Video Learning: GCSE Sociology

This set of resources produced by Calderstones School seems to have come into being during the recent pandemic when “video learning” was something schools were forced to develop to cover the times when their students couldn’t attend in person.

Most video lessons, I’d hazard a guess, were delivered by platforms like Zoom or, if your institution was really into collaborative stuff, Microsoft Teams. While it was possible to record these sessions I’m guessing it’s fairly unlikely anyone bothered because, with the best will in the world, they’re not likely to repay constant rewatching.

This set of resources, however, was clearly very carefully planned. Which is lucky for us because it consists of a GCSE course consisting of the following lessons:

Year 10

Key Concepts: 3 lessons

Research Methods: 13 lessons

Family: 22 lessons

Education: 16 lessons

Year 11

Stratification: 19 lessons

Crime: 21 lessons.

Each complete lesson is relatively short, usually between 12 – 16 minutes long.

And while none are likely to win prizes for presentation – they use a basic Podcast with Pictures format (i.e. they’re produced using some form of screencasting software) – they do the job they set out to do pretty effectively. Students can even follow their progress through the course using a Sociology Roadmap featured at the start of each lesson.

As an added bonus, each lesson has an accompanying worksheet/s (some lessons have more than one) in Word format that students presumably complete in their own time once they’ve viewed the lesson. Even if you don’t use the video resources these worksheets are well worth downloading, either to use in your own classes or as a source of inspiration for your resources.

Slightly unusually the resources are hosted on Loom: the downside to this is I’ve no idea how long they’re likely to be available (they’ve been around for 3 years so far). The upside is that you can download each video lesson to save for posterity – although you’ll need to create a Loom account to do this and there’s a free version available so it won’t cost you anything more than your time.