Tag: lesson plans

A-Level Sociology Teaching Resources: Education Policies and Education Planning:

The Latest June 2020 additions to the Sociology Teaching Resource Subscription

I’ve just released some more extensive lesson plans, workbooks and Power Points for sale as part of my sociology teaching resources subscription package, available for only £9.99 a month!

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This teaching resource bundle contains work books and Power Points covering eight lessons on the Perspectives on the Sociology of Education

Resources in June’s bundle include

  1. Education Policies: Historical Context, 1944 and 1965
  2. The 1988 Education Act
  3. New Labour’s Policies
  4. The Coalition and New Right policies
  5. Exploring selection and the priviatisation of education
  6. Should we abolish independent schools debate
  7. Globalisation and education
  8. Vocational education

Resources in the bundle include:

  • One workbook on Education policies, including privatisation, selection and globalisation.
  • Four Power Points covering most of the above lessons (not for riots or the corporate crime research lesson.
  • Eight lesson plans covering all of the above lessons.
  • Various supplementary hand-outs for some of the above lessons as necessary.

Education Planning Material

In addition to the above I also include all the education planning material for all 24 lessons in the education section (April, May and June’s updates for 2020). This includes:

  • A full student scheme of work with details of concepts, research studies, assessment Qs and links to blog posts
  • An overview scheme of work
  • All lesson plans

Fully modifiable resources

Every teacher likes to make resources their own by adding some things in and cutting other things out – and you can do this with both the work pack and the PowerPoints because I’m selling them in Word and PPT, rather than as PDFs, so you can modify them!

NB – I have had to remove most the pictures I use personally, for copyright reasons, but I’m sure you can find your own to fit in. It’s obvious where I’ve taken them out!

More resources to come…

I’m making resources available every month as part of this teacher resource subscription package. The schedule of release of resources is as below:

  • July – September 2020 – Families and Households Resources
  • October – December 2020 – Research Methods, including methods applied to education 
  • January – April 2021 – Global Development 
  • May – August 2021 – Crime and Deviance 
  • September – October 2021 – Theory and Methods 
  • November 2021 – January 2022 – Revision Material
  • February 2022 – Intro material. 

Please note this is a change to the original schedule of release, which I’ve changed due to the recent exam cancellations!

A-level sociology of education: course summary, schemes of work and lesson plans

I’ve been consolidating my A-level sociology planning recently, and I’ve concluded it’s useful to have several different versions of module summaries and schemes of work, as below:

  • A mind map overview/ summary
  • A Power Point overview/ summary
  • A brief scheme of work
  • A long scheme of work
  • Detailed individual lesson plans.

All of these are based on the AQA’s specification, for the education topic.

Mind map overview of education

This is mind map number 1, the Borg equivalent of Unimatrix Zero. There are many other mind maps which branch off it – each colour thread itself becomes the central focus for more mind maps!

Power Point overview of education

Should need no explanation, about as brief as it can get.

Brief education Scheme of Work

A very brief version to be displayed in classrooms, an at a glance’ version so students can see where they are in the course and what’s coming next.

Long education Scheme of Work

This is a grid consisting of sub-topics, concepts, research studies, assessment and resources for each sup-topic. This more in-depth version follows the AQA specification rigidly and should include everything students need to know.

NB this is slightly different to the overview and lesson plans as some ‘lessons’ go beyond the specification or fuse different areas of it together.

Linear versions of all of the above.

Some students may prefer the linear versions of the above, which can be quite useful if used as check lists.

Detailed Lesson Plans  

These are really for teachers only, and contain detailed minute by minute lesson plans with aims and objectives, resources and extension ideas.

New Resource: Sociology of Education teaching bundle.

All of the above are available as part of my ‘sociology of education teaching bundle’. One downloadable bundle including fully modifiable teaching resources in Microsoft Word and PowerPoint. Only £49.99, or as part of a monthly subscription package for £9.99 a month!

The bundle includes:

  • A detailed scheme of work covering the entire AQA specification for the Education topic 
  • 24 detailed lesson plans (topics below)
  • Six student work packs on Perspectives, class, gender, ethnicity and education policies. 
  • PowerPoints to accompany most lessons. 
  • Activities such as role play games, sentence sorts, gap fills. 

NB I have had to remove most of the pictures from these materials for copyright reasons, but the idea is that you can always add these in yourself to beautify them!

Lessons covered:

  1. An introduction to the sociology of education  
  2. The Functionalist perspective on education
  3. The Marxist perspective on education
  4. Neo-Marxism/ Paul Willis’ Learning to Labour
  5. The Neoliberal and New Right perspective on education
  6. The Postmodern view of education
  7. Consolidation Education Assessment Lesson – focussing on exam technique for the different types of question
  8. Exploring education, surveillance and social control.
  9. Social class and education: introduction and the role of material deprivation
  10. Social class and education: cultural deprivation and cultural capital
  11. Social class and education: the role of in school factors
  12. Ethnicity and education: introduction, material deprivation and cultural factors
  13. Ethnicity and education: the role of in-school factors
  14. Ethnicity and education: are schools institutionally racist?
  15. Gender and education: explaining gender differences in educational achievement
  16. Gender and education: gender identity in schools, subject choice and the Radical Feminist Perspective
  17. Education Policies: Historical Context, 1944 and 1965
  18. The 1988 Education Act
  19. New Labour’s Policies
  20. The Coalition and New Right policies
  21. Exploring selection and the priviatisation of education
  22. Should we abolish independent schools debate
  23. Globalisation and education
  24. Vocational education

Sociology of Education Teaching Resources

Teaching resources for A-level sociology!

I’ve just released some extensive revision workbooks and Power Points for sale as part of my sociology teaching resources subscription package, available for only £9.99 a month!

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is sociology-teaching-resources-724x1024.png

This teaching resource bundle contains work books and Power Points covering eight lessons on the Perspectives on the Sociology of Education

Resources in April’s bundle include

  1. An introduction to the sociology of education  
  2. The Functionalist perspective on education
  3. The Marxist perspective on education
  4. Neo-Marxism/ Paul Willis’ Learning to Labour
  5. The Neoliberal and New Right perspective on education
  6. The Postmodern view of education
  7. Consolidation Education Assessment Lesson – focussing on exam technique for the different types of question
  8. Exploring education, surveillance and social control.

Resources in the bundle include:

  • 1 introductory workbook and one much larger workbook on Perspectives on Education.  
  • 3 Power Points covering most of the above lessons (not for riots or the corporate crime research lesson.
  • Eight lesson plans covering all of the above lessons.
  • Various supplementary hand-outs for some of the above lessons as necessary.
  • I’m also throwing in some of my revision resources from the Education revision bundle, as they are useful for lesson 7.

Fully modifiable resources

Every teacher likes to make resources their own by adding some things in and cutting other things out – and you can do this with both the work pack and the PowerPoints because I’m selling them in Word and PPT, rather than as PDFs, so you can modify them!

NB – I have had to remove most the pictures I use personally, for copyright reasons, but I’m sure you can find your own to fit in. It’s obvious where I’ve taken them out!

More resources to come…

I’m making resources available every month as part of this teacher resource subscription package. The schedule of release of resources is as below:

  • March – June 2020 – Education Resources
  • July – September 2020 – Research Methods, including methods applied to education 
  • October – December 2020 – Families and Households
  • January – April 2021 – Global Development 
  • May – August 2021 – Crime and Deviance 
  • September – October 2021 – Theory and Methods 
  • November 2021 – January 2022 – Revision Material
  • February 2022 – Intro material. 

Please note this is a change to the original schedule of release, which I’ve changed due to the recent exam cancellations!

‘Station’ based lessons for A level sociology

Station based lessons are those in which the teacher sets up a number of different (and differentiated) tasks on different tables in the class room and students spend a set time at each table, moving from task to task.

I find these are most useful at the very beginning of the Winter and Easter terms, after students have done sufficient sociology to enable them to work through said tasks largely on their own, with the teacher acting only as a facilitator…

This is precisely what I’ll be doing with my Upper sixth groups when I face the horror and terror of going back to school on Thursday…. Station lessons make things a little easier…

Here’s one to try out, based on recapping consensus theories of crime and deviance, links to the resources are below.

Overview plan:

  • students spend about 30-40 minutes working through the 5 stations, 5-7 minutes on each of five separate stations.
  • students spend about 20-30 minutes ‘writing up’ the answers in the attached booklets.

Resources 

  • Consensus Theories of Crime Recap Lessons.
  • White board for task
  • A3 photocopies of pages 2-4 above for stations 2, 3, and 5.
  • Card sorts for task 4 (I don’t have these to hand, but you simply need cards with concepts, and pictures and perspectives – this is more of a general recap rather than a consensus theory of crime recap),

Station 1: White Board Station (AO1 – Knowledge)

  •  Explain your one of the consensus theories of crime in picture form – you may use three words also.

Station 2: AO1 Concepts Station (A01 – Knowledge)

  • Research and write in the definitions for two-three of the concepts
  • If you finish, add in an example or piece of supporting evidence which illustrates the concept

Station 3: Data Response Station (AO2 – Application)

  • Read the item, then for one theory write in how that theory would explain the case study in the item. 

Station 4: Card Game Station (AO3 – Analysis)

  • Game 1: Shuffle the concepts and theories cards – pick two (or three!) at random, suggest a link between them.
  • Game 2: Rank the ‘case studies cards’ – rank them in order of how well they support your assigned theory. 

Station 5: Evaluation Station (AO3 – Evaluation)

  • Add in as many evaluation points as possible for one theory
  • If you finish, then add in counter-evaluation to the previous evaluations of theories

Further comments

There’s not a lot else to say really… this was just a New Year’s post for all the sociology teachers out there, happy new year!

How I Structure A-Level Sociology Lessons

Below is an overview of broad structure I use to teach every topic in the A-level sociology syllabus, and it’s my first post directed at sociology teachers rather than students.

I typically stretch the structure below over four hour long lessons in a week (I think the norm is 3-4 lessons in most schools and colleges), meaning that lesson one would be an ‘intro lesson’, lessons two and three ‘exploring lessons’ and lesson four the formal or informal ‘assessment lesson’.

NB – the week long, 3-4 lesson structure doesn’t work for all topics as some topics within A-level sociology are too short or long, but for shorter topics, you can stretch this structure over just one hour long lesson, just cutting out a few stages (or get students to do some of them at home) for longer topics (perspectives) you can just split the perspectives up.

Any of the stages can be extended or reduced, or omitted as time allows/ doesn’t allow.

Some people might balk at the idea of such a generic structure, but there’s a lot of variety within each section to mix things up.

If there’s enough interest in this sort of thing then ‘ll post some specific examples of a week’s worth of teaching for certain topics. It’s probably worth mentioning that I use ‘learning packs’ which integrate all of this btw.

Also, you might note, I’m a big fan of note taking – you can make this as creative as you like, but it needs to be done!

Lesson one – introducing the topic/ stating aims/ getting students thinking/ Clarifying difficult material/ note taking.

  1. State Aims/ Provide an overview of the topic
    • Normally on a PPT.
    • Could take the form of a ‘question’
    • For difficult topics you could even spend 20 minutes lecturing.
  2. Getting students thinking –
    • Find out what students know already – simply provide a question, they think up quick answers… or further questions!
    • Provide a data response with questions
    • Do a true/ false activity
    • If possible provide some questions that link back to previous, related topics.
  3. Preferably outside of the lesson – students do their own notes/ or a grid/ or simply answer questions – Provide Hand-outs/ text books with core knowledge
    • Getting students to structure their own notes is the most effective way of them learning.
    • If you’ve got them, you could use ‘learning packs’ with analytical questions.
    • I use summary grids all the time at this stage. Research has shown that all students love summary grids, although there’s no actual evidence to support this.
    • Quite a nice activity is to get students to compare notes/ suggest improvements/ even vote on the best set of notes.
    • You could of course do NOTE TAKING IN THE LESSON – 20 minutes once a fortnight/ once a week is hardly a crime against humanity (just a crime against OFSTED).

Lessons two and three – first informal assessment/ data responses/ researching, exploring and discussing

  1. First wave of Assessment for Learning (PAIRS/ GROUPS) – assessing concepts/ explanations/ evaluations (NOT elaboration at this phase)
    • Sentence sort – e.g. match the perspective to the statement.
    • Gap fill
    • Ranking – I’m sure you all know about cards
    • Brief summary writing – show a question on a ppt, include 10 concepts underneath, get students to write a brief paragraph in answer to the question (one of my favourite activities)
    • Quick posters passed round – different pairs take (for example) one of Marxism/ Feminism/ Functionalism – first pair add in concepts/ second pair evaluations/ third pair selects the most important idea (there ar lots of other versions)
    • Quick group quiz – of course, you could get the students to write the questions too.
  2. Video or data or music response case studies! Normally individual work, focusing What these suggest about a question/ concept
    • Get students to watch/ read/ listen the ‘item’
    • Discuss as a whole class or in groups – any of – what concepts does this demonstrate/ what perspectives does it support criticise/ etc…
    • If we’re doing methods/ education, this where I’ll do Methods in context planning activities.
    • If you’re watching a video, you can easily set it in advance, and show a brief clip at the beginning of a lesson to lead into this.
  3. Exploring in More Depth/ researching something in pairs or small groups (the easiest way to include Stretch and Challenge) – students basically produce something and then share it with the rest of the class
    • Straightforward web-search with question sheets
    • Produce a nice poster for the wall.
    • For anything about social policy – a ‘what would you do?’ type activity.
    • Write a letter to a government minister/
    • Actually go out and do some research
  4. Feedback findings to the rest of the class or to another group
    • If I’m doing full-on class presentations, I’ll always be selective.
    • I also get students to upload whatever they’ve done to a Moodle Forum so their work can be access later.

Lesson four – informal or formal assessment

  1. Second wave assessment for learning – more complex that the first wave earlier – covering most of the topic or sub-topic
    • Define these concepts, and explain them questions
    • Complete Venn Diagrams to show differences and similarities
    • Outline and explain questions (taken from the exam)
    • Marking and improving exercises (based on what they’ve previously done!)
    • Essay planning tasks – using essay planning grids
  2. Formal Assessment Work – Focussing tightly on the exam, without notes (usually done in the following week)
    • Moodle/ Socrative Quizzes
    • In-class Short answer tests
    • Essay paragraphs – focussing on explaining/ elaborating, analysing or evaluating
    • Once every term – a full on exam
  3. Extension work – simply provide links to…
    • Reading
    • Music link
    • Twitter etc.
    • Further questions…
    • My blog! Or a blog!
    • They blog?