Active Teaching
Methodologies
Leaving Certificate Geography
Una Nation
Active Methodologies
Tell me and I will forget
Show me and I will Learn
Involve me and I will understand
 Teton Lakota
Active Learning Methods
 Active teaching/learning methodologies concentrate on
the doing in order to enhance the knowing.
 Active learning involves students directly and actively in
the learning process.
 Learning methodologies should reflect the variety of
learning styles in a given classroom.
Successful active learning
Methods Are:
 Engaging
 Student-centered
 Cater for different learning styles
 Enhance critical skills
 Promote student activity
Active Learning Methods
Behind every good teacher is an
exhausted class!
Whoever explains, learns
Active Learning Methods
 Think, Pair, Share
 Visits
 Brainstorming
 Presentations
 Structured discussion
 Demonstrations
 Case studies
 Multimedia
 Role Play/ Drama
 Problem solving
 Surveys/Questionnaires
 Debating
 Interviewing
 Games
 Fieldwork
Think, Pair, Share
Think to yourself
Turn to a partner and discuss
Share with a group
Think, Pair, Share
 When used at the beginning of a lecture, a Think-PairShare strategy can help students organize prior
knowledge and brainstorm questions.
 When used later in the session, the strategy can help
students summarize what they're learning, apply it to
novel situations, and integrate new information with
what they already know.
 The strategy works well with groups of various sizes
and can be completed in as little as two or three
minutes.
Think Pair Share in
Geography
Predicting Earthquakes
 Think to yourself of ways that you can predict where
earthquakes are likely to occur?
Predicting Earthquakes
 Share with the person next to you your thoughts on the
prediction of earthquakes and write down the answers.
 I will then ask some of the groups to share their
answers with the rest of the class.
Answer
 Seismographs used to record vibrations in the earths crust.
 Tilt meters used to measure bulges in land surface which may
happen before a major earthquake.
 Laser beams from satellites used to measure the slightest rock
movement in areas prone to earthquakes.
 History of earthquakes, patterns in seismic gaps.
 Animal behaviour may change in advance of an earthquake.
 Radon gas which is emitted from the earths crust is monitored as
it increases prior to earthquakes.
 Water levels in well may sometimes rise when the ground is under
stress prior to an earthquake.
Question and Answer
 To begin, the instructor asks
students to partner with
someone near by.
 Each student takes a minute
to formulate one question
based on the information
presented in the lecture or
course readings.

Student A begins by posing
her question for student B to
answer. Then the roles are
reversed, with student B
becoming the questioner.
 Name the type of rock?
 I am a heavy, fine grained
rock. I cooled and hardened
quickly leaving no time for
large crystals to form?
Visual Literacy
 The power of the visual (e.g.
photography, graphic design,
architecture, animation, painting etc.)
can be captured and used to
motivate the learner and open up a
world of imagination that can bring
content knowledge to life.
Visual Literacy
Pictures can stimulate writing/discussion. Sample activities
include;
What is the first word that comes into your head when you see
this picture?
Quick-fire/brainstorm/list.
‘Stream of consciousness’- jot down any random thoughts
that the picture suggests.
Compose captions for a series of photographs.
Write a dialogue between the characters featured in the
picture.
A
For 30 seconds talk about the picture without deviation, hesitation or repetition.
Summarise the content as an
image.
 On 11 March 2011 Japan suffered its worst ever
earthquake. For two and a half minutes the ground
surface in parts of Japan shook. Earthquake proof
skyscrapers cracked and people were buried alive in
their collapsed homes. Big fires broke out as gas and
oil pipes were fractured by the tremors. A tsunami
followed the quake destroying homes, villages and
destroying coastland. In all more than 27,000 people
died.
Japan Tsunami
Poetry
My Fault
So when we pull away
The world falls down its Normal
When we collide together
You lift me up its reverse
When I thrust you too much
You push me across to the other side
When you pass me by
It tears me apart
It’s my Fault.
Word Bank
Key words relating to a
topic/spellings/definitions are
written on strips of card, sorted
alphabetically and displayed on a
large poster.
New words are added after every
lesson having been identified and
defined in context of the lesson.
Constant revisiting of lists reminds
students of their extent and
purpose. Draw attention to lists
when completing written work
also.
Word/Definition Cards
 Design two separate bundles of cards, one for
words/terms and the second containing the definition.
 Students required to match them up. ICT, this exercise
could form a cut and paste exercise on computer.
 Alternatively, distribute blank cards to students and
assign the task of designing a definition card with an
accompanying picture if appropriate.
Tweet
Summarize a
lesson into a 160
character tweet
Facebook
Ask your student to create a
Facebook page instead of the
traditional book report.
Students create their own Facebook
pages based on research that you
assign.
This could be a specific person or
even non-human kinds of things such
as a country, region, event or place.
Make a model
Using play dough make a model of a simple, asymmetrical, Over fold and Over
thrust fold
An active Cone Shaped
Volcano
Overthrust Fold
Asymetricial Fold
Rock Chick
Fieldwork
Tasks involving the gathering and
interpretation of information can
develop skills of independent learning
and provide rich opportunities for
active learning both within and beyond
the classroom.
Milling to Music
 Used as revision technique.
Ask students to stand at their
desk and move around the
room when the music starts.
Play an appropriate song
and when you stop the music
the students have to ask
each other questions and
answers that you prescribe.
 Short exercise 3 times
maximum
Milling to Music
 1. A rock formed from the remains of sea creatures. This is
Ireland’s most common rock.
 2. This rock is made up of three minerals mica, feldspar and
quartz. This rock has large crystals.
 3. Great heat or pressure change change the characteristics
of existing rocks to form what rock group?
 4. Name one way that human interact with the rock cycle
and make use of rocks.
 5. Name the rock that was formed when limestone or chalk
was changed by intense heat or pressure.
Answers
 Question 1 – Limestone
 Question 2 – Granite
 Question 3 – Metamorphic
 Question 4 – Quarrying and Geothermal energy
 Question 5- Marble
Brainstorm
Brainstorming is an active learning
strategy in which students are asked
to recall what they know about a
subject by generating terms and ideas
related to it. In brainstorming,
however, students are encouraged to
stretch what they know by forming
creative connections between prior
knowledge and new possibilities.
Professional Development
Service for teachers
 Students at Kylemore College in a sequencing activity
 http://www.mediaconcepts.ie/jcsp/page62.html
Website _NCCA http://www.curriculumonline.ie/en/PostPrimary_Curriculum/Senior_Cycle_Curriculum/Leaving_Certificate_Establish
ed/Geography/Geography_Guidelines/Resources/

WEBSITES

The following websites are recommended as being of high quality and appropriate to the syllabus. Although they are presented here as being linked to one section of the syllabus, many are relevant to other areas.

The Geography Support Service will develop a subject website and this will provide links to all the web addresses given here. It will be kept updated and extended as other sites are recommended or developed.

GENERAL GEOGRAPHY PORTALS

Portals provide links to multiple sites, usually providing a commentary and indicating the quality of each site.

Scoilnet www.scoilnet.ie This website has been created by the NCTE as the reference point for Irish educational matters.

BBC Webguide www.bbc.co.uk\webguide A comprehensive entry to selected sites, not all relevant to the Leaving Cert, but all of very high quality. Divided into course related sections key stage 3&4 and A Level are the
relevant ones.

About www.geography.about.com An excellent introduction to world geography broken into categories. Main emphasis on American case studies.

Internet Geography http://www.geography.learnontheintern et.co.uk Excellent site with British bias includes teacher lesson plans.

The Internet Geographer www.internetgeographer.com Hundreds of links to other sites but a heavy emphasis on U.K. sites.
“Lessons should be hard to forget”
Student
Thank You