Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Geography

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In consultation with Geography educators, Pearson subject matter experts and learning specialists have designed Secondary Teaching Hub Geography to simplify teaching of the new curriculum. It is rigorously outcome-focused at both topic and lesson level.

Secondary Teaching Hub Geography topics are each a complete inquiry with a clear purpose, objectives and links to the real world. Each sub-strand has a core topic, which introduces key curriculum elements and foundation knowledge. In addition, the Secondary Teaching Hub Geography topics and lessons can be searched by curriculum code, and each have the relevant curriculum information detailed in situ.

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Secondary Teaching Hub Geography helps teachers to differentiate content and support individual learners with more ease. There are several ways teachers can cater to students of various learning levels, including:

• SkillBuilders: an embedded tool to protect students from assumptions of prior knowledge and provide more authentic differentiation by design
• Special lessons: a complete resource designed to be time savers for teachers so they don’t have to plan from scratch
• Teaching notes: embedded into the lesson in-situ with various tools to help teachers deliver all lessons with confidence
• Check-in questions: a ‘pulse check,’ or an ongoing assessment to see if they are able to move on or need to spend more time on a particular topic

Research tells us that more authentic differentiation is most effective at meeting students at the point of need, whether that be enabling or extending knowledge. This critical consideration has been incorporated by design in each of the Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Geography’s differentiation tools.

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Secondary Teaching Hub Geography engages learners with up-to-date content suitable for varying learning styles and preferences. . It provides multiple content types to give more learners a chance to engage meaningfully with the content. These include:

• on-screen and off-screen learning experiences
• SkillBuilders (used on demand) – a flexible and confidence-building digital tool that helps students understand Geography skills and concepts
• topics (Topic Opener + lessons + Topic Review + special lessons) - a complete inquiry, with a purpose, objectives and links to the real world
• rich data (maps, graphs, photographs, diagrams) – provides a different lens for students to consume knowledge and visually understand Geography skills and concepts
• ClickView video content embedded – brings Geography to life by connecting learners to modern content, allows them to make connections to the real world

Secondary Teaching Hub Geography helps students apply their newly learned knowledge, honing skills such as data analysis, research, forming conclusions from evidence or explanatory writing.

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Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Geography supports teachers to teach the way they would like to teach. The modular design of its content provides teachers with flexibility to teach the topic content as a complete enquiry, or to utilise the individual topic modules individually or in a preferred sequence.  

Schools can deliver topics according to their specific schedule and time constraints, with each topic offering: 

• each sub-strand has a core topic (introducing key curriculum elements and foundation knowledge) 
• 3-6 additional topics that can be further in-depth studies, depending on the needs and interests of the students’/school’s timetable 

Secondary Teaching Hub Geography is outcome-focused and designed to give teachers everything need to cover the curriculum, but with the control to do this in the way they want.  

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Secondary Teaching Hub Geography addresses the need for in-the-moment teaching support with high-quality teaching notes incorporated throughout the digital hub. Based on feedback from Geography teachers, these notes have been embedded within each lesson, helping teachers by providing:

• discussion points and activity ideas (taking it ‘off screen’)
• differentiation guidance (enable; targeted; extend)
• common misconceptions to look for
• support for First Nations terminology and common misconceptions
• suggested resources such as video content

Answers for all SkillBuilder topics and Student Companion activities can also be easily accessed in the Secondary Teaching Hub Geography teaching notes.

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Pearson Secondary Teaching Hub Geography provides multiple options for students to practice and check their understanding through several forms of assessment. These include: 

• Spark activities at the start of lessons to begin practicing oral and written communication skills 
• simple auto-corrected check-in questions of increasing complexity to provide teachers with a pulse-check of student understanding and inform lesson pacing 
• summative assessment at the end of each topic in the form of a digital Topic Review test 

Secondary Teaching Hub Geography also features specialised lessons which are not set up as formal assessments but can serve as significant time-savers for assessment tasks if desired. Every topic has 3 specialised lessons which supplement the core content and are designed to reduce the time needed to plan these highly-engaging lessons from scratch. They include: 

• Interactive case study lesson - a chance to deep dive into an applied example 
• Fieldwork lesson - a chance to complete a practical investigation  
• Rich task lesson - a differentiated project-based learning experience where the intent is to allow guided activities 

Specialised lessons are not set up as formal assessments but each would make a great assessment task if required.   

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Secondary Teaching Hub Geography includes insightful and time-saving digital reporting. This includes: 

• in-the-moment reporting from digital comprehension check-in questions provide powerful information to drive lesson delivery and intervention in real-time 
• digitally generated reporting at the student and class-level simplifies decision making, ensuring teachers have reliable data to inform planning and guide feedback for students and parents 

Most importantly, the reporting mechanisms in the platform will reduce planning requirements for teachers’ lessons as the results dashboard can synthesize students’ progress from their ongoing assessment data.

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SkillBuilders are situated within Secondary Teaching Hub Geography lessons or accessed individually. They are organised as a skills continuum to address each skill for each stage of the curriculum. They do not make any assumptions about a students’ competence with each skill and topic.

Having SkillBuilders embedded into lessons where they are relevant and pertinent, usually during the application part of a lesson, ensures that teachers are given simple opportunities to help students build confidence with the skills needed to progress with lesson content. Being available individually means that teachers have control to use SkillBuilders to best support their learners and teaching plan.

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Secondary Teaching Hub Geography Student Companions are designed to complement the digital SkillBuilders, following the same skills continuum and offering a worksheet activity for each skill for each stage of the curriculum.

The Geography Student Companion questions and activities utilise a gradual release of responsibility. They start with the key information, then a worked example, followed by an independent, applied task. Each Student Companion SkillBuilder includes a reflection activity for students to process what they learned and how it applies to the real world.

Teachers can find answers to these activities in the teaching notes.

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Secondary Teaching Hub Geography provides further flexibility for classrooms to use both on-screen and off-screen content.

Supplementary resources including worksheets, answers, Blackline maps, graphic organisers and teacher notes can be downloaded and printed from the digital hub.

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Every Secondary Teaching Hub Geography topic begins with a Topic opener lesson, a prepared lesson that introduces the topic to students in an accessible way to engage and entice them to learn more.

Topic opener lessons provide a topic glossary, which outlines the key terms and definitions for the lesson. In addition, there are vocabulary activities to help students to become familiar with the language that will be used in the Core content lessons and beyond.

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Each Secondary Teaching Hub topic includes Core content lessons that are tightly aligned to the curriculum and support teachers to ensure they are meeting its requirements. These lessons focus on student understanding and make up the phase of the topic where explicit instruction is of greater focus.

These lessons include 5 optional comprehension questions, which are simple in nature and structured using Blooms Taxonomy, meaning the questions become increasingly higher order.

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Each Secondary Teaching Hub topic includes a Topic review lesson which serves as summative assessment for the topic. They provide students the opportunity to test their knowledge in increments.

For teachers, Topic review lessons provide a pulse check on how their students have understood a particular topic. The associated reporting provides teachers with insights relating to common misconceptions and differentiation opportunities.

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Every topic in Secondary Teaching Hub Geography has 3 specialised lessons, a complete resource to save teachers’ time preparing engaging lessons from scratch. As a supplement to the Core content, they include:

• interactive case study lesson
• field work lesson
• rich task lesson  

Specialised lessons are not set up as formal assessments, but they can serve well as an assessment task if required.

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First Nations content and curriculum objectives have been embedded into every topic of Secondary Teaching Hub Geography. All First Nations topics were written by a First Nations author and reviewed by a First Nations editor, ensuring an authentic voice. 

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To build teacher confidence in appropriately representing First Nations perspectives, Secondary Teaching Hub Geography offers support for common misconceptions and terminology.