Getting creative with your curriculum

David Rogers

@davidErogers

davidrogers.org.uk

What is weather and how does it affect people?

Do now:

Using the shapes below, create a sketch map

of the UK. You can rotate them and resize.

You can use any type of triangle

Mark on the location of: London, Cardiff,

Edinburgh, Belfast

‘Our Priory days

were akin to working in

Area 51 compared

to most places’

Creativity?

Natio

na

l G

eo

gra

ph

ic

, Ja

n 2

01

5

‘…contact between groups, which accelerated the

speed of innovative ideas from one mind to another,

creating a kind of collective brain.’

National Geographical Jan 2015

‘When populations again fell below critical mass, groups

became isolated, leaving new ideas nowhere to go.

What innovations had been established withered and

died.’

National Geographical Jan 2015

Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine. ~Robert C. Gallagher

“Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off. Build

your wings on the way down”

Ray Bradbury

Teachers’ Standard 4

4. Plan and teach well structured lessons

promote a love of learning

and children’s intellectual curiosity

A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a

curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will

remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip

pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and

natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding

of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As pupils progress,

their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen

their understanding of the interaction between physical and human

processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and

environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills

provide the framework and approaches that explain how the Earth’s

features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change

over time.

Purpose of study

A high-quality geography education should inspire in pupils a

curiosity and fascination about the world and its people that will

remain with them for the rest of their lives. Teaching should equip

pupils with knowledge about diverse places, people, resources and

natural and human environments, together with a deep understanding

of the Earth’s key physical and human processes. As pupils progress,

their growing knowledge about the world should help them to deepen

their understanding of the interaction between physical and human

processes, and of the formation and use of landscapes and

environments. Geographical knowledge, understanding and skills

provide the framework and approaches that explain how the Earth’s

features at different scales are shaped, interconnected and change

over time.

Purpose of study

Photo credit via flickr

Geographers should

embrace new content

as an opportunity to

develop our subject.

Chat:

What are

your biggest

content

fears in the

new

curriculum?

Photo credit via Flickr

Africa

Russia

Asia (Including China and India)

Middle East

Environmental regions

Polar and hot deserts

Key human and physical characteristics

Countries and major cities

Geological timescales

Rocks, weathering, soils

Climate change: Ice Age to the present

Glaciation

Maths

Linking to KS4

Is your curriculum full of

JONK?

‘Enquiry is not something to be defined once and for all on paper. It is something to be developed in the classroom in particular school and curriculum contexts.’Margaret Roberts, Learning through enquiry, p25

1. What is the point of school

if it doesn't help you

understand the world

around you?

2. Teachers are in the ideal

position to challenge media

bias and editorial decisions.

3. Topical issues are an

opportunity to reinforce and

help revisit prior learning.

Floating topicality

Glaciation

Iceland and big

subglacial volcanoes

Geological

Timescale

Continental Drift – Mid

Atlantic ridge

Everest: access,

avalanche, honeypot

Is tourism in Iceland

sustainable?

Asia

Water supply and

climate change

Ban silos – creative curriculum design

How did the

Himalayas form?

Clim

ate

Ch

an

ge

Everest: access,

avalanche, honeypot

Cosy clothes

manufactured in

Nepal

Made in Nepal, just like

us…. Weaving

together ancient

wisdom and modern

technology. We create

80% of our products

right here in Nepal. This

means the world to us

socially, economically,

environmentally. This

labour of love supports

the livelihood of a

Nepali family and helps

us to keep alive a

centuries-old craft.

Interleaving and desirable difficulties

Bjork and Bjork, 2011

Coe et al, 2014

Brown, Roediger III, McDaniel, 2014

Allison Blog

Develop

contextual

knowledge of

the location of

globally

significant

places – both

terrestrial and

marine.

Non-statutory

24 January, 2015What is geological time and why is it important to geographers?

How old is the Earth?How long have animals been around on Earth?How long have people been around on Earth?

24 January 2015 Has the world always looked the way it has?

Has the Earth always looked the same? Think about this images from NASA and write an 80 word response. Try to give reasons why it has changed and why it is the same.

Use work from last lesson.

Map from memory

Think, Pair, Share.

What’s this? Why doesn’t the earth look like this today? How do we

know?

Pangea

Continental drift: how would you prove it?

24 January, 2015 What is the climate like on the African continent?

Starter challenges:

1. Approximately, how many times can you fit

the UK into the African continent?

UK Land area: 83,698 sq mi

African continent land area: 11.7 million sq mi

2. How many miles, north to south, is the

African continent?

139 times.

Where?

Even makes

oxbow lakes look

cool?

Photos hyperlink to original source.

Photos hyperlink to original source.

If this mountain is so dangerous why then is climbing it so important for Nepal’s economy?

Developed or not?

Developed or not?

So why are these people so important?

So if they are so important why did this happen?

And what do you think the impact of this could be on Nepal?

Surprised?

Where is this person?

What are they walking into?

Beat the teacher!

You have 10 questions.

Can you figure out what

happened?

Map detectives!

• Order the maps on your table into order

• In your exercise book:

• Describe what has happened?

• Why do you think this has happened?

Pirates and Social NetworkingIn 2009…..

Lesson 1

• Background and research into 21st Century piracy. Include Bing web, maps and image search

Lesson 2

• Using Twitter and Facebook to gather ‘Real’ data for students to engage with. Using blogs to collaborate and action plan

Lesson 3

• Using Twitter live within the lesson to provide a ‘real’ task, deadlines and feedback.

List 5 words that you associate with Pirates

Produced using wordle.net and used under creative commons licenseWordle.net

Gather data via Twitter before

the lesson

Present the information –

analysis

Link the data to the topic being

studied

Get pupils to interact with the

information, song, poem, presentation,

news report…..

Using Social Networking to provide data

Using Social Networking in real time

Use through teacher account,

visible to the class via a data projector.

Get class to interact with

Twitter network by asking questions,

responding to questions

Pupils work collaboratively to react to questions

www.google.co.uk/alerts

“Your are not here merely to make a living. You are here to enable the world to live more

amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here

to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget this errand.”

Woodrow Wilson.

‘What gets you out of bed in the morning and in to school?’

@davidErogers