Fifty Ideas in Fifty Minutes Online Handout Part 1 of 9: Curricular Design

Introduction

During a recent conference I heard that every country in the word is currently going through a curricular review. I thought this was an amazing, but very believable fact. In Scottish geography we are currently dictated about the content of our certificated courses (Intermediate, Standard Grade etc…) but many departments are reviewing their S1 – S2 curriculum. The flexibility of the 5 – 14 guidelines allows us to do this. Here are some ideas to think about in terms of curricular design.

Idea 1 – Before re-designing your course ask your students what they like about geography, what they don’t like about geography and what they want to learn about in Geography.

What we as teachers think is interesting about Geography is often the complete opposite to that of 12 year old children. When I asked a class what countries they want to study many of them say Australia and New Zeland yet many departments study countries like France, which are often perceived to be less exciting to young people (and they probably study it a bit in modern languages?). It is important for us to remember that 21^st Century Geography is about our subject (a partnership between students and teachers) and not your subject (what you think is important, because you have an interest in it.)

Idea 2 – When collecting some of this data try using an on-line survey.

Survey Monkey (www.surveymonkey.com) is a great free tool that can be used to ask multiple choice and other questions. The free version allows up to 100 responses, which should be enough to gauge the opinion of any class. You can also subscribe to allow an unlimited amount of responses. I’ve set up a survey here so you can comment on my presentation (click here to comment on my presentation). Give it a go, its really easy to use. You could also ask students to set up their own surveys for fieldwork investigations.

Idea 3 – Structure the curriculum around the media, it’s the most powerful tool that we have to promote Geography.

By media a really mean television, radio and the news that report on national and international events. It is however important to know that many young people also take part in on-line events which quite often go un-noticed by the traditional media. Have a look at second life for an example (http://secondlife.com/).

So how can the media help us teach Geography? Well first of all we need to find out when the key dates are. The count-me-in calendar (http://www.countmeincalendar.info/) is the best example that I have found of this. If we look through the calendar you will see that World Aids Day is on the 1^st December. Why don’t you teach about HIV and Aids during this week? This way student knowledge can be reinforced if they watch the television / listen to the radio. Similarly Fairtrade Fortnight is the 6-19^th March 2007. So why don’t you leave your Fairtrade lesson until then. GIS day is the 15^th November, wouldn’t this be a great week to start a mapping unit?

Idea 4 – Make your topics interesting to children

I really like some of the topics taught at Key Stage 3 in England. Children are interested in things like the Geography of Crime, the Geography of Fashion and the Geography of Sport. I’m also a big fan of the Oxford Geog.1, 2 and 3 series because they really present these topics in a clear and concise way.

Lets take the topic of football and explain how it can be used as a Geography lesson:

• First of all football is big business (industry) some premiership players could be paid £1500 a day just for kicking a football around.
• The football that is used in premiership games is of really high quality and they cost about £60 in the shops to buy (industry).
• These footballs age made in stitching centres. Quite often the footballs are made by children who can be as young as 14 years old (development & trade). Most football stitchers only get paid about 50pence per football that they produce.
• 75% of the worlds footballs are made in Pakistan and many of them in place called Sialkot , this region produces 35 million footballs per year. It’s an interesting place because it right on the border of an area of land in which the ownership disputed between India and Pakistan. (Location, mapwork, international relations, political geography)  
• One way that we could improve the lives of the children that make footballs is to buy Fairtrade Footballs. (trade, fairtade, aid).

A great cross curricular project might by to raise money to buy Fairtrade footballs, rugby balls and volleyballs for the PE department; you get them from a company called Fair Deal Trading.

Jack McConnell wants Scotland to become the world’s first Fairtrade country. So wouldn’t it be great is schools only used ethically produced footballs?

This is a good example of extreme learning and idea that we are currently developing in East Lothian.

Idea 5 – Encourage cross-curricular links are projects

In my experience some departments do not have the flexibly to change the order of the way that they teach things. But geography departments do. I think I could teach mapwork at any point during the S1 or S2 course.

So wouldn’t it make sense if we taught mapwork at the same time as when the maths department were teaching measuring (distance) and co-ordinates (grid references). Wouldn’t it be great if there could be a little bit of collaboration here so that students were subject to positive reinforcement through subjects rather than repetition through subjects? Here are some cross curricular ideas:

• PE – Fairtrade Footballs
• Math – You collect the data, get the math department to draw the graphs. Obvious links to distance, measuring, time and co-ordinates.
• English – Use their 5-14 oral assessment criteria to mark your student presentation. Or ask the English department to make them for you.
• Science – Many schools now teach global warming in S1-S2 science. How about a collaborative project where children learn about the effects of global warming on the landscape in Geography.
• HE – There is a unit called food from around the world. Geography departments could produce the country study, HE departments could talk about the main food that is eaten there.

And there are lots more…

Idea 6 – Teach more than the syllabus

Some parts of the Standard Grade course are boring. Try going into a class an announcing that today you will not be learning about Standard Grade. But instead you will be learning about Geography. Develop a stand alone lesson or sequence of lessons which is creative and inspiring to children. Not only is this great in terms of learning but it will also help with motivation during the more tedious areas of Standard Grade.

Idea 6 - Talk about Today’s Geography

Use the BBC News (http://news.bbc.co.uk/) two minute bulletin from the BBC news site to start your lesson. Pupils keep a note of the headlines at the back of their jotter (or even in a separate jotter). At then end of the two minutes get them to shade in or underline and headlines that are related to Geography. Over time student will quickly realise that even though something is not called Geography about 75% of the news is Geography. There are also obvious links here to citizenship.

Idea 7 – Include a local aspect to your curriculum

Mick Walters, Director of Curriculum for QCA first introduced this concept to me at the XChange Conference in Belfast. He said that for any subject there should be some local interpretation within a national context. He illustrated it by using the example of buckets and spades at Tesco’s. In Weymouth where I’m from originally they sell buckets and spades at Tesco’s but at my local store in Haddington they don’t. Its still tescos but they are adapting to the needs of their customers.

So just because one department teaches one aspect of Geography doesn’t mean that the school down the road has to teach the same thing. Its still Geography and each school needs to adapt to the needs of their pupils.

One thing that I have a real ‘bee in my bonnet’ about at the moment that if I asked my old S2 class to name some trees from the tropical rainforest they would say ‘Mahogany, Teak and Rosewood’. But If I asked them what type of tree was it planted on the school playing field they would say ‘I dinnae ken’.

As Geography teachers we need to think about local Geography as well as international Geography – its still Geography and its still important.

Please leave your comments about these ideas below.