learning effectively as ...

Received this email today from on of my Year 10 student s. On further investigation, the student had used Buzzword to share the first draft of his introduction. It's the first time I've come across this site, but I liked the way in which I could comment on the work. I hope that the student will then be able to improve the work. Could be a useful way to improve the quality and quantity

Frustration. An exciting meeting and dialogue (well, heated debate!) between some pionier users of ICT and SLT occurred yesterday. We made some great progress: Agreement to get at least one teacher desktop in every classroom asap Online registration - this will reduce the cost of photocopying currently used to track internal truancy The possible move of the school email system to gmail Other topics were talked about also. To me the way to get teachers using ICT is to ensure that they have access to a computer and have to turn it on each and every day. Insisting on online registration will do this. Then, once the computer is logged on and on the desk a teacher may use the internet to search for resources, use a PPT to make life a bit easier.... One of the most frustrating parts of the discussion centered around the VLE / blog debate. We all have to use VLE's, the government expects it. However, it seems to me that the learning conversation isn't going on. I was told that my blog...