River Views of Beginning Pre-service Teachers: Content Knowledge Use

Abstract

How beginning teachers organize themselves to teach new or unfamiliar topics is an important issue for research. This paper discusses information about rivers in pre-service teachers' lessons taught to fourth grade students. Lessons were videotaped and transcribed for analysis. The data consisted of all information about rivers found in the lessons. Lesson content was analyzed for accuracy, coherence, centrality, over-simplification, and undue emphasis.

Seven kinds of problems with lesson content occurred because the beginning teachers lacked sufficient knowledge about rivers. Inaccurate information was either presented or allowed to stand unchallenged in the lessons. The lessons lacked coherence, because the beginning teachers tended to make passing references to concepts. About twice as many of the lesson concepts were peripheral to the study of rivers, the problem of centrality. The relationships between some river-related ideas were misunderstood or ignored. Both physical and human geography concepts were consistently over-simplified. The recreational use of rivers was consistently over-emphasized.     

GIS in the K-12 Curriculum: A Cautionary Note

Two qualitative case studies, one focusing on K-12 teachers and the other on middle school students, explore key factors associated with using Geographic Information Systems in the classroom. In both studies, access to appropriate hardware is a critical barrier. Time is another critical barrier—time to learn the GIS software and time in the curriculum to incorporate GIS as a learning experience. In both case studies, learning the technology at the expense of learning spatial analysis was a danger, suggesting the need for conscious focus on the goal of using GIS to learn how to “do geography.”     

Exploring Obstacles toEducational Reform: Observations from Finding a Way

This paper examines teachers' expressions of concerns and resistance to the idea of making their classrooms gender equitable. The observations made here arose in the context of the National Science Foundation-funded National Council for Geographic Education Finding A Way project. During Finding A Way summer institutes, teachers were asked to look critically at themselves and reflect on their classroom practices. From their journal entries and personal narratives, it was found that teachers frequently experience powerful emotional responses and cognitive dissonance when asked to address issues of equity in their classrooms. Dissonance, ambivalence, and resistance surfaced most often over the “request” that they become proactive. We found that Finding A Way was most successful with those teachers who were willing to assume the role of “change agents” and who were personally invested in the outcome. Heretofore, professional development research in geography has been remarkably silent on the issue of teacher resistance to educational reform initiatives.     

素质教育背景下地理教师的GIS素质构建

在对地理教师地理科学素质现状分析的基础上,对地理教师在教学、科研、生活中应具备的地理信息科学素质进行了研究,并从师范教育、继续教育2个角度探讨了构建地理教师地理信息科学素质的方法。     

Exploring Obstacles toEducational Reform: Observations from Finding a Way

This paper examines teachers' expressions of concerns and resistance to the idea of making their classrooms gender equitable. The observations made here arose in the context of the National Science Foundation-funded National Council for Geographic Education Finding A Way project. During Finding A Way summer institutes, teachers were asked to look critically at themselves and reflect on their classroom practices. From their journal entries and personal narratives, it was found that teachers frequently experience powerful emotional responses and cognitive dissonance when asked to address issues of equity in their classrooms. Dissonance, ambivalence, and resistance surfaced most often over the “request” that they become proactive. We found that Finding A Way was most successful with those teachers who were willing to assume the role of “change agents” and who were personally invested in the outcome. Heretofore, professional development research in geography has been remarkably silent on the issue of teacher resistance to educational reform initiatives.     

“Doing Geography”: Evaluating an Independent Geographic Inquiry Assessment Task in an Initial Teacher Education Program

The assessment task of the final course in a bachelor of secondary education program is examined for opportunities for preservice geography teachers to achieve the course aims of integrating, consolidating, applying, and reflecting on the knowledge and skills they have learned during their initial teacher education program. The results show that the preservice teachers did better in some areas (integrating, consolidating, and reflecting) than in others (applying). This has implications for curriculum renewal in geography methods courses—specifically to provide more opportunities for preservice teachers to practice applying the knowledge and skills they have gained during the program, essential for their future roles as senior geography teachers.     

Future Teachers of Geography: Whose Opportunity?

Abstract

Although geography is being revived in the K-12 curriculum, preservice teachers—candidates for the teaching profession—now in our universities are not universally reaping the benefits of cooperative efforts of geography and college of education faculty. Reform is appropriate in both camps. Colleges of education, influenced by many agents, including Certificate/licensing regulations, accrediting agencies, professional organizations, and a stream of reform movements, are bringing education to the level of a true profession. The dimensions of the reform underway and several key players offer great opportunities for geography education and for improving the general climate for teaching excellence in institutions of higher learning. Candidates for the new teaching profession and their education faculty are teaching and learning collaboratively, and conducting research in diverse school districts. Geographers have new reasons and new opportunities to participate in the education of the geography teachers of tomorrow.     

Preservice Primary Teachers’ Depth and Accuracy of Knowledge of Tropical Cyclones

Climatic hazards are a key feature of life. It is vital that teachers are knowledgeable about these phenomena in order to develop their students’ understanding of them. This study used a mixed methods approach to examine the accuracy and depth of preservice primary teachers’ (n = 430) knowledge of tropical cyclones. The findings suggest that prospective primary teachers hold alternative conceptions about the causes, spatial distribution, and impacts of these phenomena and that their explanations of processes lack structural complexity and integration. Issues raised by these findings and implications for teachers’ geographical knowledge and their professional standards and preservice teacher education are discussed.     

GEO-Teach: A Preservice Teacher Preparation Program in Geography

Abstract

GEO-Teach is a project funded by the Fund for the Improvement of Preservice Education (FIPSE). The project aims to develop a model preservice curriculum at the secondary level. It incorporates the newly published National Geography Standards and merges content with pedagogy through partnerships with faculty in education and other social and behavioral sciences to deliver the curriculum. School teachers act as mentors to students in the program.