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 fully resourced, differentiated lesson on why and how Aquinas believed analogy provided the only meaningful way to describe God. It contains a series of short discussion and written exercises to meet the following objectives:
To outline why Aquinas rejected the use of using univocal and equivocal language to describe God.
To explain why Aquinas believed analogy could help us to describe God.
To evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of this approach.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated observation revision lesson on religious experiences, aimed at the new OCR AS Religious Studies A-Level. Learning Objectives:
To explain philosophical viewpoints towards religious experiences.
To assess the strengths and weaknesses of their views.
To evaluate whether God provides the best explanation for religious experiences.
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 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 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 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 fully resourced lesson on Plato's analogy of the cave. It contains a set of activities to meet the following objectives:
To describe the story of Plato’s cave.
To explain how the story questions our idea of reality.
To understand the symbolism of Plato’s ideas in The Matrix.
Has worked very well with my classes. It is ideally aimed at KS4, but can easily be adapted for KS3.
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 revision lesson on arguments for the existence of God, namely the Teleological Argument, Cosmological Argument and Ontological Argument. Main activities in the lesson include a mind mapping task and an essay planning task. It is designed to support the 'Philosophy of Religion' component AS-Level 'OCR Religious Studies' specification.
Learning Objectives:
To explain the key arguments for the existence of God.
To evaluate the overall credibility of their arguments.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated revision lesson on different scholarly views towards ther distinction between the body and soul, such as Plato and Dawkins. Main activities in the lesson include a group Venn diagram task and essay planning task. It is designed to support the 'Philosophy of Religion' component AS-Level 'OCR Religious Studies' specification.
Learning Objectives:
To compare the philosophical views towards the distinction between the body and soul.
To assess the overall strength of their positions.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated revision lesson on Greek philosophy (namely that of Plato and Aristotle). Main activities in the lesson include a mind mapping task, card sort and written task. It is designed to support the 'Philosophy of Religion' component AS-Level 'OCR Religious Studies' specification.
Learning Objectives:
To explain the major philosophical views of Plato and Aristotle.
To assess the relative strengths and weaknesses of their ideas.
To evaluate their overall credibility.
A fully resourced lesson on the main problems associated with miracles, with particular reference to the Bible. Two key theistic responses are then analysed and considered in the plenary. I hope you find this helpful- any comments would be great!
This contains a fully resourced lesson, differentiated lesson on whether religion is important in the 21st Century. It is done by considering the fictional scenario that it has been proven that God does not exist, and therefore neither does religion. They complete a group discussion and brainstorming exercise, compile notes and produce a newspaper report on their findings.
Learning Objectives:
To describe the positive and negative effects of religion.
To explain the possible effects of a world without religion.
To evaluate whether the world would be a better place without religion.
This contains a fully resourced, differentiated lesson on the Teleological (Design) Argument for the existence of God.The main part of the lesson involves a class discussion on the elements of design they can think of from the natural world and relate this to the teleological argument in a written exercise, followed by an active class demonstration of Paley’s watch analogy (you could include props such as a pocket watch!) consolidated with a card sort task, then students create their own labelled diagram (text-to-picture) exercise to show the modern reformulations of the teleological argument. An essay question is provided at the end.
Learning Objectives:
To outline the teleological argument for the existence of God.
To explain Paley’s version of the teleological argument.
To assess the effectiveness of its modern reformulations.
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 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 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 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 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.
