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#CynosuralAddiction to blogging by @TeacherToolkit
Are you a person (or blog) that is the centre of attention or admiration? Are you a cynosural-addict? Hashtag: #CynosuralAddiction Okay, I confess … I’m a cynosural-blogger! I am addicted. There, I’ve...
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Home-Made Eclipse Viewer
Next Friday, 20th March 2015, the best eclipse in over 50 years will reach between 90-95% of totality in the skies over Scotland. The online physics communities have been awash with chat and links on...
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Eclipse 2015
After all the preparation, and an early start this morning, it looked like it might be a wash out given the cloud cover. — Drew Burrett (@drewburrett) March 20, 2015 Unprepared to admit defeat, I got...
View ArticleCloud chambers
Thanks to Dr Aidan Robson from Glasgow University I was able to borrow a set of cloud chamber kits which I have used with my Higher physics classes this week. This facility is now available to any...
View ArticleDo Exams ‘Pass’ under CfE?
After more than five years of ongoing development in Scottish secondary schools, the Curriculum for Excellence has reached its first round of ‘gold standard’ Higher examinations. Though the contents of...
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Teaching about Radioactivity without Sources
Radioactivity is an exciting, mysterious and scary part of physics for many students, often because their ideas about ‘radiation’ are closely associated with their ideas about superheroes. Frequently...
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Blogging Bootcamp 2.0
Due to the huge success of the Blogging Boot camp that ran during last session in Glow Blogs it has been decided to run a new and improved Boot camp 2.0 which will be starting week beginning 31st...
View ArticleWhy we need to reform assessment
Following on from my post back in May 'Do Exams Pass Under CfE?', I have given the issues of assessment and certification some further consideration, which I outlined in my presentation at this year's...
View ArticleHow we could reform assessment and certification
In my recent post 'Why we need to reform assessment', I outlined a number of issues which give me concern over the assessment of SQA National 3-5, Higher and Advanced Higher courses, introduced as part...
View ArticleSQA Consultation on Reforming Assessment
In an acknowledgement that there are 'issues' with assessment, the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) have opened a on-line consultation. Their survey can be found here -...
View ArticleResponse to SQA Consultation on Assessment
The SQA have released a consultation on the assessment arrangements for the new qualifications, which can be found here - surveymonkey.com/r/TFJQCX2 Having blogged recently on the subject of...
View ArticleLochgelly Tawse
I started school in 1980. My p1 teacher’s name was Mrs Tullock. I though she was lovely. At the end of p1 I placed a penny in a tictac box to remember her. I only remember 5 things about primary 1....
View ArticleRube Goldberg Machine
What’s a Rube Goldberg Machine? Well, until today, I didn’t know either. Think of the crazy inventions in Wallace and Gromit or the device that opens the gate door for Chunk in The Goonies, after he...
View ArticleSpellbound
In Mark Cousin’s characteristically idiosyncratic documentary about children in cinema, he says that the best films with children are ‘not when the children on screen are spellbound by the film but...
View ArticleGertcha!
(Listen to this first: youtu.be/fOiuDAPHxCE) My teacher in p3 and p4 was called Mrs Dickson. She was very old and had been enticed back after retirement because they couldn’t fill the teaching slot in...
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Children and Chalk Walls
In the early 1950s, the artist Joan Eardley could be seen transporting her easels and paints around the Glasgow tenements in a pram. She painted and photographed the ragged children of Glasgow’s inner...
View ArticleTell Me Questions
One of my ‘go to’ thinking skills and discussion tools is a PPSS grid. Puzzles, Patterns, Similarities and Surprises. It is adapted from ‘Tell Me’, the seminal book about reading and book talk written...
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To Kill A Mockingbird
Reading To Kill A Mockingbird as a teenager was a seminal moment and awakening for me as a young man. It was the book that helped bridge the gap between teen and adult fiction. I was still pulp reading...
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Model Linear Accelerator
Last June, I made a model particle accelerator using a plastic salad bowl. This was courtesy of a great 'cook-along' online CPD via Google Hangouts hosted by a fellow IOP Network Coordinator, Dan...
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I saw the wild geese flee
This post started life as part of my own reflections of how better to tell stories and ‘capture’ and ‘record’ the spontaneity of outdoor learning. On Easter weekend the family was up north staying with...
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