Secondary Psychology - Do they ‘get’ the topic? (aka. medium term planning for progress)

It is important to plan for progress at a medium term level as the new OFSTED framework places a specific emphasis on evidencing pupil progress. This means not only over the course of a key stage, but also within lessons and over time.

Each subject necessarily has its own way of doing this, but within Psychology I was particularly keen to develop something which was useful to students and teachers alike. I was also keen not to have to spend too long developing the system and because of time constraints I also wanted to ensure it was an easy method to use in class.

What do we do?

I, along with my departmental colleagues, developed a system which teachers use when they have delivered a whole topic. In our centre, that’s about every half term.

Step 1: Highlight what the student knows (or not)

Students are given the topic progress sheet to look through in class (an example for the Approaches section of AQA Spec B is available to download here). We use one of these for each topic and the content is exactly the content of the specification. This ensures students are familiar with the potential wording of the exam questions.

Students are then given 3 different coloured highlighters. We encourage them to look carefully through the content and highlight (with one of the highlighters) parts of the content they feel they know well, and can evaluate in detail. This would be equivalent to an A grade skill level.

They then do the same with the second colour highlighter and identify which areas they know reasonably well. That should equate to a B/C standard.

The final colour should be used for areas they only have a basic understanding of, so this would gain them a D or E grade in the exam.

Step 2: Identify areas to focus on

Students are then asked to see what the predominant colour is, that should give them the sense of what they will get in that topic (although of course it depends on the questions set). They can at least target their revision wisely by tackling their problem areas first.

Step 3: Identify areas teachers need to focus on

We collect the sheets in from the students and look at them to see if we, as teachers, need to target any areas specifically. Patterns of areas where classes are less confident can occur and that helps us target any revision we might do with them. We then hand the sheet back to the students for them to put it in their files.

The system works and helps show areas where progress is less good. We’ve also found it to be teacher and student friendly. It’s also OFSTED friendly and the sheets can be compiled really quite quickly... always a bonus!

.

Eleanor Hills

Subject Leader Psychology and Sociology

Roundhay School

Secondary Psychology - Quizzes!

Quick quizzes are brilliant at any part of the lesson and a quick convenient way of measuring progress. The new OFSTED framework emphasises progress over time and within lessons. The quiz format provides an excellent strategy for demonstrating ‘rapid progress’ which can be an awkward thing to demonstrate visibly (i.e. so an inspector can see it in an observation) within an hour of teaching.

Examples

These measure progress at speed. Just how fast is entirely up to you.

1) On the spot quiz

They can also be compiled as quickly as you can think, for example you can say… “Quick quiz!… write 1 to 5 down your margin…Number 1… Name a behaviourist psychologist…”

2) Give me 5!

A snappy lesson starter where you ask 5 questions about the last lesson's content will pull the students thinking into context.

3) Mid lesson quiz

“ Cover your notes…Name 3/5/7 defence mechanisms ( for example)” will work well half way through your lesson and consolidates learning.

4) To finish
As a plenary, a less precise “Write down 3 key facts you’ve learnt today” works well.

To save time planning your plenary you can try asking students to write one “question for the quizmaster” each on a post it note from the lesson to ask the other students. They have to think about their learning, but the real plus is that it requires no planning. You get a variety of questions to ask, and they know they will know the answer to at least one of the quiz questions! Of course this depends on your class size. You’ll struggle if teaching 20+ and may have to be selective with the questions. I sometimes find there’s repetition anyway so not all questions are read out.

Never mark a quiz… you can ask them to mark each others or their own and give a show of hands for their score at the end. Save yourself time, I’m sure you can fill it!

And so to prizes. There’s the healthy budget option, the unhealthy budget option or the sweet stuff…

• Healthy budgets can be spent on psychology related goods… just search for ‘psychology stuff’ on the internet and you’ll find brain sweets, Freud lollipops, badges etc.
• Unhealthy budgets can be tricky but in our department there is an assortment of cheap prizes… car boot sale/ charity shop goods ( e.g. a copy of Free Willy for a debates quiz), budget half price crackers (though these may now have disappeared from the shops), Happy Meal toys and even a 2 day extension for the homework have all proved popular in the past.
• You can always resort to the sweet brown goodies. After all who doesn’t like chocolate?!

Eleanor Hills

Subject Leader Psychology and Sociology

Roundhay School

Secondary Psychology - How to learn studies

“Not another study to learn Miss…”

Many students complain about the number of studies they have to learn for the examination. There are things they can do to ease the process of prioritising and memorising. Here are some activities/ strategies to answer those FAQs…

FAQ Number 1 :Which ones do I need Miss?
Some boards specify which studies students need, some boards don’t. If you are teaching one that leaves it to you, then students find it easier if they have a minimum studies list provided. I do this in the form of a mind map that specifies the name of the study, what it can be used as support for and, if I’m feeling kind, a page reference. I usually set a homework for them to complete the sheet. Testing them on the details in a quick quiz ensures they learn it fully too

FAQ Number 2 : What’s the name of that man that did... again Miss?
Names are another issue for students. They are not vital, but save valuable time in an exam so less detail is needed to identify the study. They can however prove to be a nightmare to recall. I find using dingbats or a visual cue helps. It’s a great revision class activity to get them to come up with cues in pairs.

FAQ Number 3 : What did they do again Miss?
A way to ensure they understand and process the procedure in an experiment or study is to get the students to become cartoonists and draw a cartoon of what happened in the experiment. They may resist initially but when they realise that stick men are sufficient they are happy to give it a go. This method works equally well for any processes such as treatments or therapies (Stress Inoculation therapy, systematic desensitisation etc)

FAQ Number 4 : But what did they find Miss? 
Good old repetition works for the findings. Incorporating the figures into the final stage of the cartoon (on the t-shirts of the stick men for example) can also work well. The figures need to be close to the actual figure to be credited so the students are aiming to remember a ‘ball park’ figure. Examiners don’t quibble generally if the percentage varies by one or two percent.

Try these strategies out in class as plenaries or in those pre exam revision sessions. There’s an extra bonus in none of them require marking. Always good news!

Eleanor Hills
Subject Leader Psychology and Sociology
Roundhay School

Secondary Social Sciences - Recap lesson carousel

Information served six ways (or five)...

This lesson evolved from a discussion with a colleague about how we can ask students to recap their knowledge thoroughly, but without endless exam questions and essays. What emerged was so successful that I did it to death that week with my other Sociology and Psychology classes.

The basic premise of the lesson is that you have a topic or some key sociological issues, arguments or a perspective that you need to recap. I used it to recapture the key arguments and evidence for secularisation in the UK, a topic within Beliefs in Society (A2).

Armed with pieces of paper – each featuring a different issue - I arrange six stations in the room and place on them said pieces of paper. Then, I get the students into six groups (or five, depends on what you’ve got to cover) and seat them at a table. Their aim is to recount everything they know about that topic via a particular medium, which you present nice and clear on the interactive whiteboard. After the allotted time and suitable feedback, they rotate and go to a different table where they have to present a different issue in a different way. This way, they are revising all the key ideas/concepts, but through different means.  It’s student led and it gives you an opportunity to further question the understanding of your students and present them with some higher order questions. Best of all, it can make memorable some often long-forgotten key theories and concepts.

Here are some of the six ways that students can present, with some suggestions about how long for each.  Have these on the board at all times for focus. So, put simply: Students present different information in the same way, then they rotate to a new table, you flip the page and give them a new medium through which to feedback.

1. A frozen image (2 minutes):  Hello Year 7 Drama. Students create a freeze frame that depicts the issue/theory.
   
   
2. A picture or sketch that embodies a theory (3-4 minutes):  Some students get really abstract, others are more literal. One pair took a difficult concept like structural differentiation and drew a picture of a large church, with another, much smaller church underneath it. Surrounding the smaller church were schools, counselling surgeries, a registry office and family planning clinic. Simple, but so effective.
   
   
3. A summary in no more than 30 words (3-4 minutes):  Because sometimes it’s important to get to the point.
   
   
4. A song, rhyme or rap (6-7 minutes):  I have been frequently astounded by both the quality and ingenuity of these (see below).
   
   
5. A role play (6-7 minutes):  This is perhaps the one that students find most embarrassing, but successful ones hammer home the key ideas well. Two boys in one class acted out ‘rationalisation’ by performing a doctor/patient sketch (“Thank you Doctor Weber, now I realise that my heart attack was of course caused by poor diet and smoking and not a demon inhabiting my body”).
   
   
6. An example (2-3 minutes):  Important for those AO2 skills of interpretation and analysis, ask students to provide an example of this theory in action. One girl made a solid link between Bruce’s idea of cultural defence and the Iranian revolution of 1979; others linked rationalisation to Darwinism and Dawkins.
   
   
7. An evaluation of the theory/concept (5-6 minutes):  This is a good one to finish on. You could specify strengths or weaknesses, or ask for both. An important AO2 skill.

At the end of the activity, ask students to vote for the groups which they thought were the most inventive or detailed, give them a round of applause and collate their work as a mini-recap guide that you can photocopy for students. Obviously you can’t photocopy a role-play, but you could take a picture of the frozen images and use them for visual revision aids.

Aside from being used as recap, this approach has also worked particularly well for evaluating research or key theories.  In this case, each table might feature a different evaluation point. It’s worked especially well in Psychology lessons as a collaborative activity that enables students to assess a key study. In this case, get five or six groups of students (pairs is ok too for smaller classes) and arrange the zones – each with different evaluative issues this time. For example: Generalisability; Reliability; Application and Usefulness; Validity, Ethics and the Research Method. Using their knowledge of the key study, students must focus on that one particular issue and apply it to the study at hand.  You use the same methods as listed above and feedback and rotate in exactly the same way.

I’ll leave you with perhaps one of my favourite moments as a teacher that emerged from one of these tasks last year. One Y12 group were examining a study and were criticising the methodology, which happened to be a quantitative measure. They decided to present their critique as an R&B love ballad in the style of Mariah Carey. Tears of laughter streamed down my face as they warbled, with backing vocals and utter sincerity, the final lines below:

"The truth isn’t always revealed,

validity is lacked

data can be unwieldy, hard to keep to keep track.

Good for statistics, 

but otherwise inept,

not enough detail, not enough depth."

Christopher Stump
Sociology and Psychology teacher
Park High School, Harrow

All A Level - AS to A2 essays

AS to A2… Making the leap

Around this time of year I am marking the first couple of A2 essays from my Year 13 students who have negotiated the first hurdle of AS level successfully. It is rare to find a student who produces an A2 mark on a par with their AS grade this early on into the year. This can make students demoralised.

To write longer essays in an AS style is insufficient, the evaluation needs to be more developed.

I try to address this issue by using the last 10 minutes of a lesson to do activities I’ve named as ‘The Perfect Paragraph’ and ‘Last Man Talking’

The Perfect Paragraph
All you need to do for this is present a series of paragraph stems and get them choose one from the list to develop further. Making the stems increasingly more difficult gives gifted students a chance to challenge themselves.

An example of a stem in A2 Psychology would be:
‘It can be argued that schizophrenia is at least partly due to genetics because…’

You can then check the paragraphs and choose good examples to read out in class.

Last Man Talking
‘Last Man Talking’ can use the same stems but involves getting the students to work in pairs. I ask them, as a plenary, to take it in turns in developing the stem, so they compile a good in depth evaluation point between them. The point of the activity is for students to be the last person to speak before they finish on that particular point.

Using the previous stem as an example, the conversation might go:

Arthur: ‘ …research by Gottesman showed that identical twins had a higher level of concordance, indicating a genetic influence…’
Betty: ‘…however the rate was not 100% which suggests that environment also plays a part…’
Arthur: ‘…using twin studies to support the argument is seen by some to be a problem as it is thought that identical twins are treated more similarly than non identical, so the difference in concordance rates could be due to treatment rather than genetics.’
Betty: ‘… I give up!’

(Note - I’ve edited all the 'Umm's and 'Ahh's from this, also many students wouldn’t remember Gottesman’s name! Arthur has the memory of an elephant.)
 
You’ll know which activity will work better with your students. It should build their confidence and raise their marks.

Bring on the January exams…

Eleanor Hills
Subject Leader Psychology and Sociology
Roundhay School

A Level Psychology - Memory crossword

Here's something useful to help your students who are revising Memory, as part of Cognitive Psychology.

Get your class to have a go at this crossword on Memory in every day life.  The answers are on page 2 so no peaking!

Download and have a go now to see who's got all the answers or who needs to do a bit more revision.

Julia
Collins Education blog