Authenticity...

Preparing for one of the final CPD sessions I'm doing before it's the summer, and getting ready for heading back into the classroom.
I'm doing a Teacher's Day for the Prince's Teaching Institute in London tomorrow (hope the temperature cools down a little...)
I've put together a practical session, which will involve delegates working on some contexts for teaching about case studies, and to make them more 'authentic'.

Authentic learning is an interesting area.
I've got my own thoughts on what I mean by authentic...
It's related to the idea that the case studies need to reflect 'real life', and have more relevance to the students where possible, and also connect with what might become the 'world of work' in the future.

An idea of a non-authentic case study that I show is the Keytown bypass. It's a familiar exercise to many, and was put together nicely and has been used by many teachers (including me) for over 15 years...
But Keytown is not a real place.... and the routes that were selected are not necessarily the most appropriate regardless of the need to bypass the town. The 'voices' in this book are not necessarily from real people either... and the larger nuanced story of the messy real-world needs to make its way into the classroom.
Here are some possible guidelines for adding some authenticity to lesson planning and case studies / contexts. Authentic could also be described as 'truthful' too...
I'll be offering a few opportunities for folks to start thinking about curriculum planning for KS3...

There'll be Facebooking, app designing, case (study) packing and other stuff...

Comments

kevincooper777 said…
SO important for so many reasons. And sadly lacking in many students' geography experiences, I sense. GCSE Specs and question setting / mark schemes can be guilty of encouraging this also, with no credit for students who understand nuance, things not always being what they seem, etc.
Yay for messy geography :-)
kevincooper777 said…
SO important for so many reasons. And sadly lacking in many students' geography experiences, I sense. GCSE Specs and question setting / mark schemes can be guilty of encouraging this also, with no credit for students who understand nuance, things not always being what they seem, etc.
Yay for messy geography :-)