A road map for geography in US schools

Image above:The US Geography for Life initiative
 
Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact
manning@chariot.net.au

Charting a Path for Precollege Geography Education in the United States.

  “Geography is for life in every sense of that expression: lifelong, life-sustaining, and life-enhancing.”

The recent happenings in the US in regards to geography curriculum standards and the promotion of geography in schools has drawn my attention to the similarities with the processes happening there at the moment and what we in Australia have just worked through. The recently released National Geography Standards : Geography for Life work are certainly worth a look as we begin the implementation stage of the Australian Curriculum: Geography in Australia.  

To find out more about the standards go to either:

• An online version of the standards is available on the National Geographic site.
• A print version of the Geography for Life: National Geography Standards,2nd Edition (2012) is available from the NCGE online store. for $20.

The background to these standards is that four organisations in the US have been working together to improve geography education in the United States for more than 30 years, and they continue to do so. These organisations—the Association of American Geographers (AAG), the National Council for Geographic Education (NCGE), the American Geographical Society (AGS), and the National Geographic Society have recently published several landmark documents in an attempt to guide geography in schools into the 21st Century in the US. 

The first of these is a major revision to Geography for Life: National Geography Standards. Geography for Life lays out learning goals for geography in three grade bands: K–4 (ages 5–10), 5–8 (ages 10–14), and 9–12 (ages 14–18). These goals represent a consensus among geographers and geography educators of what geographically informed individuals should know and be able to do with their knowledge.

First published in 1994, Geography for Life has been thoroughly revised to bring it up-to-date with the state of geography and of research on education.

 "...when the first edition of Geography for Life was published, GIS only merited a mention in an appendix. In the second edition, GIS figures very prominently in the section of standards called "The Earth in Spatial Terms."

The Road Map Project has created recommendations for how to improve the effectiveness of geography education in three areas: instructional materials and professional development for teachers, assessment of student progress, and research on learning and teaching.

A road map, which lays out a path to the effective implementation of the learning objectives detailed in Geography for Life, was released in the form of three topically focused reports.

The concluding statements in a recent article from the US certainly resonated with me and echoes much of our thinking in regards to the growth of geography in Australia

"Achieving the goals of Geography for Life will require a greater public commitment to geography education and the allocation of more funding than we have seen before in the United States. By creating the road map, the geography education community has provided a strong justification for making that commitment and described how those resources can be used most effectively. The next step in this process is to bring these landmark documents to the attention of policy makers, funders, and educators who are in a position to act on their recommendations. To assist with this effort, contact any of the GENIP organizations."

The video of the Geoliteracy intititive of National Geographic is also worth a look at in association with the Geography for life initiative.

Bec's Top 11 technology sites for the primary classroom

Image above: Bec's interactive video of her top 11 sites on the Mind's Wonderings blog. This presentation was done using a program called Jux (an online web based content presentation tool).

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au


The Top 11 from Bec Nicholas

 As Bec Nicholas writes on her Mind's Wonderings: Education and Technology blog:

"I have decided that it is not hard to be enthusiastic about the developments in technology and the applications these have on education and teaching. Each new development sends my mind wandering - how can I use this to teach my kids?, will it enhance their learning?, would my students be disadvantaged if I didn't keep up? So, this resulted in the development of this blog - my mind's wonderings and thoughts on education and technology."

Last Friday I had the pleasure to work with Bec during a geography workshop with primary teachers in Adelaide. As always, Bec was enthusiastic and very informed about the use of technology in the classroom. During this presentation Bec presented her top 11 technology sites for the primary classroom. 

Go to Bec's blog to go through her choices - a fantastic list of innovative sites. 

GTAV scoops for Australian Curriculum: Geography

Image above: GTAV Scoop.it on each year level of AC: Geography.

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au

GTAV scoops for Australian Curriculum: Geography

The personnel of the Geography Teachers Association of Victoria (GTAV) have been busy using Scoop.it to archive and curate Internet sites for the Australian Curriculum: Geography. The GTAV scoops are curated under the year level themes and topics for the geography curriculum. What has resulted is an extremely useful customised resource for teachers to use when developing their programs for the Australian Curriculum: Geography.

To access the GTAV scoops for the Australian Curriculum: Geography, just click here. Then select the Scoop topic you are interested in and select 'Follow'. The GTAV via their Scoop.it initiative will then do all the searching work for you to teach the Australian Curriculum: Geography.

It is really worth the time to have a good look at all the customised Scoops. Such fantastic sites, free and current which certainly challenge the traditional use of text books!! Well done GTAV!

TED-Ed for the classroom

Image above: The TED-Ed introductory video page. Worth a look.

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I??  
Adelaide, Australia: S: 34º 55' E: 138º 36'

TED Ed Use engaging videos to create customized lessons.

We have all heard or looked at TED and TEDGLOBAL over the years. These sites are an amazing source of stimulating talks.  Now there is TED-Ed! TED-Ed is a great resource to support your teaching on any topic. You can use, tweak, or completely redo any lesson featured on TED-Ed, or create lessons from scratch based on any video from YouTube. 

In particular, the site advocates Flip lesson planning. "Flipping" a video allows you to turn a video into a customized lesson that can be assigned to students or shared more widely. You can add context, questions, and follow-up suggestions to any video on TED-Ed or YouTube.

Upskilling geographical knowledge

Image above: Professional learning in geography and history being presented at Port Augusta, South Australia.

Related links
Geogaction
Spatialworlds website
Australian Geography Teachers' Association website
'Towards a National Geography Curriculum' project website
Humsteach blog
GeogSplace blog  
Geographical thinking Scoop.it  
Spatial literacy Scoop.it  
History and geography Scoop.it 
Spatial Education and technology Scoop.it   

Follow Spatialworlds on Twitter

Email contact:
manning@chariot.net.au

Where am I??  
Melbourne, Australia:S: 37º 47' E: 144º 58'

The place of knowledge content

In recent years the need for teachers to have knowledge content in geography has been denigrated by the pedagogical purists. I have frequently heard that, “if you are a good pedagogist you can teach anything!” Such an approach is basically flawed from the point of view that a teacher must feel confident in their knowledge and skill base in a subject before they can really develop rich and challenging (and valid) pedagogy in a discipline. This is particular pertinent to geography in our schools because there is a critical shortage of geography trained teachers available to deliver the curriculum. The question must be asked: “Can we expect the new Australian Curriculum:Geography, a curriculum written with considerable discipline rigour, be taught well by teachers with sparse geography knowledge and skills?” The pedagogical purists would say yes, but increasingly those responsible for the delivery of the curriculum are saying: "... how can we help teachers gain the content knowledge so that they can develop challenging and rigorous pedagogy". The issue is being further accentuated by the fact that the learning area consultant/advisor model which was in place throughout the 1970-1980’s has been dismantled by jurisdictions across Australia. The jurisdictions have gone towards professional learning in areas of general pedagogy, literacy and numeracy rather than providing comprehensive professional learning in the disciplines (science, mathematics and English being the exceptions to some extent). As a result, teaching associations across Australia have picked up the role of professional learning in their subject area but their capacity to deliver is limited by resources and time.  Having thought long and hard on this issue I was interested in the recent post comment and materials from Professor Seth Dixon (Rhode Island College). He also argues that there is an urgent need to help teachers engage with geographical content: knowledge (which includes the concepts), skills and understandings so that they can think like a geographer and work with the geography curriculum successfully.   

“Several schools have noticed that without geography classes, social studies teachers have difficulty becoming certified without some core geographic content. As a part of my job at the Alliance coordinator for the Rhode Island Geography Education Alliance, I'm giving a workshop designed to strengthen teachers geographic content. Most of the images in the presentation are hyperlinked to articles, videos and infographics that I have posted here in the past.”

The slideshow created by Seth is worth a look - as an example of one geographer trying to put together a package to ‘upskill’non-geography teachers in the content, skills and understandings of geography as a discipline.  

Whilst there is no quick fix with helping teachers to tackle the content knowledge learning curve, such an attempt is an interesting start. With the recently released GeogSpace project (developed by AGTA and not jurisdictions) we have tried to provide guidance for teachers to develop fundamental geography knowledge, understanding and skills. The supporting units section of the site provide illustrations of practices in the areas of:

• Geographical thinking
• Fieldwork
• ICT in geography
• Assessment in geography
• Geographical language
• Geographical skills
• Geographical understandings
• Professional practice
• Why teach geography

I hope the GeogSpace resource will help teachers to be ‘upskilled’ in geography and engage with rigorous geographical learning in the classroom (beyond colouring in and paper mache models) and learn some geography, so that they can be teachers of geography despite their dearth of geographical background.The GeogSpace website is now live at http://www.geogspace.edu.au 

The challenge for geographers in Australia over coming years is to tackle the need to provide ‘non-geography’ teacher teachers with professional learning to become geographers. Without that knowledge the curriculum will not live up to the expectation to be a vehicle to re-introduce high level geography into Australian schools from Foundation to Year 12.