How do you know what you don’t know? - Issue #29
Operational notes
There are four weeks left in school until the Winter Break and all that brings. Quite a lot to get done between now and then - but at least there are Christmas markets and Vin Chaud to enjoy!
All Geographers
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It is that time of year for students to be completing university and college applications. Some of your students may have expressed an interest in studying geography (well done you!). Those students need to read Why Study Geography? [affiliate link] by the industrious past president of the Geographical Association Alan GeoBlogs Parkinson. Your school library should have copies, you should have a copy, and we even have a copy or two in each of the Geography classrooms.
IB DP Geographers
The explicit mention of “infographic” has been removed from the “Syllabus outline” of the Diploma Programme Geography guide . In the description of SL and HL assessments, the word “infographic” has been removed for paper 2 section B. This now states “Visual stimulus with structured questions 10 marks”.
Teachers should note that any visual stimulus can be used, including infographics. Other possible visual stimuli include graphs, diagrams, cartographic material and images, as listed in the guide. A combination of stimuli can also be included.
The purpose of this modification is to allow teachers and students to engage with the critical analysis of a wider variety of visual stimuli. The format of the structured questions and the assessment objectives remain unchanged.
The updated guide can be found on the Programme Resource Centre.
This will not really impact exams. The change is just meant to reframe the expectation: until now, the guide stated "infographic or visual stimuli".
Teachers should see this section as the one where students critically analyse visual stimuli.
Updates
geographyalltheway.com was featured in the Discover the World Education newsletter last week - which is nice! To sign up for the DTWE E-News visit their homepage and then scroll down to the bottom.
Twitter may be about in implode - or at least major changes are afoot. Therefore, because I like this sort of thing and 'just in case' I have created three Mastodon accounts; one for geographyalltheway.com, one for IB DP Geography and one for me. The links are below. Mastodon is interesting - but appears a little more complex than Twitter due to the need to join an 'instance'. To use Mastodon you need to choose an instance on which to create your account - but you can still follow and messages others using different instances.
Just to help those interested in what Mastodon is all about →
Random
Geography trivia and augmented reality - what's not to like! Maybe some fun to have with others during the approaching festive season.
I first found out about GeoGeek AR via Richard Byrne at Free Technology for Teachers. If you don't already - you need to follow Free Technology for Teachers - it's a must.