Trawling through my (very unorganized) home area on the school network today to locate a medium term planning sheet (which I never found!), I came across a document I made a few years ago of ideas to support the trainees and NQTs I was working with in Geography to plan their lessons.  None of the ideas are very whizzy or new (and many are just basic teaching strategies) but I thought I’d share them as a little aide memoire if you’re looking for another idea for a lesson (that won’t take too long to prepare).

Strategies for developing knowledge of place:

• Constructing annotated sketch maps.
• Display (in any format) a sequence of facts or development indicators about any given country for students to deduce the location of the lesson focus and whether the country is developed; this can be extended by introducing a false fact for students to deduce and justify.
• Display a sequence of slides which build up and create understanding of life in the new location; 5 second delay between slides and no more than 15 slides.
• Students ask 7 questions about photos – what, where, when, where, why, what ought, what might and how?
• Google earth can be used to show scale and sizes of places.
• Provide photographs and a climate graph for students to guess the country; students must justify their choice.

Strategies to assess the learning taking place during lessons: Assessing knowledge:

• Multiple choice quiz; students indicate answers using 1/2/3 fingers in the air.
• Quick fire quiz; using mini-whiteboards to display answers.
• Give me the headlines; students summarise their geographical learning in the lesson in 3 bullet points.
• Students go back to ideas at beginning of lesson and add to them, given new learning.
• Targeted questioning.

Strategies to assess the learning taking place during lessons: Assessing examination technique:

• Peer/self assessment against pre-defined success criteria/markscheme.
• Highlighting/underlining student responses to focus on SPaG/decision making/use of connectives/vocabulary.

Strategies to develop extended writing:

• Modelling and developing the application of generic structures; eg using flow charts to break down sequences or cause and effect.
• Modelling and developing the use of connectives to maintain the cohesive ties of the text to help students maintain ‘sense’ in their writing.
• Redrafting sections of work based on specific targets; eg improving use of geographical terminology.
• Using card sorting to rank and identify priorities (eg diamond ranking or concept mapping) and to look for relationships and explanations before tackling a piece of writing.
• Key word and definition matching to enforce use of geographical terminology.

Strategies to develop oracy:

• For group discussions: establish an open-ended topic to discuss and specific tasks which can act as a focus and framework; provide information to stimulate and direct discussion; use visual material to minimize time taken up reading; give students some time to prepare ideas so all can contribute. The discussion should result in a specific product such as a summary, list or series of conclusions.
• For class feedback: plan your questions beforehand to ensure you have clear outcomes expected from the feedback; correct use of geographical terminology; keep the discussion short and focused. The discussion should result in a specific product such as a summary of key geographical points or redrafting of a section of work.

Top Tips for Group Work:

Each of the following strategies is designed to:

1. Ensure group work has a clear focus related on the topic being studied.
2. Ensure methods of individual and whole class assessment are built into the activity.
3. Ensure a well-defined outcome from the activity.