Report on “Practical strategies for succeeding in geography exams” with Mark Jones, UWE.

On Tuesday 10th April 2018, 6 – 8pm, A level students from a range of secondary schools attended an evening of practical hands-on approaches to revising for their Geography AS and A level examinations. Mark Jones , the PGCE Geography Tutor at UWE, supported by 14 PGCE Geography students, actively engaged students with a range of tasks that included: Working with command words; students becoming A level examiners and setting their own examination questions, analysing visual images; ‘graphs from memory’ activity; structuring answers to 20 mark questions; making sense of topics through hexagons.
In addition to students engaging in revision activities, they were able to have informative conversations with the PGCE trainee teachers about their routes into studying geography as a degree at undergraduate level and their decisions to become geography teachers. For the A level students this allowed them to see the rich diversity of geography and geography-related degrees that universities offer.

Here are the students’ post-it note evaluations that sum up the positive experience:
“Liked the revision-type examples”
“Really helpful evening”
“Very involved”
“Good alternative revision strategies”
“Good; Very Interactive”
“Very Informative”
“Very useful to have student teachers”
“Good mix of case studies and revision; making it fun”
“Liked the participation”
“Liked the command word activities and help with essay structure and conclusions”
“Hexagons I liked and will take away”
“Liked the group work and working with a UWE trainee”
“Brilliant, Thank you”