Advice from my Year 11′s on how to revise:

I asked my Year 11′s what advice they would give to year 10 on how to revise for their Year 10 exams. This is the summary of their most popular points:

• Create a revision timetable
• Have little 10 minute breaks every hour.
• Make conclusions after each paragraph
• Just LISTEN in class and think to yourself “do you understand it”
• Use Cue cards for definitions and test yourself until you can remember the answers with ease.
• Get off Facebook/MSN/ichat etc. (loads of students suggest this)-TURN YOUR COMPUTER OFF.
• Get Sleep!
• Read through your textbook.
• Concentrate when you are reading, don´t be thinking about other things.
• Make yourself a little revision test on each topic and test yourself.
• Keep your books and notes from Year 10.
• Try and have an area where you do your revision which doesn’t have any things to distract you.
• Always revise the stuff you don’t like first.
• Don’t just copy notes from a book.
• If you have an exam coming u split the subject into topics and learn each topic per night.
• Revise how you want to: drawing pictures could help you to understand.
• Create shortened versions of your information that you are studying, which includes all the main points.

IGCSE game: plant hangman

A very quick and simple hangman game covering some vocabulary linked to plant based topics:

Play this game on the what2learn site

Link:
http://www.what2learn.com/games/play/26728/

IGCSE Biology Podcast: Agriculture and soil erosion

This is my first try at a podcast. It relates to the Human Influences on the environment section of the Cambridge IGCSE Biology course. It focuses on the impact of modern technology in agriculture, how this varies between developing and developed countries. It also discusses the causes and effects of soil erosion and how it can be prevented. It is about 4 minutes long. The beginning is a little quiet but I get into my swing towards the end, though still clearly nervous. Hopefully I will get better with my other podcasts!

You can play it online by clicking on the link below:

Alternatively you can download the MP3 file here:
agriculture-and-soil-erosion

GCSE Science podcasts for revision and general listening

My daughter got an iPod Touch for Christmas and I have to say I now want one my self. All of her friends have also received ipods and this has made me think about doing some podcasting for downloading onto ipods, as well as the videos I am developing. I am not alone in considering podcasts for my students as this is also a topic in the TES Science forums. I have come across some excellent audio files via the trusty GCSE Bitesize website and, although they do not match exactly with IGCSE, are an excellent resource. Biology, Chemistry and Physics collections are available and they are well presented. They are run by a group lnown as The Naked Scientists and there are further excellent podcasts available from their own website and may be useful for A level students also. Both links are available below (and are also available on my Links page).

Revision GCSE podcasts from the BBC and Naked Scientists

The Naked Scientists Podcasts

IGCSE, GCSE Biology cell structure and function quiz

Here are two versions of a PowerPoint quiz I have prepared covering cell structure for IGCSE/GCSE level. The quizzes cover structure of a typical animal and plant cell plus functions of the organelles.

The first quiz is entirely multiple choice with the answers revealed in a duplicate set of slides after the 15 questions. This allows for the entire test to be completed and then the answers covered later, (possibly as a self-mark exercise). Natrually the slides can easily be reordered to convert the presentation to a teaching presentation by revealing the answer after each individual question. There is a student answer sheet so that the quiz can be displayed on the board and the student answer in class.

The second version has the first 6 questions (labelling the cell) as short answer questions. Naturally this makes the test slightly harder plus checks for spelling. I always say that spelling DOES matter and instruct the students that incorrect spelling, even if phonetically correct, do not get marks. This encourages students to learn the words properly. Again the answers are added at the end in duplicated, animated slides and a student answer sheet is provided.

It is interesting that, as I developed these presentations, I realised the many different variations by which I could implement this simple quiz. I could remove all the multiple choice and make the entire test short answer. I could just do a paper quiz (obviously). I could also programme both presentations so that students completed the quiz entirely on the computer and have a results sheet printed out at the end to give to the teacher. I am also developing an online quiz for my students to complete via Moodle. I suppose it depends upon facilites available, whether you want to save paper, offer students variation on delivery, save on marking, whether the test is formative or summative etc. and of course dependent upon the abilities and preferences of your individual classes.

As I think this topic is slightly repititous of KS3 work I think using the quiz as a revision tool or completing it entirely via the computer means that KS4 students at least feel that they are advancing even if the content is the same. I do wish the exam boards would start to expand the cell structure taught at KS4 to include more ultra-structure stuff. For example I would include mitochondria, cytoskeleton and centrioles as the students do come across these when we mention respiration and cell division later on. In particular I hate the fried egg image of the animal cell and I always show the inner life of the cell video to the students so they at least have an appreciation of how amazing and complicated the cell really is.

Oops..another rant! Sorry!

Anyway…the resources are below:

Multiple choice quiz:

PowerPoint presentation:

cell-structure-and-function-multiple-choice-quiz-questions-and-answers

Student answer sheet:

cell-structure-and-function-quiz-multiple-choice-answer-sheet

Short answer and multiple choice version:

PowerPoint presentation:

cell-structure-and-function-quiz-questions-and-answers

Student answer sheet:

cell-structure-and-function-quiz-answer-sheet