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I don’t know if anyone reading this teaches AS Soclology, but in case you do, a couple of things I’ve produced this term that might be useful. They all relate to the AQA Spec and the topic has been Family. All files are Word Docs.

Quick on the draw for Social Policy and the family

Social Policy Grid (provide students with a blank grid and a copy of the boxes, they need to work out which box goes where. Solution is included for teacher reference!)

Study cards for childhood – should be printed back to back. 22? studies with a summary of their ideas. I encouraged students for who this approach worked to create their own.

A couple of people on the school history forum have mentioned in the past about setting up online revision sessions via MSN for year 11 pupils during study leave. My problem is slightly different – 50 AS Level students with an exam on the 9th January and plenty of revision to do over Christmas and me with little confidence that many of them will put in the work they need to do as well as they can.

My solution? Every couple of days for the last week I’ve been emailing them with the ‘quickcheck’ questions from the textbook. I’m hoping that these will not only provide a reminder that among the festivities they should be revising, but also provide a framework for those that need it – if they can answer the questions I send them they should have a good basis for their exam.

I won’t know until next week how sucessful it’s been. One problem I can see is that I’ve been emailing their school email addresses, which I suspect may remain unchecked during the holiday. Still, if it helps one or two of them it will have been worthwhile!

Image Credit: 7321 by c.a.muller

Quite a few of the next few posts will be focused on some of the things I’ve been trying with my AS Level Sociology class over the last term. One of those was using Bubbl.us to put together a collaborative mind map of one of the topics we were working on.

Why?
It became clear that one of the problems for the students was seeing the big picture. I was hoping that this would allow them all to produce one section of the diagram, and receive a full one in return.

How did it work?
One class I was able to get into a computer room and get set up, the other I demoed in the classroom and sent the students away to try themselves. This second class pretty much failed. In the end we did a version in class using post-it notes.
To get the pupils onto the shared sheet, I invited them all via an email to their school email account. However, with the class in the computer room I discovered that Bubbl.us doesn’t allow simulationious editing, and so the whole process ground to a halt. Around half the class were able to get on and add their bubbles, the rest emailed their content to me and I added it.

So it failed?
Not really. The finished product was good, although the process by which we ended up with it ended up hinging on them emailing things to me to add. The thing that did surprise me was how unwilling or unable the students were to work out this ‘new’ site by themselves.

Would you do it again?
Yes. Sort of! If I was to repeat the activity I would have got them logged in and creating their own first, to get them used to the site and the interface, and then tried to create a collaberative one.