Teachers’ Perspectives on Map-Making in Geography Lessons

Last time, management of equipment, maintenance and use of teaching equipment in lower secondary schools in Dien Bien district, Dien Bien province has been paid more attention, making important contributions to keeping sustainably, improve the quality of education in the district. Every year the lower secondary schools have been given funding and have plans to equip additional teaching equipment. Most lower secondary schools have full-time staff in charge of teaching equipment; with equipment storage rooms, cabinets are gradually added; laboratories and classrooms have been built more and more; have a system of records of teaching equipment management established; The work of inventorying and purifying teaching equipment periodically was also concerned. The movement of innovating teaching methods has made education managers and teachers more interested in using teaching equipment effectively. The positive management measures have caused many teachers to use teaching equipment as an integral part of the lesson, helping the quality of the lessons be increasingly improved to meet the requirements of changes. New teaching methods. Education administrators, teachers, teaching equipment staff are becoming more and more serious in teaching device management. However, the reality of teaching equipment management still reveals many limitations: The management of teaching equipment in schools is still administrative and ineffective. The equipment has no overall and detailed plans; The procurement of teaching equipment is not guaranteed in terms of quantity, lack of uniformity (some are redundant, some are lacking), quality is limited (durability, accuracy is not guaranteed, some new ones are not used); preservation still has many shortcomings; lack of specialized staff; lack of storage space or insufficient storage; lack of cabinets, prices, laboratories, subject classrooms; specially managing the use of teaching equipment is not tight; Many places teachers have not paid attention to use, ineffective use. The situation of “teaching vegetarianism” is still common, teaching equipment used is still movement, mostly used only in special cases such as competitions for good teachers, lectures or when there is a delegation check; There are many cases of information technology abuse in teaching. The effective use of teaching equipment oriented student capacity development is not much. The management of the use of teaching equipment oriented to develop student competencies in the current trend of Industry Revolution 4.0 is a matter of great concern to educational managers.Thus, the task of surveying the situation of managing the effective use of teaching equipment, finding subjective and objective reasons in order to propose measures to effectively manage the use of teaching equipment in the direction of developing students’ practical capacities and contributing to improving the quality of teaching in secondary schools in Dien Bien district, Dien Bien province is a very important and necessary task today.

Relevance. Since 2023, practical work with the use of content analysis of news resources in the media and publications has been provided in geography education at an in-depth level. The lack of recommen-dations on the use of information sources, selection criteria for news media, examples of the structure of tasks-questions to the text makes it difficult to apply content analysis in educational activities.Aim. To identify and describe the methodological techniques for using content analysis of news resources in the media in teaching geography at an in-depth level.Methodology: system analysis, design, systematization, generalization, synthesis. Scientific novelty and/or theoretical and/or practical significance. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the fact that the requirements and criteria for the selection of news media publications for content analysis in geography lessons have been developed; examples of news media publications for the use in geography lessons in high school have been presented; task questions for news media texts have been developed; recommendations on the system for evaluating students' answers have been given. The theoretical significance of the study lies in the fact that the concept of «Content analysis» is considered in application to the methodology of teaching geography. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that the proposed methodological materials can be applied by geography teachers in teaching geography at an in-depth level.Results. Based on the generalization of the results obtained, the expediency of using content analysis of news resources in the media in geography lessons (advanced level) in order to achieve the planned learning outcomes is determined.Conclusions. The use of texts and text excerpts in teaching geography prepares the graduate to complete tasks with a detailed answer in SFE-11 (State Final Examination) in geography, develops functional literacy, critical thinking, ability to argue and draw conclusions.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the possibilities of using popular entertainment media in geography lessons in 6-11 grades, in particular, travel shows as one of the elements of innovative technologies. The main material. The authors consider the essence and methodological principles of using travel shows, in particular, their cognitive fragments, in geography lessons in general secondary education institutions. The article highlights practical recommendations for the use of this type of mass media products in geography lessons, focusing attention on three levels of media literacy skills formation in students and teachers -a user, an analyst, a creator. In recent years, the Ukrainian school has undergone significant changes related to the uncertainty conditions for the implementation of educational activities, distance- learning features, and the possibility to implement innovative learning technologies. The latter prerequisites contribute to increasing the effectiveness of learning, especially in geography lessons. Media technologies, in particular, mass media products take a noticeable place among them. The involvement of mass media in the teacher’s treasury directs the educational process to the formation of an educated creative personality according to the standards of education. Travel shows help form in students the ideas about the nature, economy, population of a certain area. However, this requires some preparation from teachers. The Department of Physical Geography and Cartography at Kharkiv V.N.Karazin National University has developed a data bank of travel show fragments of different contents and territorial coverage, recommendations for geography teachers to use them in the educational process according to the topics of the curriculum, practical instructions for learning media literacy skills on creative level. Conclusions and further research. The use of popular entertainment media, in particular, travel shows in geography lessons allows us to stimulate the students’ development and enrich their life experiences. The geography teacher receives a modern teaching tool according to the information age of the society development. Cross-genre travel shows are the most available for this. The use of fragments of the travel show allows us to form the media literacy of students and teachers from the user and analyst levels to the level of creator. The provided recommendations of a didactic, methodical, practical nature will help in this. Further learning of the possibilities to use mass media products such as a travel show in geography lessons is promising from the point of view of its versatility and invaluable educational opportunities with a further transition to the involvement of virtual trips and excursions.

A case study entitled ‘New Age Atlantis or Mysterious Seventh Continent’ was developed as an exemplar model to show how the teaching methods and themes of Global Education (GE) can be used in geography lessons. The main intent of this article is to share an example of good practice about the use of this case study in geography lessons in Czechia. The aim of the study was twofold: to develop an understanding about how plastics contribute to ocean pollution, as a serious and current ecological topic in Global Education; as well as to show how the characteristics and movement of ocean water are related to the topic of ocean pollution. The main research goal was to study how pupils were able to put their skills and knowledge in practice by fulfilling the objective of the teaching activity – to understand global ocean pollution. The teaching activity is based on methods which develop principles of critical thinking, learning by living, brainstorming, discussion, and group teaching. The teaching activity also allows for cross-curricular links to occur between school geography and other subjects including biology, physics, civic education, ecological education, and personal and social education. The teaching activities for the ‘New Age Atlantis’ case study is aimed at pupils aged between 12 to 15 years. The case study results confirm that as pupils collaborate and communicate with their peers and teachers, they learn to critically accept the opinions of others and, at the same time, to defend their own opinions. All of the pupils were able to understand and recognize the problem at hand.

Writing is an integral part of everyday school life and is a relevant didactic tool in geography lessons. Nevertheless, there is still little research on the topic of writing in geography lessons. The study aims to investigate the attitudes towards writing and school practice of geography teachers by analysing qualitative guided interviews. It will reflect on the extent to which teachers ascribe meanings and didactic significance to this language action and implement it in their geography lessons. Teachers see writing in particular as a function of performance assessment and material evaluation and less as a means of subject-specific learning. In addition, the integration of writing tasks in geography lessons is a challenge for them. Research and university teaching should support teachers in cultivating a didactically justified approach to writing tasks and raise awareness among them to the diverse functions of writing.

This paper reports on some of the data from a large-scale study Teaching and Learning Foreign Language in lower secondary school, which began in the school year 2011-12 and traces selected groups of learners through the three years of Key Stage 3 (gimnazjum), ending in school year 2013-14. The study was conceived and is managed by the Foreign Language Section of the Educational Research Institute (ERI) in Warsaw with European funding. (see Acknowledgement). In this article the focus is on data obtained from interviews conducted with learners from class one of 120 lower secondary schools, where the students were asked to describe and give opinions about learning English in their school and to imagine an ideal lesson. The learners are the reason that lessons in school take place, but their views are rarely consulted. This study attempts to redress the balance.

This study, which aims to determine the relationship between communication skills of geography teachers and students’ level of motivation towards geography lesson, was designed in correlational survey model. The data for the research was gathered from 450 high school students studying in randomly chosen secondary education institution, under the Ministry of National Education, in Siirt city center in the academic year 2012–2013. As data collection tools were used “Scale for Evaluating the Communication Abilities” developed by Karagoz and Kosterelioglu (2008) and “Scale for Motivation towards Learning Geography” developed by Kaya (2013). The data were transferred to SPSS 15, and descriptive statistics, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient and Multiple Regression Analysis were made. As results of the study, it was found that (i) there is a significant relationship between communication skills of teachers and students’ level of motivation towards geography lesson; (ii) teachers use their communication skills with respect to the Obstacles sub-dimension more, and prefer communication skills for Respect, Expression ability, Values, Motivation and Democratic attitudes sub- dimensions less; (iii) the means for students’ levels of motivation towards Geography lesson in Field of interest, self-confidence, knowledge acquisition and performance subscales are very close and were found to be as moderate.

<p>Geography is a very comprehensive field of study with many subjects to study topics. Using a wide range of materials in the teaching of this course can this lesson be made effective and permanent because we do not have chances to observe natural phenomena. Therefore, in geography education materials natural environment is to be brought to class by using materials. One of these materials is infographics. Within the scope of this study, the effects of use of infographics on students’ achievement and attitude in geography course. The study is important as it can contribute to design of new instructional materials to be used in classes. The study was designed as quasi-experimental study, which is one of the quantitative study methods. In the study, “Solomon Four Group Design” has been used. As a result, it can be said that using infographics in geography lessons increase academic achievement and attitude levels of the students. It can also contribute to visual and verbal learning levels. Besides, these results can also provide guidance to teachers as they provide alternative and different instructional materials in geography lessons. Infographics can be effectively and widely used in geography lessons in different grade levels and learning areas when visual and information are to be given together. It is also suggested to use infographics in cases where achievement and attitudes of students in geography lesson is low.</p>

Since the end of the 1960s, courses in economics have become established in French lycees for pupils aged approximately 16 to 18 as part of both the general and technological (services) streams. There are no other specific programmes in economics at the other levels of the school system. In lower secondary schools (colleges), which cater for children aged between 11 and 15, economic phenomena are presented in a somewhat descriptive manner during history and geography lessons. These descriptions introduce children to an economic vocabulary that includes terms such as GDP, productivity, inflation, growth and development. However, the acquisition of this vocabulary does not lead on to the teaching of any real economic arguments, nor of economic concepts or theories in the strict sense. Economics as just defined in not taught in the vocational streams either. The aim of this article is to characterise the teaching of economics that is provided in the general streams of French upper secondary schools as part of a subject called Economic and Social Sciences (ESS). It is here that economics teaching is most heavily concentrated; furthermore, it is the only one of the two economics programmes in French lycees for which curriculum studies exist. The article will show that, despite the considerable changes it has undergone, this programme has retained the critical and socially aware approach that has been present since it was first established. It was by no means evident that such an approach, inspired originally by the work of historians of the Annales school, would be adopted, even less retained, since it goes against the grain of developments in economics at university level, both in French universities and internationally, during the two decades between 1980 and the year 2000 (LeVan Lemesle 1983; Le Merrer 1990). During this period, the economics taught in universities became less descriptive and more formalised and moved away from the other social sciences. Economists have become increasingly adept at manipulating models and have ceased to view economic and social problems from an historical perspective (Hogdson et al. 2009). The teaching of economic and social sciences in French schools has not followed this course and has been challenged on numerous occasions, most notably by academic economists and employers’ representatives. The fact that its original critical approach has been maintained is due in no small measure to action taken by teachers.

The problematic of science skills of pupils and students is important to investigate, due to decreasing of attitudes and knowledge of respondents. The presented results are part of bigger investigation, which included the investigation of chemistry, biology and geography teachers on the pupils/students skills. In the study are presented results for the biology part. The aim of research was to prepare, perform and evaluate a questionnaire research, which is based on the above mentioned proposal of biology skills and which investigates the opinions and requirements of lower secondary (ISCED 2) and secondary general (grammar) school (ISCED 3) teachers on the biology skills of graduates from the lower secondary school and graduates from grammar schools. A research sample consisted of two groups of teachers. The first group were teachers from lower secondary schools (n = 53) and the second group were teachers from secondary general (grammar) schools (n = 68). As a research tool was used a questionnaire with 4-point Likert type items. Inductive statistics was used for verification of hypotheses; specifically t-test was used for the determination of differences in the answers between lower secondary and grammar school teachers. Grammar school teachers achieved higher score in the majority of cases. The recommendations are mentioned in the conclusion part Key words: biology skills, inquiry-based science teaching (IBSE), pupils/students, questionnaire, teachers.

Technology is used in every country in the world, in every field. The number of technology-supported trainings in which students are active is increasing day by day. Computers and the Internet are the most widely used technologies in geography lessons today, as in every field. In this research, it is aimed to determine which technologies are used in geography lessons; how often these technologies are used; and if there are problems experienced in this process, what are they. In order to achieve this aim, open-ended questions were applied to 12 geography teachers working in 12 different schools and 40 students taking this course. As a result of the study, it was concluded that the technological tools used in geography lessons are limited. It is stated that among the problems experienced by the teachers, the infrastructure of the school is not suitable for technological tools, and the deterioration in technological tools creates problems. It was concluded that teachers frequently use technological tools. It has also been concluded that the most used technological tools are smart boards and projection devices. The results for the students are quite sad. Students stated that they want to use technological tools more frequently in their lessons and that their learning is more permanent in this way.
 
 Keywords: Geography, technology, competence, assessment and evaluation, student, geography teacher, education;

The purpose of the present study is to determine geography teachers' opinions about how often, for what reasons and for what subjects the geographic information systems (GIS) are used in geography lessons. This qualitative study was carried out based on phenomenological design. The study was conducted with 15 geography teachers servicing at different schools in a city of Turkey. The teachers' opinions were obtained via the semi-structured interview form developed by the researcher and the series of obtained data were analysed via the content analysis method. The study results showed that a great majority of the teachers did not use the GIS in their lessons and the reason for this was that they are not having sufficient knowledge about how to use them. Also, the teachers emphasised the insufficiency of possibilities, infrastructure, software and hardware. However, it was observed that all the teachers agreed on the necessity of using the GIS in geography lessons.

Texts represent the most frequently used medium in geography teaching, although they do not belong to leading subject-specific media. Despite their undisputed didactic importance, they have not yet been sufficiently researched. In this article, we consider the use of authentic and personal narratives in geography lessons. We first show their theoretical potential for realistic, multi-perspective and motivating teaching. Then, we present a school study in which the use of authentic, personal narratives was investigated in comparison to a factual text. The areas of investigation were the students' understanding of the content of a geographical topic, their memory performance and their motivation to work. The results show that authentic, personal narratives are better suited than factual texts to convey a topic to pupils in a multi-perspective and differentiated way. They also confirm their potential to empathise better with other people and to understand their actions through changes in perspective. Regarding recall performance, however, the results show no difference between the two groups. Finally, the results of the school study are considered in the context of forming suggestions for the use of authentic, personal narratives in geography lessons.

Setting tasks plays a key role in geography lessons, as they enable students to engage with the subject content, guide lessons towards predefined learning outcomes, and are therefore important for assessment. At the same time, the use of tasks is complex as numerous aspects regarding the content and the students have to be taken into account. Based on theoretical and empirical literature, we identify seven quality criteria for tasks in geography education: motivating and engaging students; addressing the heterogeneity of students; structuring learning processes; comprehensible formulation; considering individual and social learning processes; making meaningful use of materials; and fostering the development of subject specific competences. These criteria were applied in observation of lessons, which were given during an exchange between student geography teachers from a Dutch and German university. Overall, it was found that student teachers recognize the defined quality criteria, but half of them focus on only one or two aspects. The difficulties student teachers face in task setting during their traineeship can partly be explained by their phase of apprenticeship and the context. The developed observation form was considered to be valuable for preparation and observation of and reflection on tasks in geography lessons, and the exchange enabled student teachers to gain an insight into their own teaching practice.

The use of information technologies in the field of geography, an important discipline in social sciences, contributes to rendering abstract phenomena and concepts concrete, thereby increasing high school education students’ interest in geographic education. This study evaluated the extent to which information technologies has been diffused in high school geography lessons in a metropolitan area in Ghana, by focusing on geography teachers use of information technologies in teaching. In all, 40 geography teachers from 15 selected senior high schools in the metropolis were used for the study. Numerical analysis and descriptive analysis techniques were used in the analysis of the research data. Results indicated that the use of information technologies in teaching geography lessons in senior high schools was limited. The geography teachers attributed the inadequate use of information technologies to insufficient equipment, insufficient skills on the part of teachers, and inaccessibility to the available equipment. The research further indicated that teachers did not receive adequate training in the use of information technologies in their teacher preparation institutions and therefore, lacked the needed skills and were reluctant to use technology in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning. DOI:10.2458/azu_itet_v6i1_antwi