The Effectiveness of Internet-based Instruction: An experiment in physical geography

Geographers increasingly use the Internet as an instructional tool in higher education. The effect of Internet-based instruction on learning, however, is essentially unknown. This research involves a matched-pairs experiment that assesses the differences in student performance between a group of students taking an Internet-based lesson in introductory physical geography, and another group learning the same material via traditional classroom methods. Both groups were subject to the same knowledge assessment post-test, and scores were statistically analysed to determine whether one instructional method led to better student performance over the other. Results show that the Internet can be a viable alternative instructional tool compared with traditional classroom methods.     

Undergraduate student perceptions of assessment and feedback practice: fostering agency and dialogue

ABSTRACT

Assessment and feedback practices sit at the heart of education and the student experience. This paper reports on undergraduate perceptions of assessment and feedback in the Department of Geography at King’s College London, UK. Twenty-eight first and second-year students across six focus groups provided comments on their understanding of feedback, their feedback experiences, and what they felt could be improved. It was clear that students desired feedback that would help them improve summative performance, but were unsure of how best to use it and consequently had high expectations that led to dissatisfaction. Particular concern was expressed about marking and feedback consistency, and the inherent variation in practice they experienced. Many comments indicated a lack of student agency, which may reflect the power relations that students find themselves in within their community of practice. Finding ways of fostering agency and improving dialogue over perceptions and expectations are suggested to be important steps in improving assessment and feedback practice, and student satisfaction.     

“Who teaches,learns”: writing groups in geographical education

Abstract

The ability to communicate is acknowledged by employers to be a valuable attribute of a university graduate. That ability is also vital in fulfilling geography discipline objectives of mutual understanding and emancipation. Writing groups have been used in geography departments in Australia and the USA as a means of improving student skills in written communication as well as to stimulate positive attitudes to writing, intellectual growth and rhetorical skills. From the point of view of teachers, writing groups were employed to fulfil pedagogic objectives and to free up time for instructional improvements and other academic business. This paper outlines the rationale for using writing groups in geography courses, means by which they might be applied, and their merits and shortcomings.     

The Oral History Project: Connecting Students to Their Community, Grades 4-8

The Oral History Project describes a middle school project thatbegan with a statewide effort to improve students’ languagearts achievement scores. Pennsylvania educators proposed anintegrative instructional model that would involve adolescentsin intergenerational interviews. Teachers implemented the modelin a variety of settings. This book represents Pennsylvaniaeducators’ attempt to share the integrative intergenerationalinterview model with others. Donald Graves, a nationally known expert in language arts educationand author of the Foreword, asserts the instructional modelrepresented in The     

Discussion papers

Using Africa for the regional context, this article presents an instructional strategy for improving students' awareness of African world-views and the news media's coverage of the continent. After studying about African world-views and the media's representation of Africa, students use a research/writing project to evaluate the media's inclusion of world-views in the coverage of selected African events. The research/writing project helps students to become more inclusive in their awareness of cultures and to develop writing skills and electronic network research skills.     

Geography's secret powers to save the world

The purpose of this paper, prepared to present at the 2018 joint Canadian Association of Geographers (CAG) and International Geographical Union (IGU) regional conference, is to suggest three strategies, framed as proposals, that geography and geography education can deploy to “save the world.” The first proposal is to expand explicit instruction in spatial thinking to close gender‐based achievement gaps. The second proposal is to apply research from the learning sciences to develop persuasive geography curricula and instructional materials. The third proposal focuses on ways social media and geospatial technologies can be employed in civic education, an idea termed “spatial citizenship.” The paper suggests a re‐envisioning of geography education with an enhanced focus on teaching for, in, and about a world that fully appreciates difference and acts on that appreciation.     

How the Pokagon Band Avoided Removal: Archaeological Evidence from the Faunal Assemblage of the Pokagon Village Site (20BE13)

Abstract

The Removal period is the time between the Treaty of Greenville in A.D. 1795 and the final expulsion of most Potawatomi from Michigan and Indiana by 1840. It was a time of rapid social change, when Native Americans developed many different adaptive strategies that are revealed by great cultural diversity in time and space. Archaeological investigations of the Pokagon Village site (20BE13) have provided new insights into the strategies that the wkama Leopold Pokagon and his associates used to avoid the removal of their band. The faunal assemblage from two middens at the site is compared with assemblages from other early nineteenth century Native American sites in the region, showing that the development of economic self-sufficiency through the adoption of European domesticated animals was an important part of the Pokagon Band’s anti-removal strategy.     

The role of assessment in the design of a curriculum for a degree in geography

Abstract

Decisions about the assessment of courses in higher education will influence the structure of the curriculum. Assessment is necessary not only to inform students and staff, but also for external and predictive purposes. The objectives of assessment are both instructional and expressive, while the kinds of skills tested are mainly those of written and oral communication. The incorporation of all these factors into assessment and curriculum design can be facilitated by using tables and diagrams based on educational theory. Unlike other components of the curriculum, assessment continues to play an active role in curriculum development after the initial design stage.     

Student–staff partnerships in learning and teaching: an overview of current practice and discourse

ABSTRACT

Student–staff partnerships in learning and teaching are not a new idea but have seen a growing interest and momentum in recent years. In this article, I provide an overview of the background and context of increased student–staff partnerships, a definition of partnership and some of the benefits. I highlight several examples of practice from different countries, universities and disciplines, and involving different numbers of students, which help to illustrate some of the variety of what is possible in student–staff partnerships in learning and teaching but also some of the challenges. I will focus on key ideas currently being debated in student–staff partnership work in the form of theoretical framing; contested definitions; mixed motivations and concerns about partnership being co-opted by neoliberalism; the imperative of inclusion; and the role of student–staff relationships. I conclude by considering what ways geographers might contribute to future research and practice, by offering some practical strategies for establishing and maintaining good quality partnerships in learning and teaching and with suggestions for enhancing the community and culture within which we operate.     

Student housing as a learning space

ABSTRACT

This paper is an initial exploration of the significance of students’ accommodation as spaces for learning. In interviews, students of Geography and Planning discuss the spatiality of studying, and how their student housing features in this. The diversity of student living and studying emerges clearly. Yet there are some commonalities, notably the significance of the materiality of accommodation as a factor that shapes and is in turn shaped by students’ agency. Their accounts underline the ways they seek to shape key aspects of their lives, and the reflective, learning, approach many take to this task. The paper concludes by drawing out implications for university tutors and lecturers. It also suggests avenues for further research.     

Humanising the Technology Landscape through a Collaborative Pedagogy

A major shift in educational paradigms from a competitive model to a more collaborative model is now under way in higher education. Using collaborative theories espoused by Freire, Bruffee and other scholars working outside the discipline of geography, this paper presents an argument for integrating their collaborative approach into distance education courses at the postgraduate level. The Step Up to Geography Through Distance Learning project is used to provide one innovative model that integrates not only the collaborative method of instruction, but also the use of a multi-layered system of instructional technologies including use of desktop videoconferencing and the Internet.     

Migration strategies and occupational outcomes of southern Italian graduates

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyse whether internal migration of graduates is an efficient strategy for addressing scarce occupational opportunities in southern Italy. Analysis of data on the southern graduate population in 2004 shows the rise of a new aspect of social discrimination for recent graduates in the process of transition to the labour market. In fact, the probabilities of adopting different strategies of geographical mobility are not homogeneously distributed, but they change on the basis of available family resources. This differentiation has an impact on labour market outcomes, modifying strategies and ways that lead the transition towards employment.     

Facilitating the transition from being a geography student to becoming a geographer in Spain: the role of professional identity

ABSTRACT

The transition between university studies and workplace is often described as a difficult and challenging process. In this paper, we propose a series of modifications to the curriculum of geography studies based on an exploration of both student and professional perceptions on the image of the geography profession and how they identify with it. Based on several interviews, we suggest a series of recommendations for curriculum design to reconcile the disagreement found between student and professional perceptions and to foster students’ identification with professional images.     

The DEEPSAL Project: Using the Past for Local Community Futures in Jordan

ABSTRACT

The Deep Past as a Social Asset in the Levant (DEEPSAL) project, conducted in 2015–16 by the Council for British Research in the Levant, examined two communities in southern Jordan, Beidha and Basta, who live near significant Neolithic archaeological sites. The project collected information on the communities’ current socioeconomic conditions, their relationship with local cultural heritage and how that cultural heritage currently benefits or hinders them. The information was used to inform nascent strategies to utilize the sites sustainably as development assets and suggest alternative strategies as necessary. The results showed that a tourism-based strategy is suitable for Beidha but there was a need to focus on basic business skills. For Basta a tourism-based strategy is currently unsuitable, and efforts should rather focus on supporting educational activities. The results of the project are presented here within the context of archaeology’s increasing interest to use archaeological resource to benefit local communities, and outlines lessons for that effort.     

Student Perceptions of Geography and Environmental Science Fieldwork in the Light of Restricted Access to the Field,Caused by Foot and Mouth Disease in the UK in 2001

Internationally, fieldwork is generally seen as intrinsic to the very nature of geographical education. However, objective experimentation comparing student learning experiences with and without fieldwork is rare. During 2001 in the UK, fieldwork was withdrawn from many university degree programmes as Foot and Mouth Disease led to restrictions on access to the countryside. This restriction provided an unexpected opportunity to assess student perceptions of fieldwork in the light of its absence and to review those alternative learning strategies which were put in its place (where appropriate). To this end, nominal group technique (NGT) was applied to five groups of students from five separate UK universities to obtain information on the groups' perceptions of the value of fieldwork. NGT elicited almost 300 responses from 33 final-year students representing a high level of group consensus on the issues involved. Rationalisation of responses identified 12 categories, which reflect and amplify key educational objectives addressed by fieldwork in geography and environmental sciences from existing theoretical literature. Results demonstrate that student perception of fieldwork (based on previous university-level field experiences) is overwhelmingly positive. The groups identified the experience of geographical reality, developing subject knowledge, acquiring technical, transferable and holistic skills, and working with peers and lecturers as being the most important perceived benefits of fieldwork. Negative impacts of fieldwork included high levels of time consumption. Using a systematic and objective methodology, these results confirm, in a novel rigorous multi-institutional approach, the conception of geography and environmental science fieldwork as being of significant value for the overall student learning experience.     

Affective politics and colonial heritage,Rhodes Must Fall at UCT and Oxford

ABSTRACT

The article analyses the spatial entanglement of colonial heritage struggles through a study of the Rhodes Must Fall student movement at the University of Cape Town and the University of Oxford. We aim to shed light over why statues still matter in analyzing colonial traces and legacies in urban spaces and how the decolonizing activism of the RMF movement mobilizes around the controversial heritage associated with Cecil Rhodes at both places – a heritage that encompasses statues, buildings, Rhodes scholarship and the Rhodes Trust funds. We include a comparative study of the Facebook use of RMF as it demonstrates significant differences between the two places in the development of the student movements as political activism. Investigating in more detail the heritage politics of RMF at UCT we fledge out what we call an affective politics using non-representational bodily strategies. We argue that in order for actual social movements to mobilize in current political controversies, they need to put affective tactics to use.     

Student participation in tutorials

Abstract

Figures showing the participation pattern in geography tutorials (at one institution) are presented and the problem of poor student participation is identified. Four devices for increasing student participation are then outlined, followed by a brief discussion of the rationale underlying such devices.     

Lake levels,mobility and lithic raw material selection and reduction strategies: A Great Lakes case study

Abstract

It has recently been proposed that lowered lake levels after 4250 BP broadened opportunities for mobility and interaction patterns among hunter-gatherer populations in the Saginaw drainage and in Michigan more broadly (; ). Here, data are presented on chipped stone reduction strategies as reflected in two site assemblages in Bay City, Michigan (20BY28, 20BY387) that bridge this key point in time. The earliest Late Archaic components of these sites, occupied during the higher than modern post Nipissing recession ca. 3200 BP, are typified by on-site reduction of local cherts, often utilising a bipolar reduction strategy. Subsequent uses of the area largely shifted to lower elevations. The more recent site components contain both more diverse projectile styles, many of which can be linked with Ontario types, and higher occurrences of non-local raw materials, specifically Onondaga chert apparently arriving at the site as preforms. The last use of these sites occurred during the Late Woodland, also during lower water levels approaching modern, and reflecting the highest use of Onondaga chert. We suggest that these changes resulted from shifting mobility and exchange patterns, facilitated in part by lowered post Nipissing water levels.