Secondary School Geography Teachers Research Articles

Cartografía temática y recursos TIC en la enseñanza y aprendizaje de la Geografía regional de Europa

In this article, we present a classroom experience with university students in training to be secondary school geography teachers. It is based on a didactic proposal using thematic cartography (Eurostat, ESPON, ESPON-SIESTA and the Information Society Atlas in Galicia) and ICT resources (statistical sources, free picture banks, aerial photography, Google Earth and Google Maps). The proposal´s aim is to use contents from the regional geography of Europe as a base or starting point to show a series of didactic recommendations for the teaching and learning of geography and social sciences. What is more, everything is with a clear idea, from a descriptive and rote geography to an active and critical geography, in which students participate in the construction of knowledge and increase their ability to reflect on geographical issues. The results of the experience will highlight the value of these tools in secondary education. We had also previously assessed the presence of thematic cartography and ICT resources within the required official Galicia curriculum to teach geography in compulsory secondary education. The idea is to deepen the value of the curriculum in didactic code, to know what tools it offers, how it offers them and with what intentions. This solution, among other opportunities, will allow us to identify a curriculum offering a specific teaching model. On the other hand, it will also give us the opportunity to firmly rebuke all the proposals considered to be erroneous, repetitive, or of little didactic value.

The nexus between research methodology, classroom data and instructional policy: insights from enacting the Zimbabwe curriculum framework 2015–2022 reforms

ABSTRACT This article explores the nexus among research methodlogy, classroom data and instructional policy enactment through content analysis of lesson transcripts. It is a multiple-case research of four Zimbabwean secondary school geography teachers’ classroom practices. Coded lesson-transcripts and post-lesson teacher-interview transcripts subjected to thematic content analysis yeilded patterns of classroom interaction. Most lessons were teacher dominated question and answer episodes which failed to achieve mandated learner-centred teaching.Teachers relied on recall-type questions while failing to scaffold onto learner contributions for deeper geographical conversations. A weak pedagogical content knowledge partially contributed to this. Content analysis of lesson transactions showed a symbiotic nexus among research methodology, classroom data and instructional policy implementation. Coded classroom data holds opportunities for critcal scrutiny of classroom transactions to gauge instructional policy implementation. Findings suggest succesful instructional policy implementation can benefit from teacher training in content analysis of classroom transactions for reflexive practice.

Pre-service geography teachers from normal universities in China: what do their master’s degree theses focus on and imply?

Master’s degree-level graduates in Subject Teaching (Geography) (hereinafter referred to as STG) in Chinese normal universities form a valuable pool of pre-service secondary school geography teachers. These graduates provide a comprehensive picture of the quality, focus and outcomes of current geography teacher training programs. However, there is a relative dearth of research appertaining to their research capabilities and the quality of their educational development. To address this gap, the present study adopts bibliometric and comparative analysis to shed light on the overall trends and specific characteristics of STG master’s theses from 2016 to 2022. The findings indicate that universities with divergent levels of subject assessment prioritize different research emphases, leading to variations in the depth of investigation into new teaching materials and the level of alignment with frontline geography teaching. Furthermore, in comparison with cutting-edge international and domestic research, the master’s theses of STG students are characterized by microscopic scale and insufficient depth. A three-pronged collaborative framework has therefore been advocated with the aim of enhancing the quality of STG graduates as pre-service geography teachers. This comprises close interactions among on-campus and off-campus tutors and learners, a partnership between universities and secondary schools, and inter-university cooperation.

Improvement and Practice of Secondary School Geography Teachers' Informatization Teaching Ability Based on the Perspective of MOOCs

Improvement and Practice of Secondary School Geography Teachers' Informatization Teaching Ability Based on the Perspective of MOOCs

Methodologies for decolonising geography curricula in the secondary school and in initial teacher education

While a clear rationale for the need to decolonise school geography curricula has been proposed, there are few examples of what this looks like in practice. Drawing on our professional practice in both a secondary school and a university setting, we outline two case studies of decolonising the curriculum that centre on promoting student agency. The first is a Year 7 geography unit of work, and the second is a walking tour of London for an initial teacher education programme for secondary school geography teachers. Through these case studies, we argue for the importance of encouraging students to think about geographical relations with other places, and build on studies which foreground the importance of place as a pedagogic device through which the aims of decolonisation can be furthered.

Building Teacher Identity in Environmental and Sustainability Education: The Perspectives of Preservice Secondary School Geography Teachers

Geography teachers have an important role within environmental education and, in England, are developing their professional identities at a time when environmental education is contested. This study considers the experiences of five trainee secondary school geography teachers who are all part of a university-based teacher education programme rooted in an environmental justice approach. Data is drawn from three interviews with each of five individuals over the course of their training (15 interviews in total) and participants’ written reflections. Findings include (1) teachers draw on a range of approaches to implement Environmental and Sustainability Education (ESE), (2) teachers share and value their own and their students’ stories of and personal connections with the environment and (3) teachers seek to enable young people to bring about change to their lives and communities. The contested nature of foregrounding ESE in the geography classroom is noted, as are the tensions and emotional load that teachers experience when seeking to develop their professional identity. Reflections are shared regarding the ways in which PGCE programmes provide teachers with opportunities to build ESE identities, in particular the role of semi-structured, reflexive interviews in providing an important space for identity work that could be usefully considered within the broader context of the newly implemented Early Career Teacher framework for England.

Geography Teachers’ Knowledge of and Perceptions on Dyslexia

At all levels of education, teachers are actively involved in improving students’ learning outcomes and developing their own pedagogical experience. As a consequence, the teacher’s role in managing learning difficulties is of particular importance. This research investigates secondary school geography teachers’ knowledge of and perceptions of dyslexia. For research purposes, 61 questionnaires were distributed to secondary teachers teaching geography all over Greece. The questionnaire included a total of 30 questions about demographic and personal information, teachers’ knowledge of and perceptions of dyslexia, and teaching approaches they adopt while teaching geography. The research examined teachers’ willingness to use teaching tools and innovative approaches that would help all students and, more specifically, dyslexics. The responses were coded using SPSSv.23.00. The results show that teachers’ knowledge of dyslexia is contradictory, as most teachers (93.4%) believe that dyslexia affects students’ performance only in language courses, whereas a smaller percentage of teachers (just 27.8%) believe that dyslexic students also find it difficult to participate in science courses, and only 26.2% believe they face difficulties in orientation as well. Teachers also have unclear views on how to manage dyslexia and how to implement effective teaching strategies. The results show the importance of geography teachers’ training on dyslexia and the integration of new technology in teaching dyslexic students.

EXPLORING ESWATINI SENIOR SECONDARY SCHOOL GEOGRAPHY TEACHERS’ UNDERSTANDING OF AND ATTITUDES TO EDUCATION FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT

Due to the close affinity that Geography shares with the theoretical constructs and methodologies of Education for sustainable development (ESD), Geography is expected to play a major role in the implementation of ESD. However, for this to take place, Geography teachers ought to have a deep and clear understanding of both sustainable development and ESD and should have positive attitudes towards what these concepts entail. In Swaziland, information about understanding of what both sustainable development and ESD among Geography teachers and what their attitudes are towards these domains of today’s world debate is very little. This study is therefore an attempt to fill this gap of information. The study, which was a mixed methods design answered four research questions, had a sample of 92 senior secondary school Geography teachers from 40 systematically sampled schools in the four regions of Eswatini. A self-developed questionnaire which was validated by two experts at the University of Eswatini, with a reliability value of 0.72 was used. Results obtained were analysed using Qualitative content analysis (QCA) method and Statistical Package for Social Scientists Version 10 (SPSS_10) and Excel. The results indicated that Geography teachers lacked a deep and clear understanding of the theoretical constructs of both sustainable development and ESD. More so, very few teachers had any clear, supported understanding of what ESD is all about. Despite this lack of knowledge, teachers showed a high level of positive attitudes towards sustainable development and ESD. The study concluded that a majority of the geography teachers did not understand the concept of ESD and recommended that sustained in service training programmes be put in place urgently and teacher training institutions should fully incorporate ESD in education training programmes to empower trainee teachers who would be the implementers of ESD.

Application of ArcGIS in Geography Teaching of Secondary School: A Case Study in the Practice of Map Teaching

With the development of modern geography, new requirements have been put forward for traditional geography teaching. Based on the implementation of secondary school geography teaching in China, and a case of application of ArcGIS in the practice of map teaching, the present work analyzes how to build the geographic information literacy and innovation ability of secondary school students by using the ArcGIS geographic information system software, and puts forward some recommendations, including (1) the compilation of ArcGIS teaching materials suitable for teachers and students’ characteristics; (2) the research and development of ArcGIS software for the secondary school education; and (3) the enhancement of ArcGIS training for secondary school geography teachers. It is hoped that the application of ArcGIS software can promote the development of geography teaching and provide modern teaching methods for secondary school geography. With the maturing of ArcGIS software it will become more popular among secondary school geography teachers, a development which will certainly take geography teaching in China’s secondary schools to a whole new level.

Teachers' in-service training in geographic information system (GIS) and different integration behaviors in lectures

This project explores whether and how in-service training for Taiwan’s secondary school geography teachers has affected their adoption of geographic information system (GIS) in lectures. According to our survey analysis, active GIS adopters show a greater propensity for teaching about and with GIS. It does not matter whether GIS is mandatory in certain lectures; the active adopter would choose to use it for teaching. Passive adopters would teach about and with GIS only in lectures for which its use is mandatory. Compared with the other types, laggards are less likely to use GIS. The success of in-service training does not lie in its offering of GIS skills and knowledge. What is more important is that the training has been designed to cultivate teachers’ GIS technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) that makes teachers ready to use GIS in their lectures.

Teachers\' Levels of Use of the 5E Instructional Model in the Implementation of Curriculum Reforms in Sri Lanka

The 5E instructional model is an innovative approach for constructive classroom instruction. First introduced in competency-based curriculum reforms in Sri Lanka, this is an inquiry-based model that allows students to engage in the self-learning process, in which teachers act as facilitators. The aim of this study was to assess the levels of teachers’ participation (through Levels of Use or LoU) in implementing the 5E instructional model in Sri Lanka. The Concerns-Based Adoption Model (CBAM) was used to identify teachers’ LoU. Using the qualitative method, 9 out of 305 secondary school Geography teachers from the Kalutara district were selected as respondents in this survey. We used the basic interview protocol adopted from CBAM instruments. Our results revealed that many teachers were either non-users or were at the initial stage of use. The overall results revealed that the use of innovation was unsatisfactory. Thus, these teachers must be engaged in training programs, provided with the necessary materials and resources and must be continuously monitored to help those who want to qualify for a user profile and those who want to move up into the higher user profiles.

Determining Methods used in Teaching Geography in Secondary Schools in Rongo District, Kenya

This article dealt with methods of teaching Geography in Kenya but also the world over. The importance of Geography in secondary school curriculum cannot be overemphasized. Improving the performance of Geography education is a great societal need in Kenya not only for industrialization of the country as contained in the vision 2030 but also for ensuring food security in the country through practices like land reclamation and irrigation farming The objective of this article was; to find out the teaching methods used by various Geography teachers in secondary schools in Rongo district. The research question was: Which are the teaching methods used by secondary school Geography teachers in Rongo district? This study was guided by the B.F Skinner’s (1971) theory of Operant Conditioning which states that learning is based on consequences-reward. The respondent’s behaviour (R) is under the control of stimulus (S). It is therefore a process through which organisms learn to repeat behaviour that yields positive outcomes. The study adopted the descriptive survey design and targeted students taking Geography in the district. Female students were 302 while male students were 704 in secondary schools in Rongo District, Kenya. The study sample consisted of 308 students and 11 Geography teachers drawn from 11 secondary schools in Rongo district. The eleven schools is equivalent to thirty two per cent of secondary schools in Rongo district, which is considered statistically representative enough. Stratified random sampling was used to choose the schools to be included in the sample by using divisions as units of study. In order to identify the schools to be used from each division, simple random sampling was used. Purposive sampling was used to ensure that there is gender equity. The researcher used a questionnaire, observation and document content analysis as the main instruments for data collection. Data was collected using closed and open ended questionnaires. The questionnaires were pre-tested by being administered to 30 respondents from two schools which were not included in the study. The scores obtained from the first and second tests were 0.76 and 0.77 respectively. The descriptive statistics including percentages mean and frequency tables were used to analyse the data. Data was also analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 15.0 computer programme. The results of the study indicated that the use of question and answer method by teachers is at 85.3% while students’ preference for it is at 48%. The use of

Geography in Turkish Higher Education

AbstractThe published literature on Geography teaching in Higher Education (HE) has focused principally on advanced “western” countries such as the USA, UK and Australia. This paper contributes to a redressing of this imbalance by offering an account of the scale and character of Geography provision in Turkish Universities. It shows that almost all the 22 Universities providing Geography are in the state (rather than private) sector, with the majority of courses having been established in the last 20 years. The paper identifies some important differences between Geography courses in Turkey and those in countries such as the UK. Perhaps the most important is the extent to which Turkish Geography is focused on producing the nation’s supply of secondary school Geography teachers and is not yet seen as equipping students for a much wider range of careers and employment opportunities.

Enquiry-driven fieldwork as a rich and powerful teaching strategy – school practices in secondary geography education in the Netherlands

Given its active and enquiry-driven character, fieldwork is seen as an important way to develop geographical understanding of the world, during which cognitive and affective learning reinforce each other. The present study aims to give insight into whether and how secondary school geography teachers in the Netherlands succeed in using fieldwork as a rich and powerful teaching strategy. Do they perform fieldwork that is enquiry driven, structurally integrated in the curriculum and stimulates both cognitive and affective development? The results of a questionnaire show that although 71% of the geography teachers do fieldwork, they generally do not succeed in meeting the conditions mentioned above.

Perceptions and attitudes of geography teachers to biotechnology: A study focusing on genetically modified (GM) foods

This study reports the perceptions and attitudes of geography teachers towards biotechnology and genetically-modified (GM) foods in Turkey. A survey was conducted with secondary school geography teachers attending teacher workshops in various parts of the country in 2008 and was responded to by 78 teachers from 31 different provinces. The study not only revealed important results about the perceptions of geography teachers towards biotechnology and GM foods but also provided an understanding of the current perceptions of the public towards these two fields in the country. The study revealed that teachers did not have enough information about biotechnology and GM foods. This lack of knowledge played an important role in determining teachers’ perceptions and attitudes towards these two fields. The majority of teachers supported the use of biotechnology for disease treatment and medicine production. However, their support declined very sharply with regard to cloning human cells, producing GM foods, and cloning animals. General attitudes of teachers to GM foods were mainly negative. The majority of teachers thought that GM foods were risky for human health and the environment. This negative attitude of teachers towards GM foods is likely to continue until the public becomes better informed about biotechnological applications and the positive outcomes of producing GM foods.

高等学校地理教員間にみられる指導と評価に関する認識及び実践状況の差異

The New Courses of Study prescribed in 1999 require teachers to develop students' competency in problem-solving, through the appropriate methods of teaching and evaluation. In developing students' problem-solving skills, what are favorable backgrounds of the teachers?In order to investigate the upper secondary school Geography teachers' perception and practice of teaching and evaluation of problem-solving skills, the author and associate professor Hirakawa, Y. conducted a survey with a questionnaire in 2000, March.This paper attempts to identify, on the basis of the analysis of the data of the survey, what kinds of backgrounds are more positive for teachers in students' problem-solving skills development. Data analysis was made in terms of teachers' backgrounds: (1) Alliance of academic society (member of the Association of Japanese Geographers/Japanese Association of Professional Geographers or not), (2) Faculty/course of undergraduate study (faculty/course pertaining to teacher education or not), (3) Major in graduation (majored in Geography or not), and (4) Highest level of educational attainment (graduate or postgraduate).As a result, in general, differences among teachers in terms of their backgrounds are limited. As one channel of in-service teacher education, alliance of academic society is, however, found to be the most influential background with significant differences in 18 items out of 74. Teachers who belong to the academic societies have more positive concern towards teaching and evaluating problem-solving skills than teachers who do not. This can be interpreted that through the research activities of academic societies teachers develop problem-solving skills by themselves, and this may make them conscious and active in teaching and evaluating their students' problem-solving skills.On the other hand, backgrounds pertaining to pre-service teacher education are less influential, especially regarding the type of faculty of undergraduate study. The result supports the principle of open system of pre-service teacher education.

Community, culture and identity: geography, the National Curriculum and Wales

ABSTRACTThe 1988 Education Reform Act legislated for a National Curriculum not for one nation but for two, Wales and England. This article reviews the way in which attempts to develop a distinctive curriculum in Wales for one subject, geography, were thwarted by the dominance among key policy‐makers in England of views about the study of place which were unsympathetic to the idea of the school curriculum being a vehicle for the development of a sense of community and national identity. Drawing on evidence from a survey of secondary school geography teachers in Wales, it considers the extent to which the teaching of geography is seen by teachers as a means of achieving such educational goals.

The Effects of Notetaking Approaches on Student Achievement in Secondary School Geography

The study examined the relative effects of three notetaking approaches in secondary school geography classes on students’ achievement. The approaches used were (a) students making notes based on teachers’ blackboard outlines, (b) students copying notes fully developed by the teachers, and (c) students forming their own notes. To accomplish this, a nine-lesson geography unit and a corresponding achievement test were designed by the researcher and validated with the aid of a panel of seasoned secondary school geography teachers and a pilot study. The test-retest method was used for the study and a reliability index of r = 0.85 was obtained. The test-retest method was used for the test and a reliability index of r = 0.85 was obtained. Geography students from four randomly selected secondary schools in the Oranmiyan local government area of Oyo State, Nigeria, were used for the study. Three of the classes utilized one of the notetaking approaches and served as experimental groups, while the fourth class served as the control group. In all, 180 students and 4 teachers were involved in the study. The pretest treatment, posttest control group design (Campbell & Stanley, 1963) was used. A comparison of the four classes on both the pretest and posttest conditions using the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Newman Keuls Procedures (Winer, 1971, pp. 191-198) indicated that although the groups did not differ significantly on the pretest, the students that formed notes based on the teacher-provided outlines achieved better results.

Geography in a developing country: the case of the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract University education in Tanzania is designed to meet the needs of a poor, developing country and is based on the principle that educational systems exist to serve society. The geography course at the University of Dar es Salaam is designed with these ends in mind, and produces two types of career‐orientated graduates, Resource Assessors and Secondary School geography teachers. Problems are inevitable in administering a structure such as this, but its strength lies in the fact that geography can contribute to the development process in a country like Tanzania.

The Preparation of Secondary School Geography Teachers

The Preparation of Secondary School Geography Teachers