Latest Quiz for the Ontological Argument! Give it a go if you dare…
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Meta Ethics A* Paper 2018
Check out the latest ‘Mark With Me’ video, where I go through an A* Meta Ethics answer from the 2018 exams. See how they did it by watching my feedback. For access to all Mark With Me videos, Revision Podcasts and Tired Teacher videos (plus Discussion Forum for all your questions and problems) join today under Membership!
Check this out…Quiz Time
Check out the first ‘Test Your Knowledge’ Quiz to see how well you are doing: 
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Examiner’s Report 2019: Any surprises?
I felt very uninspired by this year’s set of questions. We are only into the second round of linear exams but I found the questions very ‘samey’ from the previous year. I am not sure that the questions enabled the students to show a depth and breath of knowledge and understanding or gave them the opportunity to really shine and show off the tireless amount of work and revision they all do.
So I turned to the examiner’s report to grasp an understanding of what is expected from our students. I unfortunately found them to be quite brief, not always that insightful and quite repetitive in parts (which is fine as it just means students are making the same mistakes across the board.) I like how they have provided samples of answers this year to back up the points made but this seemed to replace a lot of the depth found in previous reports.
So here are the main highs and lows of this year’s exams.
General (fairly predictable):
Good points:
- Evaluation throughout
- Focus directly on question not general topic
- Outlined line of argument at the beginning (often in introduction) and followed this throughout answer (AO2 driven). Those that added evaluation near end of each paragraph often did not score into higher brackets.
- Relevant material used
Bad points:
- Write everything I know on that topic (pre prepared formulaic answers)
- Evaluate through juxtaposition of different views. In other words putting one name against another name and thinking this is evaluation. You need to say which view is stronger/ more convincing ect.
- Lack of planning leading to long rambling answers- paragraphs are your friend!
- Lack of awareness of Q’s/ language used on Spec.
Philosophy:
1. How successfully does the language game concept make sense of religious language?
Good points:
- Varied examples
- Critical dialogue with Wittgenstein
- Contrasted views e.g. Ayer, Flew and Hare’s bliks
- Effective evaluation including whether language allowed for inter-faith dialogue (seems like a very clever synoptic link to me!), was prone to fideism (belief that faith is independent of reason or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths) and whether or not you can escape language games.
Bad points:
The Science of Learning – What you need to know.
This morning Bradley Busch ran a CPD session at my college. Usually with CPD events it falls under one of these categories: loads of ideas that never actually become reality, some ideas that you have already been doing for years, fads or an opportunity to write your to-do lists whilst you wait for it to finish! Today was very different.
For me, Bradley Busch is the best speaker I have come across since Dylan William. Maybe the reason for this is that he is not a teacher by trade but a psychologist. Maybe it is because he worked with athletes for years rather than teachers. Maybe it is because he focuses upon educational research rather than teaching ideas. At the end of the day it is the research that helps us formulate new ideas, since we are all professionals in our fields after all. So here are the highlights:
Busch started the morning by presenting the question: “why do some students learn
faster and more effectively than others?” Is it ability, motivation, resilience, hard work or is it the way they are storing their learning? He represented the research using a grid that questions: Am I aware of it (the learning)? and Do I really know it? Students who don’t know and are not aware are just ‘clueless’. Students who know the answer but not how they know it are working from ‘gut feeling’. Students that are aware and are confident with their answers sometimes leads to ‘blind spots'(over familiarity). We need students to fall into the final box = Deep Knowledge. Testing the confidence leading to ‘blind spots’, rocking the boat of familiarity and moving the learning into deep knowledge.
So how do we do this? The answers lie in the memory and what works…
Continue reading “The Science of Learning – What you need to know.”