Crafting the perfect Economics Commentary

Over the past few weeks I have been working with my Economics colleagues to moderate and mark our Internal Assessment for the IB Economics. We have over 100 students in each grade completing the course work so I am lucky (or maybe unlucky) to see lots of great examples. This blog post tries to highlight …

Super easy PDF commenting for better collaborative reading and comprehension

In recent years lots of teachers would have spotted students developing the habit and tendency to skim read online and the shallow comprehension skills that follow. In Economics we constantly give students resources to read over to supporting their thinking and their understanding of case studies, yet many students will read too quickly and superficially …

EdPuzzle: video questions for formative assessment

Like all teachers, we see our face-to-face time with my classes as incredibly valuable and precious. I want to spend as much of this time as possible checking for understanding, exploring key questions and helping student grapple with complex ideas where I can coach, probe and support. When introducing a new concept we often default …

Sorting, grouping and working with examples: Concept Formation in Economics

In beginning a new unit, teachers always look for prior knowledge and then attempt to build on these understandings. A wide range of research points to this as an essential way to make 'learning stick', by developing students mental schema and to help them hang new learning from existing frameworks. Activating prior knowledge In starting …

Moving from examples to understanding an abstract concept

Through my lessons this year, I have been working on strategies to help my students to both identify and understand concepts more deeply. As Economics is founded on theories and interconnected abstract concepts, it is therefore a key pedagogy we teachers need to be proficient with. In the work of Lynn Erickson and other theorists, …

Yes, Quizlet got even better; now with diagrams

Quizlet remains as one of those Swiss Army knife style apps that you end up repurposing and going back to time and time again. Last year it got a significant revamp with the Quizlet Live game feature and now there is a clever addition called Quizlet Diagrams. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bFcov4KAvw The new diagrams tool goes further adding a …

When online learning amplifies the face-to-face classroom

Life as a High School teacher is a tricky balancing game. Conversation in the office revolves around the trade off between doing something in incredible depth through an engaging lesson or skimming over something quickly. This tradeoff comes about because as High School teachers we still feel that we are the best people to explain and …

Grappling with the concepts of the circular flow model

A really fundamental model in Economics is the concept of the circular flow and the basic economic system. We use this to help explain the main sectors of the economy and the flows of money between the different component parts. Overtime students come back to this model to help analyse government policy, the ideas of …

An Overview of the World Studies Extended Essay for IB and Economics

This week we were luckily enough to have a specific workshop on the World Studies Extended Essay option for students. Here are my notes, thoughts and some examples from the session and ideas on how it connects to Economics. This information reflects changes to Extended Essay in light of the new guide beginning for August 2016. …

IB Diploma Onscreen Assessment – stepping into the unknown

A year ago I spotted an interesting development for the International Baccalaureate programme tucked away in a blog post on their website. Substantial planning is underway for the migration of DP examinations from paper to on-screen. We are extremely excited about this important development for the IB. It means that exam papers will no longer be printed …