AUT25-111Taking a Systematic Approach to Homework in the Geography Classroom

Date:     Thursday, 6th November 2025
Time:      7 - 8 pm
Venue:   Online via Zoom

Target Audience: Post primary Geography Teachers

In our teaching, much attention is rightly given to how students acquire new knowledge in lessons. But what happens after the lesson? Research is clear: newly learned material begins to rapidly decay through the process of forgetting, unless we deliberately act to counter it.

In this session Lee will explore how we can structure homework in a systematic, evidence-informed way to combat forgetting and strengthen long-term retention. We’ll focus on embedding retrieval practice and optimally spaced review into your homework routines, helping students not just learn, but remember and connect knowledge over time.

Rather than assigning homework reactively or as an afterthought, we’ll consider:

• What type of tasks best serve memory and understanding in Geography?
• How can homework support curriculum goals and make the workload manageable for teachers and students?
• What does a coherent, cumulative homework structure look like across a term or year?

You’ll leave this session with practical tools and templates for designing homework that reinforces learning, supports curriculum coherence, and promotes student confidence in remembering what they’ve learned.

Perfect for Geography teachers seeking to build a long-term memory curriculum, this session helps you align daily teaching with the bigger cognitive picture, so that what’s taught is remembered.

Presenter: Lee O`Donnell

Lee O’Donnell is a teacher of Geography & History at Woodbrook College in Wicklow. He is the Author of ‘The Natural World’ LC Geography book with Edco. Geography/History Methodology Lecturer at University College Dublin. LC History content creator for Exam Revision. Host of the Leaving Certificate revision podcast ‘Skin in the Game’. Additionally, he holds an Assistant Principal II post in his school ‘Student Leadership Co-Ordinator’.