Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Action Research Palava

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Some of our interests Effective use of exercise books Revision strategies and intervention Modelling Cognitive dissonance

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Science revision - what is it in practice?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Overview I wanted to know how pupils were preparing for exams and what I could do to facilitate their revision and improve their exam performance.

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Starting point…. It was obvious on ‘book return day’ that the majority of pupils had not appeared to have ever referred to their textbooks It appeared that pupils favoured ‘revision guides’ and did not refer back to their class notes.

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Was this the case? In light of the changes to the GCSE specifications – should we buy text books that would be ‘unused’? Or should we invest in revision guides only? Cost GCSE textbook £3000 Cost revision guide and workbook £500 Saving £2500 Cost AS and A2 textbook £3500 Cost revision guide and workbook £400 Total Saving £5600

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 So how do you revise? Asked – KS4 pupils Year 11 pupils who had just prepared for Mock Examinations (2008 cohort) Year 10 pupils who had just sat module examination. (2008 cohort) Follow up data – now they have sat GCSEs

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 The findings…

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009

Surprises? Significant majority of pupils worked through their ‘workbook’ independently More using exercise books than previously thought How did my practice change?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 What do you use most?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 So what have we done? Developed a range of tasks to help pupils when using their revision guides E.g. Choose a diagram from any page of your revision guide and then describe it in words

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Increasing the A-A* pass rate through active learning How have I changed my practice?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009

Pupils Wanted More Games Instant feedback More mocks

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Traffic light books Making more effective use of revision guides Learning Talks Intranet Active revision Some of the revision strategies

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Follow up questionnaires Year 11 (2009)

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Year 11 post GCSE (2009)

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Any changes?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 What do you use most?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Any changes?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 AGS vs NonAGS

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Cross School Analysis

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Where next Develop own use mind maps (Petty) Questionnaires Year 12 (Original 2007 cohort)

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 Does it matter if we don’t have textbooks? A*-CA-A* %66% %90% BiologyChemistryPhysics Post – 16 Option Uptake % pupils choosing subjects Any Questions?

Penny Robotham 26 th June 2009 More info? sciencevideobank.wikispaces.com sciencevideobank.wikispaces.com / sciencevideobank.wikispaces.com