Its more than a Modern World History GCSE revision site
John D Clare is a prolific textbook writer, his latest textbook is for the AQA Modern World, this Heinemann published book is part of the new generation of textbooks, but this is not all, the website, which is also well established provides a much needed extra dimension for GCSE.
John will admit to teaching for a number of years, this site provides support and practical advice for students and teachers, John shares his experience. The huge advantage of this site is that one does not need to be taking the AQA course to take advantage of this experience, the advice to teachers is used by experienced teachers as well as newbies, the advice to pupils is clear and concise.
I have used some of the activities and quizzes on the site,despite not taking AQA or Modern World, the self-test activities can be used with KS3 & A Level Students, as they are can be used as they are or as foundations for later activities, I have certainly steered my GCSE & A Level students towads this site, to use it as a tool for good revision. I will also continue to use the site to stucture my courses and revsion activities for my students.
An exiting video, overview & timeline resource
Andrew Chater is one of those skilled artisans who’s work is more famous than him. I feel sure most History educators are familar with the Historyfile series, which have become the standard documentary in History Classrooms, especially the five Nazi Germany documentaries of which the ‘Geordie Nazi’ is the most famous, these are the work of Andrew Chater.
Less well know are the Timelines series: Ruler and Ruled 1066-1660, Power to the People 1688-1928, Empire 1290-1948 and Changing Lives 1066-1984, they provide a thematic approach to British History, fitting into the new approach to History teaching very well. they are of a very high standard, (Andrew received a BAFTA in 2006 for the third in this series).
The website here adds to these programmes, providing additional information and materials, billed as an online-resource it can be given to students for research, or used as a classroom resources, as the transcripts from the programmes can be downloaded.
With pressure on teaching time growing, this resource can provided the overview which is becoming squeezed or sometimes overlooked, and with such a range, most aspects of British History is covered.
Putting the Thinking into History
http://www.thinkinghistory.co.uk/
Anyone lucky enough to see Ian Dawson at History CPD conferences, and especially the Saturday evening session at the SHP conference, will be familiar with his active learning techniques. This site began as a place to highlight this work, but it has grown into much more than this now, providing teaching resources of all types and styles.
I have used a number of the resources myself for GCSE and A Level, and have a couple of my activities on the site. One aspect of A Level especially, and GCSE to some extent, is the pressure to concentrate on ‘chalk & talk’, these active learning activities can be taken straight off the site and used, or one can use the ideas and adapt them to one’s own circumstances.
I would reccommend this site highly, I generally dip into it every month or two, and usually find something to inspire me towards a lesson activity.
A tool to make 3D Timelines
One of the challenges of the GCSE History option SHP is the length of the development study. Students look at an aspect of History (either Crime or Medicine) over an extended period of History, usually from the Prehisttoric to the present. I was looking for something which my students could refer back to, as well as continually update. I used Google Sketchup as I had found most other timelines got ‘clogged up’ after the 18th Century, there was just too much information in the latter part of the timeline to enable a balanced and accurate timeline. I feel sure this tool can also be used for KS3 and A Level students to produce useful timelines.
read more...»Schools History Project Website
The SHP promotes History as a subject and a discipline, it provides one of the two GCSE History options. The SHP website is in the process of re-construction, but does contain a number of teaching ideas and activities from leading proponents. The website provides information on the structure of the SHP; its regional advisers and fellows. The website also provides information on the conferences and educational publications which have become such an inspiration to History educators. I feel this site will become one of the essential websites for History teachers.
http://www.schoolshistoryproject.org.uk/
