I am a teacher specialising in Geography and Religious Studies with over 4 years experience to date. I pride myself on designing lessons that engages students in their learning, with an enquiry-based focus being at the forefront.
Any lesson that you download is fully resourced and differentiated ready to use in a flash. I hope they make a real contributing to your own classroom like they have done to mine.
I am a teacher specialising in Geography and Religious Studies with over 4 years experience to date. I pride myself on designing lessons that engages students in their learning, with an enquiry-based focus being at the forefront.
Any lesson that you download is fully resourced and differentiated ready to use in a flash. I hope they make a real contributing to your own classroom like they have done to mine.
This contains a set of model essays that can be used to support the delivery of the OCR AS Philosophy syllabus. Students could highlight and annotate its strengths and make suggestions for improvements as a task, or alternatively simply use it as a revision aid.
This contains a set of fully resourced, differentiated lessons to cover the entire OCR AS Philosophy syllabus.
Theme 1 - Philosophical Language And Thought
It was taught in the following order:
What Is Plato’s Analogy Of The Cave?
How Valid Is Plato’s Analogy Of The Cave?
What Is Plato’s Theory Of The Forms?
What Are Aristotle’s Four Causes?
What Is Aristotle’s Prime Mover?
How Did Plato Distinguish Between The Body And Soul?
How Did Aristotle Distinguish Between The Body And Soul?
How Did Descartes Distinguish Between The Mind And Soul?
Theme 2 - The Existence Of God
It was taught in the following order:
What Is The Teleological Argument?
How Can The Teleological Argument Be Challenged?
What Is The Cosmological Argument?
What Is The Ontological Argument?
Does The Ontological Argument Work?
Theme 3 - God And The World
It was taught in the following order:
What Are Religious Experiences?
Do Religious Experiences Prove The Existence of God?
How Can The Validity Of Religious Experiences Be Challenged?
How Is The Problem Of Evil A Challenge To The Existence Of God?
Does The Augustinian Theodicy Solve The Problem Of Evil?
Does The Irenaean Theodicy Solve The Problem Of Evil?
This contains a set of fully resourced, differentiated lessons on arguments for the existence of God to cover the OCR AS Philosophy specification for Theme 2 - The Existence Of God.
It was taught in the following order:
What Is The Teleological Argument?
How Can The Teleological Argument Be Challenged?
What Is The Cosmological Argument?
What Is The Ontological Argument?
Does The Ontological Argument Work?
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on Descartes version of the ontological argument and its overall success. The main part of the lesson involves students using two colours to add addotations to a copy of Descartes ontological argument to show how it works and its strengths/weaknesses, followed by a comprehension exercise where students answer a series of questions on how Kant criticised the argument, which is concluded with students writing a model conclusion to an essay question relating to the success of the ontological argument.
Learning Objectives:
To outline Descartes version of the Ontological argument.
To explain why Kant rejected the Ontological argument.
To evaluate how successful the argument is in proving the existence of God.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the ontological argument. The main part of the lesson involves an active class demonstration of Anselm’s first version of the ontological argument (supported with a card sort task), with students then drawing a perfect island to draw out how Gaunilo criticsed this version, with students finally annotating Anselm’s second version of his ontological argument.
Learning Objectives:
To outline Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the existence of God.
To explain Gaunilo’s criticism to it.
To assess the strength of Anselm’s reply.
(Note: You will require chocolate or other food item for the starter activity)
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the cosmological argument. The main part of the lesson involves students working in groups to develop a mini-presentation that can be used to teach the rest of the class one of Aquinas’s 3 ways, then some quick note-taking followed by questions that students answer to consider the strength of Leibniz’s cosmological argument, followed by students producing a factfile on how David Hume criticised the argument, then an information hunt on how other philosophers (such as Bertrand Russell an Richard Dawkins) criticised the argument (within this task students have to mark on their dartboard how strong they believe that criticism is).
Learning Objectives:
To outline the Cosmological Argument as a case for the existence of God.
To explain Leibniz’s contribution to the argument.
To assess the validity of its philosophical criticisms.
(The starter activity is based upon an advert for Guinness which can be found by Googling ‘Guinness Domino’)
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on how the teleological argument can be challenged, namely on three grounds: moral (John Stuart Mill), logic (David Hume), and scientific (Charles Darwin). The main part of the lesson involves students working in groups to produce a teaching tool based on their allocated challenge (use poster paper, ensure they also make their own copy), from which they then teach the other groups about their challenge. This leads into a written task where students write a model conclusion to an essay question on the challenges facing the teleological argument.
Learning Objectives:
To explain why David Hume, Charles Darwin and John Mill rejected the teleological argument.
To assess the effectiveness of their objections.
To evaluate the overall strength of the teleological argument for the existence of God.
This contains a set of fully resourced, differentiated lessons on the nature of reality (Plato vs Aristotle) and the philosophical distinctions between the body and soul (Plato, Descartes, Aristotle, Dawkins, Ryle) to cover the OCR AS Philosophy specification for Theme 1 - Philosophical Language And Thought.
It was taught in the following order:
What Is Plato’s Analogy Of The Cave?
How Valid Is Plato’s Analogy Of The Cave?
What Is Plato’s Theory Of The Forms?
What Are Aristotle’s Four Causes?
What Is Aristotle’s Prime Mover?
How Did Plato Distinguish Between The Body And Soul?
How Did Aristotle Distinguish Between The Body And Soul?
How Did Descartes Distinguish Between The Mind And Soul?
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on how Descartes philosophical distinction between the mind (soul) and body. The main part of the lesson involves students using an information sheet to complete a table summarising the key properties of the mind (soul) and body for Descartes, as well as grading the effectiveness of Descartes responses to the initial philosophical rejections of his theory, after which they produce a fact file on Gilbert Ryle’s criticism of Descartes viewpoint. They then, as a final activity, complete a grid showing how different philosophers would respond to an essay title with evidence/arguments they might use to support.
Learning Objectives:
To outline Descartes theory of mind-body dualism.
To assess Gilbert Ryle’s criticism of Descartes.
To evaluate the overall philosophical positions on the immortality of the soul.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on Aristotle’s philosophical distinction between the body and soul. The main part of the lesson involves students having to make an educated guess on his viewpoint through an introductory quote, followed by students creating their own diagram to show Aristotle’s philosophical viewpoint, then they complete a Venn diagram comparing this view with that of Plato, before finally creating a mind map on the reasons why Richard Dawkins rejects any notion of an immortal soul.
Learning Objectives:
To outline Aristotle’s distinction between the body and soul.
To compare the similarities and differences with Plato’s view of the soul.
To assess the philosophical opinions for the rejection of the existence of a soul.
This contains a set of fully resourced, differentiated lessons on religious experiences and the problem of evil to cover the OCR AS Philosophy specification for Theme 3 - God And The World.
It was taught in the following order:
What Are Religious Experiences?
Do Religious Experiences Prove The Existence of God?
How Can The Validity Of Religious Experiences Be Challenged?
How Is The Problem Of Evil A Challenge To The Existence Of God?
Does The Augustinian Theodicy Solve The Problem Of Evil?
Does The Irenaean Theodicy Solve The Problem Of Evil?
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the Irenaean theodicy. The main part of the lesson involves using an information sheet to answer a set of questions on its key features, including a comparison to the Augustinian theodicy as an extension task, followed by class note-taking and brief discussion tasks on John Hick’s extension of the theodicy, followed by a ranking task on the strengths of the theodicy and brainstorming activity on its weaknesses before finally reflecting on their viewpoint towards the overall success of the theodicy.
Learning Objectives:
To explain the key features of the Irenaean theodicy.
To assess its relative strengths and weaknesses.
To evaluate its success in responding to the problem of evil.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the Augustianian theodicy. The main part of the lesson involves an information hunt answering key questions on the Augustinian theodicy, a ranking task on the strengths of the theodicy, then a sorting task of the weaknesses of the theodicy into different categories (moral/scientific/logical), before producing a bullet-pointed essay plan on the overall success of the theodicy.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on how the problem of evil can be seen by some to challenge the existence of God. The main part of the lesson involves a brief section of note-taking and class discussion on the basic idea behind the problem of evil, with students suggesting their own solutions to the inconsistent triad (logical problem), followed by a written comprehension exercise on the evidential problem. The lesson concludes with a brainstorming exercise on the strengths and weaknesses of Swinburne’s Free Will Defence and class continuum on its success in resolving the problem of evil.
Learning Objectives:
To explain the logical and evidential problem as a challenge to the existence of God.
To assess one philosophical response to the problem.
To evaluate the success of this response.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on how the different grounds under which religious experiences can be challenged, including psychological, physiological explanations, interpretation difficulties and the inability for humans to experience a divine reality. The main part of the lesson involves students summarising the challenge they have been allocated on the sheet, then peer teaching to others in their group. This leads onto producing a bullet-pointed essay plan on the topic.
Learning Objectives:
To explain the various challenges to the validity of religious experiences.
To assess the strength of these challenges.
To evaluate whether the notion of religious experiences is valid.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the arguments for and against religious experiences proving the existence of God. The main part of the lesson involves some note-taking, class discussion and written tasks to explain scholarly views for and against religious experiences, followed by an extended written reflection considering whether they believe religious experiences prove the existence of God (with focus on what makes these scholarly arguments strong or weak).
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated set of lesson on Plato's analogy of the cave and Aristotle's theory of the four causes. It should be taught in the following order:
1. What is Plato's analogy of the cave?
2. How valid is Plato's analogy of the cave?
3. What is Plato's theory of forms?
4. What are Aristotle's four causes?
5. What is the Prime Mover?
5.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on Plato's dualistic distinction between the body and soul. The main part of the lesson involves note-taking and discussion tasks on the different philosophical distinctions between the body and soul, an information comprehension exercise on Plato's approach, and lastly peer teaching of Plato's rationalist arguments for an independent soul from the body (which includes analysis and ranking).
Learning Objectives:
To outline the key philosophical views on the distinction between the body and soul.
To explain Plato’s distinction between the body and the soul.
To examine the credibility of Plato’s arguments.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on Aristotle's concept of the Prime Mover. The main part of the lesson involves students generating examples to show their understanding of potentiality and actuality, a class discussion and note-taking exercise on why Aristotle believed the Prime Mover had to exist, a worksheet where students have to explain why Aristotle believed the Prime Mover had to possess certain attributes, develop explanations of key problems associated with the Prime Mover, and finally an extended writing exercise where they justify what they find to be the two most convincing criticisms of Aristotle's theory of the Four Causes.
Learning Objectives:
To understand the idea of potentiality and actuality.
To outline Aristotle’s concept of the Prime Mover.
To assess the strengths and weaknesses of Aristotle’s theory of the Four Causes.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson towards Aristotle's theory of the Four Causes. The main part of the lesson involves exploring the difference between Plato's and Aristotle's philosophy through picture analysis and a worksheet, followed by note-taking on Aristotle's Four Causes, which is then applied to a variety of objects which can be found within the world of empirical observation (with extension task).
Learning Objectives:
To outline the difference between Aristotle’s and Plato’s approach to Philosophy.
To explain Aristotle’s theory of the 4 causes.
To apply his theory to the world of empirical observation.
