Shake and Erupt: A critical reflection on teaching earthquakes and volcanoes to KS3

Rationale: Perhaps the most dynamic features of the Earth’s awesome power and nature are when Volcanoes and Earthquakes occur. Their workings are at the very core of our planet’s history and their unpredictable activity continues to shake mankind’s understanding of the planet. This topic or scheme of work for my mixed ability year nine class offers a plethora of attributes that both incorporates sound core Geographic knowledge and divers teaching formats that can present a degree of awe and wonder into the minds of young people. Planning and teaching such a topic at a time when the Geography National Curriculum is being reviewed by the new coalition Government, seems to provide somewhat of a blank canvass as to what pedagogical approaches might be the most appropriate to adopt. Whatever the NC will look like, we are led to believe that there will be a re-focus on the ‘core’ knowledge in subjects like Geography. This is not to say a return to didactic teaching where teachers are merely transmitters of information, or indeed to adopt a textbook pedagogy which is reminiscent of the late 1970s and 1980s. The Geography Curriculum Consultation Full Report makes it clear “That a line-by-line, detailed list of geography’s contents is not the best way to draw a positive response from teachers . . . though there is strong support for the national curriculum achieving greater clarity over the core and essential knowledge contents of geography.” (Geographical Association, 2011, p.2 – cited in Debates in Geography).

Having observed lessons in my school for several weeks now, I agree with this emphasis on teaching ‘core’ knowledge contents as I feel as if the emphasis in the classroom is more centred around designing creative activities which attempt to gain ‘buy-in’ from the students as to whether they decide to learn or not. I get the sense that the power has shifted too far to that of the students who have come to dictate what a good lesson ought to look like. This power shift undermines the professional teacher and can seriously detract students from learning, retaining and utilising some of the core knowledge content and skills provided by Geography. Therefore, it is my intention to use this blank canvass as a license to experiment with different pedagogical approaches in teaching earthquakes and volcanoes, which will always feature as a core topic in any National Curriculum of Geography.

I will attempt to put into practise three different conceptions of knowledge as my pedagogical approaches to plan and teach this scheme of work. The three types of conceptions are taken from Roger Firth’s chapter in the recent publication, “Debates in Geography Education” entitled, “What constitutes knowledge in geography.” Firth presents three different conceptions of knowledge that can be adapted into pedagogical styles as they underpin ‘how’ the geography is taught just as much as ‘what’ the geography is taught. The conceptions are: absolutism, constructivism and realism or rather social realism as Firth increasingly prefers to use. These conceptions will form the framework for the different types of pedagogy I intent to adopt. This essay does provide the context for these conceptions and their subsequently adapted pedagogies later, however table 1. below summaries this context and provides the 3 different pedagogies referred to throughout this essay as F1, F2, and F3.

Table 1. Summary of different conceptions of knowledge and pedagogical approaches

Conception of knowledge | Absolutism | Constructivism | Social realism | Epistemology | • Knowledge as external, fixed and certain | • Knowledge as relativist to individual experience | • Knowledge as objective but emergent | Curriculum | • Traditional curriculum
• Content driven
• Socially conservative | • Focus on learning and learning to learn outcomes
• Student's experiences influence curriculum | • A curriculum of engagement
• Diverse and varied
• Providing new knowledge | Pedagogy | Future 1 (F1)
• Authoritative and didactic
• 'Dry' activities
• Fundamental skills - e.g. Reading, writing, comprehension | Future 2 (F2)
• Liberal/equality and inclusive
• Creative activities
• Students-led tasks
• Cross-cultural and transferable life skills | Future 3 (F3)
• Teacher imposes expertise as an authority
• Open-ended activities with diverse outcomes
• A thirst for traditional and new geographic knowledge |
(Adapted from Roger Firth’s chapter ‘What constitutes knowledge in geography’ 2013, pp.59-74, from “Debates in Geography,” 2013) Apart from this aspect of ‘awe and wonder’ within the topic, there are several other key geographic educational themes which will be explored throughout this scheme of work. Rapid access to global media has meant that natural disasters which take place all over the world present and offer a spotlight into local regions which would otherwise go unnoticed. This relationship between global and local is a fundamental concept in modern Geography and often natural disasters, through the media, can bring this concept to reality. As a result, “the parameters of existence and imagined horizons now extend beyond neighbourhoods and nations, cities and countries, encouraging a sense of the world as a singular, shared space.” (Lambert and Morgan, 2010, p.147) Natural disasters can demonstrate the interconnectedness between an event that happens thousands of miles away and the global solidarity surrounding the rescue and/or recovery phase.
The sequence of lessons has been prescribed by my placement school in a rigid manner, (see table 2.) therefore whilst I am required to follow this scheme of work, as I plan, teach and evaluate my lessons, I will manipulate the lesson content to fulfil my intention of adopting the F1, F2 and F3 pedagogies.

The bulk of resources come from the Nelson Thornes published package “New Key Geography – Interactions” written by David Waugh and Tony Bushell, which includes a text book and interactive CD-ROM for activities. Whist this resource provides a sound structure in terms of content and progression, I will be supplementing the course with additional resources to not only offer a variety of educational perspectives on the topic (given that “the dangers of geography teachers relying too heavily on textbooks has been recognised by OFSTED, who have repeatedly commented on many schools relied on a limited, and sometimes limiting single textbook series” (Lambert & Balderstone, 2010: 236)) but also to explore the pupils’ own sense of geographical imagination and to ‘open’ up the curriculum to them more than they have been used to at this school. Indeed Balderstone states that in order to keep Geography relevant in the classroom, we “may require listening to students more than we have perhaps been accustomed to doing in the past.” (Baldestone, 2006, p.528)

This scheme of work brings together physical and human geography by asking pupils to recognise how the Earth’s physical patterns and processes can impact and affect places and peoples in different stages of economic development. It also incorporates Geographical enquiry and skills by encouraging pupils to ask geographical questions, analyse evidence and draw conclusions, use extended geographical vocabulary, use atlases and maps, draw diagrams, use the internet for independent research and experience decision making.

Tables 2. and 3. below illustrates how my lesson planning utilises the different forms of pedagogy and explains ‘what’ Geography I wanted the students to learn as well as ‘how’ I intended to make this happen. Table 2. is simply an excerpt from my school’s scheme of work and I wanted to show this as it gives the sequence of lessons I actually taught more meaning by showing its evolution. Table 3. forms the framework for my reflective and evaluative analysis of this taught sequence of lessons.
Table 2. The original sequence of lessons | Learning Objectives
WHAT PUPILS SHOULD LEARN | Learning Outcomes
PUPILS | Lesson 1 | What are volcanoes and earthquakes like? | | - about the distribution of volcanoes and earthquakes | - understand why volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are hazards | | - about the causes and effect of volcanic eruptions and earthquakes | - understand why the response to these hazards varies in different countries | | - how different countries respond to these hazards | - understand some ways in which the hazards may be reduced | | - how the dangers may be reduced | | Lesson 2 | Where do volcanoes and earthquakes happen? | | - to research locations of earthquakes and volcanoes using the internet | - map the distribution of tectonic activity | | - the location of major tectonic activity | | Lesson 3 | How do volcanoes and earthquakes happen? | | - the causes of and processes involved in plate movements | - illustrate, describe and explain the processes responsible for earthquakes and volcanic activity at plate margins | Lesson 4 | What are volcanoes? | | - to identify the characteristics of volcanoes and volcanic activity | - define and spell key vocabulary correctly to identify the characteristics of volcanoes | Lesson 5 | What happens when a volcano erupts? | | - to identify and compare distinctive features of different volcanic eruptions and their effects | - illustrate and describe the geographical features of a volcano | | | - compare the nature and effects of different volcanic eruptions | | | - describe the physical and human effects of volcanic eruptions | | | - describe and explain differences experienced by LEDCs and MEDCs when eruptions occur | Lesson 6 | What happens in an earthquake? | | - to identify the nature and effect of earthquakes | - describe the events that place during an earthquake | Lesson 7 | What happened in the Indian earthquake 2001? | | - to identify the nature and effects of earthquakes by reference to a named example | - describe the nature and effects of the Indian earthquake and explain why it was so devastating | Lesson 8 | How can the earthquake danger be reduced? | | - to consider human responses to hazards posed by tectonic activity | - describe a range of strategies used to minimise the impact of earthquakes | | - about the need to plan for flooding | - identify how preparation helped people in an earthquake | Lesson 9 | Two earthquakes compared | | - to identify and compare the nature and effects of earthquakes | - compare the nature and effects of earthquakes in countries at different stages of economic activity | | - to assess the relationship between levels of development and the impact of earthquakes | - understand how communities can prepare for earthquakes | Lesson 10 | The hazards enquiry | | - how the damaging effect of a volcano can be reduced | - research independently of locations of interest and evaluate the different responses or precautions taken when faced with natural hazards | | - to select their own hazards of study and to express their reasons why | - produce a presentation of their findings including an evacuation plan for the people in the surrounding areas |

Table 3. The actual sequence of lessons with intended pedagogical approach

| Geographic learning objectives | Pedagogical approaches | Lesson 1 | Baseline test | | • To establish an understanding of each student’s prior knowledge and to provide a quantifiable starting point to ascertain progress by the end of the sequence | • Although no real pedagogy is undertaken here, the emphasis is that knowledge (facts) is an authority and something of value in itself which points to F1 | Lesson 2 | Where do volcanoes and earthquakes happen? | | • To gain an appreciation of the Earth's spatial history and that it is under a constant evolution in terms how the land moves and changes
• To use world maps to develop students capability to view the world in different perspectives as well to familiarise where the continents are located | • This lesson adopts all 3 F1, F2 and F3 approaches.
• Using the first lesson as litmus paper to assess which approach may be the most suited to this class
• Probably more of F1 in total | Lesson 3 | How do volcanoes and earthquakes happen? | | • To visualise and illustrate the structure of the Earth
• To comprehend the unpredictable nature and force of the mechanics of the Earth
• To explain and describe the mechanics of plate tectonics
• To introduce physical and human concepts into the topic | • Again I think all 3 approaches are adopted but with an emphasis on F1 and F3 | Lesson 4 | Volcano presentation – research | | • To stimulate geographic enquiry by students working in groups and independently researching about volcanoes
• Whilst a structure was given, students led this activity which attempted to facilitate cross-curricular skills such as presentation skills | • This is a deliberate intervention into the prescribed sequence of lessons to assess a true F2 approach | Lesson 5 | Volcano presentation – presenting | | • To present finding in a visual and audible format
• To demonstrate group skills in organisation of time and skills
• Peer assessment of presentations | • Again this is very much a student led lesson and adopts an F2 approach | Lesson 6 | What happens in an earthquake? San Francisco 1989 | | • To explain and describe how earthquakes happens, and what happens in terms of both a physical perspective (plates) and a human perspective (damage and life loss etc.) | • After assessing the previous 2 lessons using F2 as not particularly successful, I decided to adopt an F1 approach for this lesson
• This lesson is very didactic and the activities are based on transmitting 'core' knowledge | Lesson 7 | Haiti earthquake 2010 | | • To update this scheme of work with a recent case study to illustrate the destructive power earthquakes can have in a less developed country
• To introduce the concepts of people values and empathy
• To stimulate imagination and a sense of place
• To improve map skills centred around a sense of place (i.e. Haiti and the Caribbean Islands)
• To assimilate previous lesson’s knowledge of plate tectonics | • Very much another deliberate aberration from the original sequence and a lesson that was designed entirely from independent resources (i.e. not from the school)
• Very much an F3 approach, balancing core knowledge skills such as drawing maps from memory with new ideas and activities involving mind movies and open-ended picture activities | | | | Lesson 8 | The 3 P's - Predict, Prevent and Prepare | | • To gain insight into human geography by learning how to manage the negative impacts of earthquakes
• To consolidate learning outcomes by setting a homework that draws on this lesson's content - i.e. designing an earthquake proof building | • This lesson adopts all 3 F1, F2 and F3 approaches
• The emphasis here is that after marking the student's books, I noticed that there was a lack of independent work, hence the reason to include the earthquake proof building homework
• Perhaps a slight slant towards F3 - given the open-ended task of designing an earthquake proof building | Lesson 9 | The Indian earthquake | | • To offer another case study of a developing country managing an earthquake
• To develop a greater understanding of place by looking at a different part of the world
• To develop map and diagram skills• To develop empathy values | • This lesson has an F1 focus as much of the material was from a textbook and the student's were asked to reconfigure much of this material | | | | Lesson 10 | Two earthquakes compared | | • To develop the student's geographic enquiry skills and to augment prior learning from this topic
• To improve their understanding of countries in different stages of economic development
• To increase understanding of a sense of place | • This lesson has more a F2 focus than any other as the student leads their own investigation, but is also F1 as it is quite prescriptive | Lesson 11 | Formulating questions and Baseline test | | • To consolidate and to assess the learning outcomes of this unit
• Students are given a series of keywords from this unit and have to construct questions which lead to these key terms as the answers
• To assess knowledge but also geographic and verbal reasoning skills | • As with most teas based lessons, this lesson adopts an F1 approach | | | | Key: | F1 approach | F2 approach | F3 approach | F1, F2, and F3 | F1 and F3 | F1 and F2 |

Pedagogical approaches and context

The term absolutism denotes that knowledge is something that is external to any subjective constructs of social, political or individual experience and is considered as a universal truth. This is to say that knowledge is purely objective and reveals a universal reality of the world that exists as wisdom. The natural sciences are often seen in this way with laws or principles that govern a certain order in the world, such as gravity for example. The emphasis is that knowledge is fixed and unaffected by cultural or social change and offers us absolute certainty. The national curriculum would then be seen as “a body of received wisdom inherited from the past, whereby students are inducted into the dominant knowledge traditions that keep them dominant.” (Firth, 2013, p.66) To adapt this into a pedagogical approach, one has to have a deep respect and reverence for the core knowledge within the subject of geography. This means that certain lesson objectives will be to indoctrinate students about core geographical knowledge content by compliance.

Constructivism rejects the notion that knowledge is absolutely objective and retorts that it is relative (or constructed) to a particular variable such as culture, place, or an individual. It therefore views absolutism as elitist and socially conservative and places emphasis on “learners and making the curriculum relevant to [the students’] experience and future life and employability,” (Firth, 2013, p.63) which was the tone of educational policy under New Labour. David Lambert has recently argued that the past government’s infatuation with the concept of ‘learning’ and ‘learners’ has been taken too far with too much emphasis being placed on students’ own social experiences (IOE Lecture, 2013). This can then lead to a danger “when there is an over-dependence on social experience as the means and content of knowledge, [where] such knowledge becomes not only a pedagogical resource but also the main resource for the curriculum.” (Rata, 2012 – cited in debates) However, constructivism as a pedagogical approach can be viewed as progressive or neo-liberal (i.e. the new way of freeing up education from the bounded constructs of elitist and absolute knowledge) which I think is appealing as it can ensure Geography lessons are far more inclusive and can provide students with transferable life skills.

Social realism, like absolutism, accepts knowledge as external but “recognises [that] this externality is not given, but has a social and historical basis.” (Young, 2010, p.22) The emphasis here is on the social influence on knowledge production and how a discipline’s internal authority institutionalises this knowledge over time. This can be seen as both conservative and progressive since it includes traditional core geographic content as well as new geographic knowledge in the emergent global context. In terms of a pedagogical approach, social realism presents a ‘best of both worlds’ scenario. It certainly provides a greater extent for geography teachers to be curriculum makers, as whilst there is a focus on providing ‘core’ knowledge content, it also allows for emergent knowledge and creative techniques. This does mean that the subject expertise of geography teachers needs to be of a high quality.

Reflective and evaluative analysis

Given that many of my lessons incorporated a mix of F1, F2, and F3 pedagogical approaches, I have selected 4 lessons which all have a concentration of one of these approaches. I will refer to other lessons but this analysis will focus on lessons 4 and 5 (F2), lesson 7 (F3), and lesson 9 (F1).

This year nine class consisted of 28 boys of mixed ability, 9 SEN students, and 2 EAL students. The class was one of two bottom sets in the year and included several known pupils with a reputation of being disruptive. Therefore, the planning of my first real lesson (lesson 2) (see lesson plan – appendix 1) deliberately began with an F1 starter activity which was to copy several bullet points about where volcanoes and earthquakes occur. The main aim of this was to settle the class as they entered the classroom before I made any introduction of who I was and what my expectations were. Also I wanted to assess what their reaction would be to such a dry and unimaginative activity. A large percentage of the class did protest in some way, by either complaining that their hand was hurting or by asking me if they had to write all the bullet points down. One of the problems with tasks such as this is that there a huge variance in how long students take to complete it which can be damaging to the pace of the lesson. I soon learnt that establishing a good pace at the beginning of a lesson is a crucial component of the overall success of the lesson. It was the next activity that produced the most success in this first lesson which was an open task that required the students to use their imagination and expressive skills after watching a short clip of the earth’s spatial history as it evolved from Pangaea to its current form and beyond to 250 million years into the future (also see appendix 3.) This video clip shows the change of Earth's tectonic plates over a 650 million years period in just over one minute. It is a particularly thought-provoking clip and portrays the dynamism of physical geography. The task was to write one sentence about what they liked about the clip and one sentence about what they did not like. It was precisely this ‘no wrong’ answer format with an open-ended component that this F3 approach adopts. It also encompassed the attributes of ‘core’ knowledge content with new knowledge by providing the students with something that most had probably never thought about. Some of their sentences simply commented on the music (which I thought was fine), but others were more pragmatic by realising that the UK would no longer exist as it is, and this seemed to bothered them. The emotion that this task generated from the class told me that they were fully engaged with this task as almost all the students had their hands up wanting to express their views. Several students expressed a degree of scepticism and maintained that this was just a simulation and that it was just someone’s interpretation of what might happen in the future. In the extract below, whilst the sentence is grammatically incorrect, the inclusion of “but it might not happen” demonstrates his cognitive process as one that is challenging knowledge. This was great to witness as it did illustrate a certain amount of academic rigour.

Extract 1. Student expressing his dislike to the video depicting the earth’s spatial history

Lessons 4 and 5 (F2) After teaching the first 2 lessons, I decided to deviate from the original sequence of lessons and adopt an F2 pair of lessons in entirety (lessons 4 and 5). I was interested to see what the outcome would be as well as aiming to provide varied lessons. Whilst I did outline a basic structure (see appendix 5a) that they had to follow, this internet research based activity to produce a short presentation on volcanoes in groups of 3 or 4, and then to present these to the class aimed to “put value on students thinking for themselves, making their own judgements and forming their own opinions rather than accepting ‘passively the conclusions, research and opinions of others’.” (Roberts. M, 2003, p.33) I had hoped that as well as cementing the main knowledge components regarding volcanoes (i.e. where, why, how and when they occur), that the students would have demonstrated their capacity to take on this freedom to learn by themselves with a keen endeavour. Furthermore, I was looking forward to witnessing their presentation skills with an expectation that some of them would impress with confident, creative and entertaining performances. This was the hope. However, this F2 approach/activity was not successful. Perhaps it was too early in the scheme of work for this approach as maybe my relationships with the students had not had long enough to develop. It could be that F2 approaches do require a degree of mutual respect and trust between the teacher and the students in order to work successfully. Lessons 4 and 5 were the least successful out of the entire sequence where most of the students saw it as an opportunity to ‘muck about’. From problems logging onto the computers, to policing their web browsers, and the production and delivery of the final presentations, the quality of learning was poor. What I was unable to achieve as a teacher from these lessons were pieces of work that illustrated distinct F2 qualities. Appendix 4 shows examples of two groups in the class (I picked the best and the worst), and in terms of assessing them, both lack a sense of independent learning. Whilst a) does reflect a complete presentation with a sound structure, it does not offer a great deal of creativity or personalisation. It does not exude any real passion or engagement with the topic and reflects a piece of work more associated with an F1 approach. Example b) clearly demonstrates a lack of any engagement with the topic and exercise. On reflection, they are a number of things I would do differently to make these lessons more effective. Firstly, I would have explicitly stipulated what the learning behaviour expectations were as I found myself fire fighting during the research lesson (Lesson 4), as I had no set previous rules to refer to. Van Manen (1991) discusses this issue of respect and rules in the classroom in “The Tact of Teaching” and maintains that to foster trustful relationships teachers need to employ “pedagogical thoughtfulness”. Heilbronn and Turner (2009) makes sense of this by stating:
“It may not be possible to take all the time necessary to deal in depth with particular issues as they arise, but this too can be acknowledged to your pupils. What is important is to reflect back to your pupils the example of the kind of behaviour that is acceptable and the reasons behind the values expressed.” (Heilbron and Turner, 2009, p.243 – cited in Learning To Teach In The Secondary School)

Secondly, I would have broken up the time given to conducting the research into segments that coincided with the structure I presented to the students (see appendix 5a.) Thus, I would have allowed say 7 minutes each section of why, how, and where volcanoes happen and a further 5 minutes to save and rehearse the presentation. From my experience of lesson 7, allowing a short time to complete certain activities greatly increases the engagement and focus of the students as it provides a clear agenda for their time management skills. It seemed like my time allocation of 30 minutes to complete the whole presentation read to the students “I have got most of the lesson to surf the net.”

Finally, I would have had inserted feedback loop intervals (since the aforementioned revised time allocation would have allowed for this) where after each section, I would assess which group were showing good progress and those who were not and project these on the white board to socialise back to the class. This would have not only allowed for a degree of AfL to be employed, but would be a good way to ensure a good standard was achievable to all abilities.

In lesson 5, the students presented their slides to the class and the class gave a peer assessment of each group. Students were asked to say what they thought was good about the presentation, and what they thought could have improved it. Then they were asked to level the group’s performance. This was perhaps the most constructive part of these two lessons as I felt that most of the students were engaged with this task. Not surprisingly some of the comments were fairly harsh and had undertones of personal attacks rather than critical evaluation. Whilst I agreed with the majority of comments made by the students about their peers, it soon dawned on me that giving each group a level or grade was really arbitrary and meaningless. After a while, I myself (the teacher) could not decipher the difference between a 4M and a 4U, let alone how a class of 12 year olds should be expected to manage this.

It was clear to me during this lesson, that to make the peer assessment more effective and to also improve the research lesson itself, I should have not only included a success criterion, but also involved the students in developing this success criterion. Radiv Sidhu (2011) (NQT at The Warren School, Chadwell Heath, East London) reported great success with a GCSE class he worked with by putting them at the heart of developing their own learning outcomes and AfL techniques. Sidhu writes that “Fairgrieve (1949) is right in saying that: ‘no one likes to be taught.’ As such, the development of lesson sequences should focus upon students developing their own learning (be it independently, in pairs or in groups) while ensuring progression at the same time.” (Sidhu, 2011, p.60) Furthermore, given that this lesson was an F2 approach, it makes perfect sense for me to have also geared the AfL approach to also adopt the F2 philosophy. I did experience some success when I adopted this approach with year 8 class I was teaching when we looked at how we would grade an essay on Global Warming. The class had the opportunity to voice their concerns with what aspects they found the hardest and how we should mirror the grades against the more advanced concepts of Global Warming. I am convinced this had a direct impact of the quality and engagement of the students, and I agree with Sidhu who comments that: “effective AfL, where the focus is genuinely student-centred, can raise the motivation and achievement of students. This is due to an increase in the students’ engagement with relevant learning in the classroom (Stobart, 2008) that enables them to develop a deeper understanding of key concepts through socially constructed learning.” (Sidhu, 2011, p.60)

Lesson 7 (F3)

My intention for this lesson was to experiment with a different structure to the typical three episodes of starter, main and plenary. On reflection, until the Haiti lesson (Lesson 7), the Geography being taught and learnt in this scheme of work was not the always the most important activity going on in the classroom. Relationships were still being developed and whilst I may have ‘acted’ well and projected a persona of an experienced teacher, I was still somewhat naive as to quality of learning. I felt that I could get the students to ‘be on task’ and work to the activities set, but I also felt that there was a lack of real engagement and passion from the students. Whilst my lessons were well planned and contained good Geography (as was confirmed by my mentor – see appendix 2a) I didn’t feel as though I was doing the subject topic justice and felt that the students were missing out on such an important and dynamic topic. I certainly was not producing the kind of lessons I envisaged a year ago when I decided to become a teacher.

This lesson adopted an F3 approach by designing short and snappy activities that aimed to entice the students into wanting to take part as opposed to having to complete tasks. From beginning to end, this lesson on the Haiti earthquake did finally achieve all the things I mentioned above that I felt was lacking in previous lessons and produced the most wonderful lesson I have taught yet. (See appendix 3b for informal observation and 5b for lesson activities)

One of the reasons I think this F3 approach worked particularly well was the topic itself in that the Haiti earthquake (2010) is something that most of the students could recollect as opposed to the Kobe (1995) or San Francisco (1989) case studies where most students had not yet been born. It was something that was relevant to them and they could relate to, and also fits nicely into an F3 attribute of new and emergent knowledge. Another aspect that structured the lesson well was the one of the first things they were asked to do was to create a table with three columns. The first column stated what they already knew about the Haiti earthquake, the second what they would like to know, and the third what they have learnt about the Haiti earthquake. See the extract 2. below to see a student’s attempt at what is sometimes coined a KWL table. What I think is so effective about this task is that each student actively immerses themselves into the lesson from the beginning by providing their own set of learning objectives.

The activity that produced some of the most engaging class work from this year group was demonstrated by their undertaking of the mind movie activity. (see appendix 5b) This was where I narrated a beginning of a story to them portraying a scene when the earthquake had

Extract 2. An example of a student’s KWL table

just happened and they were then asked to finish the story. My initial hope in this task was for the students to demonstrate what happens during a serious earthquake (i.e. that buildings shake and collapse, utility networks are severed, people are killed or injured etc.) However, at least 2 students went one stage further and showed elements of developing what Michael Naish (1997) terms ‘people-environment’ geography, by displaying empathy (see extract 3.) This is an aspect in Geography that is often not given enough attention in its own right – it is something that is often dealt with in topics such as global citizenship – but developing humanistic values such as empathy is very much geographic as “the enquiry is seen to be significant and interesting because it is about the world they are living in and their future in this world . . . in this way, the people-environment approach can help to develop the political literacy of the students.” (Naish, 1997, p. 54)

Extract 3. Example of a student’s mind movie displaying empathy as well as understanding

Lesson 9 (F1)
This lesson was very much an F1 approach whereby almost all the resources were content driven from the Waugh and Bushell textbook Interactions (2006). It was also traditional in its rigid structure of starter, main, and plenary. The activities were not particularly inspired and the overall energy of the lesson was subdued. The one aspect to this lesson that lent some additional dimension was that it was as much about ‘place’ as it was about earthquakes. Earlier in the term (lesson 2 and 3), I received astonishing questions about the location of certain continents or countries such as “is India in America?” or “Where is Asia sir?” Thus, I was cognisant to rectify some of these basic misunderstandings about place and the map of the world. The students were asked to copy a map of India drawing on it the epicentre of the Gujarat earthquake also showing the seismic shock waves. The quality of these maps were greatly varied and I am not sure even the students who produced good maps really learnt that much. Extract 4. below illustrates one of the better maps drawn in the class, however, this student did not manage to mark where the epicentre was and although he has labelled ‘shock’ waves, he did not include this aspect either.

Extract 4. Student’s attempt at drawing a map of Gujarat earthquake in India

The main task was a mix of F1 and F3 approaches. The students were asked to watch a video clip that summarised the main aspects of the Gujarat earthquake as well as describing how a charity called Khalsa Aid had mobilised themselves in response to the devastation, and then to write a newspaper article as if they were reporting from the scene just hours after the earthquake struck. The students also had the aid of the textbook which contained some facts about the earthquake. The F1 aspects were to utilise and develop traditional education skills such reading, writing, and listening comprehension. The F3 aspects were that the video clip had a decidedly ‘Indian’ vibe to it as it was produced by Khalsa aid (Indian people helping people in India) and included authentic Indian music, contained lots of slogans in Hindi, and obviously showed many images of Indian culture. What I wanted to assess with this task was whether the students chose to employ an F1 piece of work (i.e. to basically copy the text from the textbook) or to opt for an F3 piece of work by including aspects that appreciated the sense of place that the video conveyed since the challenge to teaching about places “is to pay attention to, and reflect on, the geographical imagination that informs our teaching in the classroom.” (Lambert & Morgan, 2010, p.95)

It is fair to say that the majority of the students opted for the F1 style, which was to regurgitate from the textbook, as extract 5 displays.

Extract 5. Student’s class work of a newspaper article about the Gujarat earthquake

As mentioned earlier with the assessment for the volcano presentations, on reflection, this task would have benefited hugely by including some success criterion discussed beforehand which would have encouraged the students to ‘have a go’ at including some of the different cultural aspects (whether it be clothes, music, social gatherings, or architecture for example). It is interesting to see my own comments of extract 5. as ‘very good’ which does not mean much at all. If, however, we had had a classroom discussion on what would make a good newspaper report and collectively decided on a criterion, then my marking could have been far more formative and useful.

Conclusion
This essay has attempted to demonstrate how I planned, taught and evaluated a sequence of lessons using the F1, F2 and F3 pedagogical approaches described in the rationale. It was my intention to include a lot of F1 approaches as I felt that during my initial observations of lessons at this school that this element of traditional didactic teaching was missing and that the students’ ability to retain chunks of core knowledge content was lacking. However, whilst I still believe that this approach can be effective, it did not have the desired outcome I had wanted. Many of these tasks simply did not achieve the required engagement for students to actively learn the content. For example, in my year 10 class, I had begun the first few lessons by asking the students to complete a series of plate tectonic diagrams which had the labels blanked out. After several classes, the students were able to accurately label all the diagrams, however, when I presented them with slightly different looking plate tectonic diagrams, many of the students were unable to identify the correct labels (i.e. the only reason they were accurately labelling the first set of diagrams was because they had simply memorised which label went where on the diagram and not due to their comprehension of the geographic elements.) Also, as a teacher I often felt distant from F1 lessons, which is an important aspect when one considers how long a teacher’s career is and I do not want to slip into becoming an uninspired and disconnected teacher.

The F2 approach certainly can be an effective strategy to adopt especially when considering assessment for learning. Although my F2 efforts were not entirely successful, I can see how they could be if given a little more thought and by involving the students far more in the designing and creating stage. I do however think that F2 tasks are the more risky ones out of the 3 different approaches and if not careful can lead to slightly chaotic experiences.

In conclusion, it was the F3 approach that gave me the greatest success in this sequence of lessons, both from a students’ learning perspective and from my own sense of satisfaction. I felt that the engagement and passion generated by tasks that were open ended, divers and varied, and were up-to-date by exploring new themes of understanding was at it greatest. One thing that a teacher does require for an F3 approach to work successfully is to be viewed as an expert on the subject content. I do feel that my subject knowledge (or lack of) also had a bearing on how the first few lessons went as I was re-learning some of the concepts as the students were learning them for the first time. At the time I thought that this may be beneficial to the class as my interest level would surely be apparent by being a fresh and eager teacher. However, on reflection, it was perhaps my lack of knowledge particularly around which type of plates cause which natural disaster that left my teaching rather one dimensional. Towards the end of the scheme of work where my subject knowledge had exponentially increased, I was able to talk extensively about the case studies drawing on the content from the earlier lessons and the more theoretical aspects of the topic with ease. This can only have a positive effect on pupil engagement and I have learnt that gaining greater subject knowledge should never be underestimated, since it is not merely about presenting the necessary information for students to be able to answer exam questions correctly, it is also about the science of gaining their attention in the first place and being able to connect with them on a level that ruffles their innate curiosity about the world. I therefore, agree with Lambert and Balderstone’s words that, “forming productive relationships with young people . . . is made more possible when the teacher is able to form a productive and creative relationship with the subject matter. Subjects therefore are not best seen as ends in themselves.” (Lambert and Balderstone, 2010, p.23)

Bibliography 1. Lambert, D. and Jones, M. (2013) Debates in Geography Education. Oxon: Routledge 2. Waugh, D. and Bushell, T. (2006) New Key Geography: Interactions. Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Ltd 3. Lambert, D. and Morgan, J. (2010) Teaching Geography 11-18: A conceptual approach: Maidenhead. Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education 4. Lambert, D. and Balderstone, D. (2010) Learning to Teach Geography in the Secondary School: A companion to School Experience. Oxon: Routledge 5. Young, M. (2010) From Constructivism to Realism in the Sociology of Education: review of research in education 6. Roberts, M. (2003) Learning Through Enquiry: Making sense of Geography in the KS3 Geography Classroom. Sheffield: Geographical Association 7. Capel, S., Leask. M. and Turner, T. (2009) Learning to Teach in the Secondary School: A companion to School Experience. Oxon: Routledge 8. Sidhu, R. (2011) 'Why use AfL? Dusting off the black box', Teaching Geography (36,2) pp 58-60 9. Tilbury, D. and Williams, M. (1997) Teaching and Learning Geography. London: Routledge 10. Fisher, C. and Binns, T. (2000) Issues in Geography teaching. London: Routledge 11. Butt, G. (2011) Geography, Education and the Future. London and New York: Continuum International Publishing Group

APPENDIX
APPENDICES:
1. Lesson plans 2. Lesson observations 3. Lesson self-evaluations 4. Pupils work 5. Lesson activity materials / resources

Appendix 1 – lesson plan example Lesson Plan | Date: | 7/11/12 | Period: | 3 | Group: | 9fg | Unit Theme: | Earthquakes and Volcanoes | Lesson Title: Where do Volcanoes and Earthquakes happen? |

Lesson Aim: * Pupils are able to describe, explain and illustrate that earthquakes and volcanoes occur where plate boundaries meet | Lesson Objectives: By the end of the lesson: 1. All pupils should be able to describe where Volcanoes and Earthquakes happen 2. All pupils should be able to explain that there are spatial patterns where Volcanoes and Earthquakes occur 3. Most of you will be able to illustrate on map where the main plate boundaries exist 4. Some of you will be able to apply of this knowledge and independently write a paragraph using all the keywords learnt in the lesson | How is this lesson developing students’ geography? 1. It offers a simple but fundamental model of the earth’s spatial history as it evolves from Pangaea 2. Informational and educational video clips illustrate the mechanics of the earth’s plate movements 3. It provides appropriate maps and activities for pupils to recognise and identify the earth’s plate margins 4. It is a starting point for the pupils to begin to appreciate natural hazards and provides a sound geographic context by introducing key terms and processes | Geography key words: * Plate tectonics, plate boundaries, Pangaea, convection current, zones of activity, ring of fire, tsunami, | Cross-curricular learning: * Science – geology, physics, chemistry (to do with earth’s structure and plate movement), English (some creative), map skills (potentially crossing with maths and art) | Resources needed: 1. Text Book - New Key Geography (Foundations) pp. 28-29 2. You tube video clips i) Pangaea through to 200miilion years into the future ii) Earth’s structure and convection currents iii) Indonesian Tsunami 2004 3. World Map worksheet with plate boundaries drawn on | Advance Preparation/Action Points: 1. Introduction of myself and my expectations for the remainder of the year |

Teaching activity | Time | Pupil learning activity | Learning Objective | Picture Starter * Aims to settle the class * Expectation that simple tasks such as copying from the board should be completed quickly and in silence * To allow me some time to assess and evaluate the class dynamics | 5-10 mins | * Competence in following instructions * Speed and accuracy in writing * Writing discipline | 111 | Outline Lesson Concepts and Objective * Provides pupils with a visual and descriptive agenda of the lesson * Provides pupils with an idea of the grading system * Provides expectations of achievement by the end of the lesson | 5 mins | * Listening to concepts | 1 | Video Starter * Explain the task which is meant to stimulate some creative thinking as it is not a right or wrong exercise * Aims to engage students with the immensity of this topic * To establish a relaxed, safe and enjoyable environment for students to learn | 5-7 mins | * To think independently about their world and to express themselves | 1, 21,2 | Feedback discussion * To facilitate an engaging discussion about the earth’s spatial history * To illustrate that the lessons will be exclusive and participatory | 5 mins | * Self-confidence, articulation, and expressive skills * Peer assessment (peer feedback) | 1,2 | Mini Activity * To play 2nd video * To instruct members of the class to read out aloud * To assess reading standards | 5-10 mins | * To listen and comprehend the basic mechanics of the earth’s structure * To read accurately and audibly to the class | 1,2 | Main Activity * To handout world map worksheets and explain the task | 15 mins | * Follow instructions * To indentify the plate boundaries on a world map from an existing map which is not orientated in the usual way. i.e. The Americas are in the centre of the map they are using to complete their worksheet * To begin to appreciate the spatial patterns of where earthquakes and volcanoes exist | 1,2,3,4 | Extension * An additional worksheet to be handed out to those students who have correctly completed their map | 5-10 mins | * To demonstrate a sound understanding of the lesson’s outcomes and to independently illustrate this literally | 1,2,3,4 | Plenary * Multiple choice quiz on the content of this lesson * Read out questions * Aim to assess how the first lesson went and which activities gained the greatest retention of knowledge | 10 mins | * To demonstrate a process of learning by answering questions * Aims to enthuse students by showing them how much they have learnt already | 1,2,3,4 |

Assessment (with reference to objectives): * Given that this will be the first lesson I teach with this year group: * The main assessment will take place in the plenary by asking for a show of hands for a range of correct answers * To assess which questions most students got wrong and see if there is a generic reason for this – i.e. pedagogical approach etc. | Action points to follow up: * |

Appendix 2 – Lesson Observation a) Lesson 3 – Formal observation

A Member of the London Providers Partnership
Lesson Observation: Part 1 notes

This form is for use during the lesson observation. A standards prompt sheet is provided to assist the observer. Key information from this sheet should be used to write the Lesson Observation Summary Form.

Trainee | Marcus | School | CBSC | Class | Year 9 | Date | 13/11/12 | Observer | KPierce | Lesson time | Period 2 | Lesson Theme | Volcanoes |

Main Focus of Observation:ST4 / ST5Manage behaviour effectively to ensure a good and safe learning environment. |

Starter: * Good start activity which engaged students. Most students in class were talking about the work at hand * Try to make sure that books are handed out to students as soon as possible, although, I know this was difficult due to the late lesson start for you (lesson before hand finishing late). * Good walking around the class * Excellent voice projection! Very impressed with this, works well with year 9 in particular * Just be aware of timing for the starter, ensure it doesn’t last too long

Main activity: * ST7: Good class presence, voice projection good and students respect you! * ST4: Excellent peer assessment, really had students engaged * Good afl technique at start of lesson * ST4: Good, glad to see you can ensure you know where students are up to and also how they are progressing * ST7: Nice calm learning atmosphere, students respond well to instructions * STExcellent account of levels / success criteria with students, perhaps ask them to write their level in their books (they should know which level they are working at). * Good video with good music to attract attention * Ensure that you summarise this video as a few low ability in class, was a little too fast for them to follow. * Good you asked students to summarise as a class before doing this yourself, good group participator * If students aren’t sure what to say, prompt them with a question and state the level, so you can say, ‘this is a level 3/4 question, state the processes that lead to the eruption of mt st helens etc. * Ask students to highlight the key terms as you go along through the table with them. * ST1: Good, following up on sanctions, now students respect you, follow up with praise stating excellent presentation etc * Good, praise has now been followed up with students * Good stating GCSE terms to students, praising them for work working with and introducing these terms * Perhaps get students to have an interactive part to the lesson, get them doing a card sort where they sort the information into the table and then glue into their book or on the worksheet. This saves you a little time and helps to tick the sheet where one of the learning types has been catered for. If you did do this you can print off the statements and get students to cut them out themselves. * Good checking that students understand what needs to be done before progressing onto video * Watch timing for the video * Remember, sometimes, a simple topic, what you actually covered can be a very good lesson. Keeping it simple, can work. Ensures students understand the lesson / topic covered * Afl, greater use of afl in class would be good, * ST5: I liked how you changed you plan for the lesson and decided to use the video as a plenary to cover some of the lesson content but also preparing students for next lesson * Remember to try and get students or give students time in lesson to glue in worksheets

b) Haiti (lesson 7) – Informal observation
Hey Marcus,

(Jane this lesson worked really well)

Marcus, I’ve e-mailed the response to Rachel K as she was in the lesson too, but if you can forward the lesson to all 3 of us, I really liked the content and the boys were unbelievably quiet and completely engaged in the lesson itself.

Rachel W, just wanted you to know this was an amazing lesson!

Feedback for year 9 period 2;
 Good settling of class.
 Good afl technique with the kwl table What I know about… | What I would like to know… | What I have learnt about the… | | | |
 Perhaps get the table printed out so it can be glued straight into the books (saves time)
 Good praising of students answers
 Students help to set their own targets (as well as being aware of the success criteria) at the start of the lesson using column 2 – excellent!
 Good empathy as students completed the story… (mind movie)
 Excellent use of resources and pictures, giving students the end result photo and asking them to work backwards to ascertain what had happened
 Liked the maps from memory activity, completely engaged the boys who were determined to memorise the Haiti island in detail… good timing given to students and made them concentrate
 News clip of the Haiti earthquake was good (at the same time you pointed out that this would help answer some of the targets set by the students themselves)
 Short snappy activities, perfectly timed kept the students attention and on task throughout
 Good plenary where students showed progress with completing the third column on the kwl table (some students had written 8 statements into their table)

Was a pleasure observing the lesson.

Thanks
Kev

Appendix 3 – Self-evaluation
Example of self-evaluation (Lesson 2)
Self-Reflection:

Overall, this lesson went reasonably smoothly, with no major disruption and most of the class were on task for most of the lesson.

What went well:
The video starter was probably the greatest success in the lesson as I genuinely felt that all students were engaged with the visual aid about how the earth began and how it could end up in millions of years to come. I also felt that they thought more individually about this task than the others as you could see their minds thinking. Also most wanted to say something during the feedback session. I think this achieved the aim to entice them about the topic and I think it also struck a good balance of providing ‘core’ content and progressive participatory learning. The fact that there was no right or wrong answers I am sure made this task more appealing.

What didn’t go so well:
The main activity proved to be quite challenging for a lot of the students which was a surprise as it was really a simple exercise of identifying areas on a world map. Perhaps the instructions could have been more explicit in that they could have alluded to the fact that the map there were working from was orientated in an unorthodox way – however, this would have taken the ‘challenging’ element out of the task and would have been a simple copying task.

The intro starter of copying a few bullet points from the board also proved to be less engaging (no surprises) but it did settle most of the class down to start with. There was however, a lot of complaining about writing so much and ‘my hand hurts sir’. I did suspect that this type of activity would not be overly favourable but also feel that this class and the school as a whole should be faced with these types of tasks occasionally. I almost feel as of sometimes the students take for granted some of the more fun activities and whilst they are engaging, these activities do not always convey the core content and fall short in the information being retained.

Appendix 4 – Pupils work a) Example of the best quality volcano presentation

b) Example of lowest quality volcano presentation

Appendix 5 – Lesson activity materials/resources a) Volcano presentation structure given for the students to follow (Lesson 4)

b) Lesson 7 Activities