I know many people feel the new AQA specification is overloaded – so I decided to conduct a rough comparison of the old and new specifications by comparing the number of spreads in the old and new Complete Companions . Each spread roughly equals one essay topic. What I found is in the table below. The option topics […]
Read moreWhile most know it as ‘DEAR time’, I would be inclined to refer to this Literacy initiative as Role Modelling Reading. Though the focus is on the students reading, my belief is that it is what the adults around them are doing that will really make DEAR time effectual. It was during my role […]
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By now you are probably acutely aware of the fact that GCSE Psychology is changing and I’m sure many of you are busy planning and preparing for teaching the new specifications when your students return in September. So while you are working hard on writing your new schemes of work, planning lessons and developing resources, […]
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Late July and August, you’ll often find me settled in a deck chair, enjoying the sunshine and summer breeze on my skin, cool drink in one hand, book in the other. Bliss! The book will almost certainly be a psychology title, and every so often it leads me to reflect upon and ponder life a […]
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Milgram’s obedience studies are amongst the most famous in all of psychology and taught to all psychology students. But if you think you know all about them, chances are that a new film from shortcuts tv, Beyond Milgram, will get you thinking again. When Professors Alex Haslam and Steve Reicher asked samples of psychology students […]
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It’s with an element of retrospective frustration that I regard my early years of teaching. Keen to learn the trade and to teach as well as possible, I kept my head down, taught 5-6 lessons a day, planned and marked almost exclusively alone and all within the same four walls. I often passed up opportunities […]
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“Fieldwork makes geography come to life, puts everything into context in glorious 3D and helps students really grasp how geography literally shapes the world around us.” Kate Humble, BBC Springwatch presenter (taken from Parkinson, 2009) It doesn’t take long to persuade a geography teacher of the benefits of fieldwork and even less time to encourage […]
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Every September, a special event takes place at Harvard University. Scientists gather in the Sanders Theatre for the Ig Nobel Prize Ceremony. If you haven’t come across this before then check it out. The Ig Nobels are like real Nobel prizes except that they are given to science that makes you laugh and then makes you think. At […]
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Psychology is an amazing subject to teach. Whether you are teaching GCSE or supervising a PhD, we are lucky enough to spend our days understanding how people think, feel and behave. Psychology is a popular subject with students, and it is easy to engage them in understanding how mental health conditions are treated, or how […]
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I could not do my job without my science technicians. They have my back when I have forgotten things, they trial experiments and they are always on hand to help me develop new kinaesthetic ways to teach. Four years ago, my lab technician Bev Lewell pulled me aside and asked for a favour. She had […]
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