Implementing a Problem-Based Learning Approach for Teaching Research Methods in Geography

This paper first describes problem-based learning; second describes how a research methods course in geography is taught using a problem-based learning approach; and finally relates student and staff experiences of this approach. The course is run through regular group meetings, two residential field trips and optional skills-based workshops. Course evaluations improved markedly following the introduction of this approach and students appreciated the benefits of the problem-based learning approach, particularly through working in groups on authentic problems that were relevant to future workplace scenarios. They were also able to further develop a range of transferable skills, particularly in teamwork. However, they may not have increased other transferable skills (such as in oral communication) as much as desired due to the tendency for groups to draw on individual strengths to complete collaborative group tasks. Other concerns were group size, the high workload and coping with group dynamics. Tutors found the teaching to be enjoyable, relaxing and very rewarding but there were some anxieties due to the unpredictable nature of the course as well as frustration at knowing when to intervene. However, despite these difficulties for both students and staff, the authors are sufficiently encouraged by the response to continue teaching using a problem-based learning approach.     

Teaching Introductory Geographic Information Systems through Problem-based Learning and Public Scholarship

This paper is concerned with the transition from school/college to higher education and discusses the outcomes of surveys of first-year undergraduates enrolled on geography degrees with respect to their experiences of field study as part of GCE Advanced level programmes prior to entry. Despite the core status given to fieldwork in the geographical training offered at Advanced level, the surveys show substantial variation among students in terms of field days, ranging from zero to 11 days. Consequently, each student cohort has a very uneven background of field study. Additionally, although students have developed generally positive attitudes to field study, a number of preferences and prejudices are identified. Many students have clearer recollections of data collection and recording techniques than of the character of the places in which investigations occurred. The resultant implications for field study within undergraduate programmes are discussed.     

An Activity-Based Learning Approach for Key Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Concepts

This study presents the effect of active learning methods of concepts in geographical information systems where students participated in a series of interlocked learning experiences. These activities spanned several teaching weeks and involved the creation of a hand drawn map that was scanned and geo-referenced with locations' coordinates derived from virtual earth systems. These activities engaged students' attention, and the completion of the activities provided opportunities for formative feedback and summative assessments. The effect of the group of activities on students' learning was quantified through the collection of summative assessment data which was compared to performance in other assessment tasks.     

Application of Problem Based Learning through Research Investigation

Problem-based learning (PBL) is a teaching technique that uses problem-solving as the basis for student learning. The technique is student-centred with teachers taking the role of a facilitator. Its general aims are to construct a knowledge base, develop problem-solving skills, teach effective collaboration and provide the skills necessary to be a successful lifelong learner. This study evaluates the application of PBL in an undergraduate Earth Systems Interactions unit and an exercise based around the Urban Heat Island. The initial execution of PBL was mixed with many students fully engaged in the material, but others found the approach insufficiently structured. Some students were not able to adapt to the unusual challenges of PBL, partly because it was their first exposure. When asked about what they had learnt from their PBL experience, the students emphasized the technical rather than the problem-solving skills. In subsequent years, a more directed project-based learning approach was introduced, which improved students' overall satisfaction and performances.     

Polycentricity and the Hollow State: Exploring Shared Personnel as a Source of Connectivity in Fragmented Urban Systems

The Ecology of Games (EoG) theory couples institutional rational choice with social network theory, articulating how transaction costs, social capital, and collective action dilemmas shape networks and network outcomes in polycentric governance systems. EoG literature has often focused on social–relational ties across organizational boundaries. However, jurisdictional fragmentation and increased reliance on private contractors in local public service delivery foster another source of network connectivity—shared personnel who work for multiple service providers. Drawing upon novel data of organizational personnel from more than 500 special purpose entities responsible for delivering drinking water to local neighborhoods in the Houston metro area in the state of Texas (United States), we examine how managerial, technical, and financial service delivery personnel connect otherwise independent organizations. We find that districts regulated by a common groundwater management agency and districts which contract with one another are both more likely to share technical and managerial personnel. By studying special districts that have overlapping personnel, we broaden the scope of the EoG framework to include additional layers of governance network complexity. As individual bureaucrats and service professionals play a key role in information transfer and innovation diffusion across organizations, shared personnel networks merit consideration as a mechanism for coordination and collective problem solving in fragmented urban systems.     

Research-Based Learning: Teaching Development Through Fieldschools

The challenge of bringing research-based learning to undergraduate development studies and anthropology students has led to convening a fieldschool in Indonesia. The fieldschool has been vital in introducing students to fieldwork methodology and in developing a deeper understanding of the relation of research data to development theory. In addition, students who participate in the fieldschool discover a whole new aspect to learning where an emotional and intellectual response to the field situation is required and they are challenged to consider the ethical issues raised in the course of their research.     

Teaching Experiential Learning in the Urban Planning Curriculum

The urban and regional planning profession demands the training of practical planners who have some experience with community development, citizen participation modules, and conflict resolution skills. Community outreach in curricula provides needed exposure to practical applications of textbook lessons and exposure to group dynamics, community clients, and complex problems. The recognised need for practical training in any planning curriculum is most often addressed through community outreach-based courses such as planning studios, practicum or in lectures interwoven into seminar courses. The basic structure of all of these classes typically supports teams of students working with a particular community on a specific planning-related activity. These outreach courses, however, pose some of the greatest teaching and learning challenges in the entire curriculum. This paper assesses the challenges and successes in teaching the practicum course and provides insights for others teaching similar courses.     

E-learning for Geography's Teaching and Learning Spaces

The authors embed their advocacy of educational technology in a consideration of contemporary pedagogy in geography. They provide examples of e-learning from a wide range of teaching and learning contexts. They promote the idea that considering best practice with reference to educational technology will increase the versatility of teaching geography in higher education. On the basis of reviewing the pedagogic options associated with e-learning using a variety of technologies, and their promotion of versatility in the use of e-learning approaches, they find and illustrate the new spaces that have become available to teachers and learners of geography.     

Reflections on the Efficacy of a Constructivist Approach to Teaching and Learning in a First-Year Bachelor of Environmental Management Topic

The dynamism of Environmental Management in the 21st century has predicted the need for students to emerge from tertiary programmes with a set of skills that are functional and more widely applicable in the contemporary workplace. To foster the development of such tools and skill sets, there has been an increasing trend amongst teaching practitioners to move from objectivist to constructivist views of learning and teaching. Using the theoretical heritage of constructivism, we in this paper offer an example of the effectiveness of constructive alignment in teaching tools and assessment methods for first year Environmental Management students. Drawing inspiration from the successes reported by Biggs et al. (2010) and Park (2003), we offer further discussion on the merits of such approaches, but from a first-year undergraduate cohort. Through a discursive analysis of student writings and formal feedback received through course evaluation questionnaires, we in this paper demonstrate how this combination of teaching methods led to a cohort that actively participated in their own learning. The results revealed that such methods could be successfully implemented at earlier stages of Environmental Management degree programmes, to encourage normally pragmatic, minimalist work ethic, first-year students, to be active, enthusiastic learners both within and outside the University.     

A Framework for the Integration of DVD Technology in Geography Teaching and Learning

This article discusses the results when integrating digital versatile disc (DVD) technology in full-time second-year geography for BEd degree students at a university in South Africa, a developing country. It proposes a framework for the integration of the DVD in geography teaching and learning, steered by students’ needs, feedback and observations by the lecturer. The proposed framework recommends clear guidelines on how to integrate the DVD, as well as the interactions between the role players/resources. It also explains how the DVD was compiled, what was included and how it was effectively applied in conjunction with seminars, as an alternative to traditional lectures. An action research design was utilized and both qualitative and quantitative data were collected.     

Content,Community, and Collaboration at ESRI Virtual Campus: A GIS Company's Perspective on Creating an Online Learning Resource

GIS requires training to use it to its potential. In 1996, ESRI began exploring ways to expand its successful educational programmes to a worldwide audience via the Web. The ESRI Virtual Campus (VC) opened in July 1997. The paper discusses a few of the many lessons learned during the operation of VC, related to content, community and collaboration, and considers future prospects. The VC continues to evolve in the areas of component-based design, database publishing, community and collaborations. As new technologies become available and bandwidth increases, features that could not be imagined at its conception can now be developed.     

加涅信息加工学习理论在对外汉语课堂教学中的应用

对外汉语教学较之传统学科发展相对较晚,有待进一步建设。在这一完善过程中,教育学、心理学的学科理论对其发展有着很好的推动作用。笔者取其一点,着力讨论加涅信息加工学习理论在汉语课堂教学中的应用。     

Building a GIScience Community in Cyberspace: reflections on GIScOnline

In this paper, distance learning is defined not as the physical separation of students from a tutor but by the need to facilitate group learning, interaction and a sense of community amongst course participants. A critical review of an established distance-learning course is made reflecting on the team's experiences of building a learning community in cyberspace. The successes and failures are recorded, as are the barriers to engendering a sense of kinship on the course. A survey of students' own experiences with and feeling towards various communication technologies is also presented.     

Learning in Authentic Contexts: Projects Integrating Spatial Technologies and Fieldwork

In recent years, professional practice has been an issue of concern in higher education. The purpose of this study is to design students' projects to facilitate collaborative learning in authentic contexts. Ten students majoring in Management Information Systems conducted fieldwork with spatial technologies to collect data and provided information works for communities. Activity theory was used to analyze the activity system of the project. The results showed that the project had positive effects on students' attitudes toward practical knowledge and social communication. In the end, the author suggests the benefits and problems related to promoting learning through integration with community practices.     

Engaging with the (Un)familiar: Field Teaching in a Multi-Campus Teaching Environment

Field trips have long been central to geography, but have been subject to assessment of the role of the ‘field’ in teaching. At the same time, academics face barriers to running field trips. Distance education and enhanced educational access for non-metropolitan students represented such an obstacle at an Australian university. These obstacles were taken as an opportunity to draw on the regional nature of the students and staff to enhance teaching goals, run critically informed field trips by and manage academic workloads. We evaluate the field trips by conducting surveys and interviews with students and tutors, and as an example of innovation within constraints.     

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) hydrological modeling in archaeology: an example from the origins of irrigation in Southwest Arabia (Yemen)

From small bands of foragers, pastoralists, and village agriculturists, to states and civilizations water accessibility and management played a crucial role in sustenance and social life throughout the ancient world. Recent advances in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and related remote sensing technologies offer powerful means of analyzing water flow that are well-suited to clarify design and operational requirements of different irrigation and water management systems. Ancient Southwest Arabian irrigation technologies developed over thousands of years culminating in some the ancient world's most advanced flashflood water systems. This paper describes satellite imagery Digital Elevation Model (DEM) extraction and GIS hydrological modeling procedures conducted for the Wadi Sana watershed of Hadramawt Governate, Yemen. Results help illustrate one of the local contexts in which small-scale irrigation originated in Southwest Arabia and additionally serve as an example for those interested in applying similar methods in other regions.     

Technological Learning and Innovation in China in the Context of Globalization

A team of China- and U.S.-based geographers develops the theoretical concept of "learning field" to advance the study of technological innovation through networking under conditions of ongoing globalization. The concept is applied in a survey of ca. 100 firms in the Zhengzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone, located in a relatively underdeveloped region of China. The findings emphasize the different patterns and challenges confronting companies of differing size, property rights, and R&D capacities, as well as the variable extent to which technological learning is based on local versus global linkages and networking. Key elements involved in successful technological upgrading (in addition to networking) are identified, including market structure, competitive strategies, and capital. Also examined are the roles played by geographic, relational, and institutional factors in providing opportunities for learning and cooperation among firms in an industrial district. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: D21, D83, O31, P20. 8 figures, 3 tables, 67 references.     

Opportunities across boundaries: lessons from a collaboratively delivered cross-institution Master's programme

Advances in technology have created opportunities for collaborative multi-institution programme delivery which are increasingly attractive within a constrained financial environment. This paper details the development of a cross-institution collaboratively delivered masters and postgraduate diploma programme in Geographical Information Science in New Zealand. We explore the benefits of such an approach as well as the lessons learnt from its implementation. The recommendations presented will be of interest to teaching faculty considering specialized collaborative programmes as well as more senior staff who are keen to combine institutional resources to meet new and emerging demands for skills.     

Lost in Translation: Cross-Cultural Experiences in Teaching Geo-Genealogy

This paper reports on a cross-cultural outreach activity of the current UK ‘Spatial Literacy in Teaching’ (SPLINT) Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL), a past UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) grant, and shared interests in family names between Japanese and UK academics. It describes a pedagogic programme developed for Japanese postgraduates and advanced undergraduates that entailed quantitative and qualitative analysis of the spatial distributions of Japanese family names. The authors describe some specific semantic, procedural and theoretical issues and, more generally, suggest how names analysis provides a common framework for engaging student interest in GIS.     

Recent Directions and Developments in Geographical Information Systems

Geographical information systems (GIS) are tools for handling and processing spatially referenced information that have permeated all facets of archaeology, frequently revolutionizing research by allowing easy access to vast amounts of information, new ways of data visualization that promote insight through pattern recognition, and unique methodologies that allow entirely new approaches to the study of the past. This comprehensive review examines and critiques recent advances achieved through GIS in regional and within-site databases, locational analysis and modeling, regional simulation, studies of landscape perception through intervisibility analysis, and models of spatial allocation, territoriality, and site access. The future prospects of GIS are enormous with the growth of the Internet, the resultant linking of databases, expected enhancements in satellite remote sensing, and the increasing pervasiveness of global positioning systems for spatial data capture. If there is a persistent theme that emerges from the chronicles of contemporary scientific cartography, it is that the creation of a map almost inevitably leads to unexpected revelations. — Hall, Mapping the Next Millenium: How Computer-Driven Cartography Is Revolutionizing the Face of Science