Teaching economic geography in UK higher education institutions

Abstract

This paper examines how the changes in the last decade in economic geography have been reflected in the courses taught in the UK and assesses the impact of recent changes in teaching styles and methods on how the subject is taught. It summarises the findings from a survey of 50 UK Geography Departments. The paper covers three main topics: the significance of economic geography in UK degrees courses; the characteristics of introductory economic geography courses; and the issues involved in the teaching of economic geography.     

Perspectives and sensitivities: teaching as the creation of conditions of possibility for geographic thinking

Abstract

Teaching methodological courses means providing students with general ideas to think with, rather than specific facts to think about. Rethinking the teaching task must be informed by an awareness of ideological, philosophical, technical and analytical perspectives, and should look for basic themes uniting apparently different approaches. Almost all quantitative methodologies are actually specific examples of the mathematical operation of mapping. Genuine understanding is achieved by visualisation of a problem, rather than algebraic manipulation, and the teaching task could be aided greatly by employing the power of interactive computer graphics. It is suggested that the analytical and pedagogic approaches used by experienced teachers might be shared initially in an international conference, and so form the basis for more effective and efficient teaching in the future.     

'An Unbelievable Academic and Personal Experience': Issues around teaching undergraduate field courses in Africa

This paper explores the teaching of geography field courses in Africa for UK university undergraduates. Using largely qualitative feedback, the experiences of students, staff and local communities involved in field courses to Kenya, Zimbabwe and The Gambia are evaluated. Benefits and disbenefits of these field courses to the participating students, the local community and teaching staff are scrutinised. The paper concludes that such field courses to 'exotic' destinations are an effective means to student recruitment and certainly achieve their aims while providing meaningful teaching and learning experiences. Furthermore, the analysis shows that field courses to 'poor' destinations in sub-Saharan Africa can avoid dangers of 'development tourism' if conducted with ethical sensitivity.     

Learning about small group teaching

Abstract

In providing an example of how the teaching of oral skills can be integrated into a seminar programme through the format of a mock job interview, a distinction is made between presentational and interrogative oral skills. The former has typically dominated initiatives to improve oral skills training. However, viva voce and job interviews make heavy demands on interrogative skills, suggesting the need to give some experience of such pressurised circumstances within teaching programmes. Running mock job interviews for posts related to the content of particular courses can provide a novel and effective means of integrating skills training with course objectives.     

Gender and geography in the Netherlands: from separation to integration

Abstract

This article reports on the development of feminist geography in the Netherlands in the past forty years. In response to critical feminist students, feminist geography originally developed in a strategy of separation with the appointment of university lecturers specialized in ‘women’s studies’, the introduction of elective courses and research projects, and the creation of national networks. Gender is currently more and more integrated in core geography teaching and mainstream geographical research and separate networks are dissolved. Although feminist geographers in the Netherlands are successful in teaching, publishing and acquisition of research funding, gender issues and perspectives are still not firmly rooted in geography curricula and research programs. Integration is highly dependent on the feminist commitment of individual lecturers and researchers and gender perspectives are at risk of marginalisation or disappearance. Feminist geographers in the Netherlands must still be vigilant to preserve the achievements of forty years of Dutch feminist geography.     

Reflections on a Discipline-wide Project: Developing active learning modules on the human dimensions of global change

Developing Active Learning Modules on the Human Dimensions of Global Change was a four-year discipline-wide project that aimed to infuse current scholarship on global change into introductory and intermediate university courses, develop active learning materials on the human dimensions of global change for use in introductory and intermediate college courses, motivate faculty to think critically about their approaches to teaching and learning, and, finally, establish a process within the Association of American Geographers to develop and disseminate active learning materials. The authors describe the project and reflect on lessons learned.     

Teaching exchange: A rewarding personal experience

Abstract

This paper discusses the teaching of the analytical approach to behavioural geography. After examining the relationship between teaching and research in this area of inquiry, the paper proceeds to outline some fundamental concepts and principles, concentrating specifically on models of man, models of environment, perception and cognition, information diffusion and adoption, space preferences and time‐path analysis. Comments are then made as to how analytical behavioural geography may be taught at all levels of education, from elementary schooling to postgraduate courses.     

Students as learners

Abstract

This paper examines the changes in teaching practice that follow from adopting a feminist perspective on geography. The first part discusses changes in the content and organisation of undergraduate courses, the second discusses changes in methods of teaching. The paper concludes by briefly examining the relationship between the theoretical analysis of women's oppression and the fight for women's rights.     

Teaching mathematics in geography degrees: Motivation,necessities and approach

Abstract

Within the constraints of viewing geography as an applied discipline with a large number of arts‐based students, the primary problem of teaching mathematics in a geography degree is argued to be one of contending the motivation for a symbolic and analytical approach. This paper explores ways in which motivation for mathematics can be impressed on students and then discusses those areas of mathematics necessary in geography. The final section explores an applied approach to mathematics teaching based on the concept of systems.     

Dancing to Different Tunes: Conveying Latin American realities to composite classes

Students are often attracted to courses about Latin America by media images of the region with their aura of danger and unpredictability. Such stereotypes must be addressed in teaching, but the means is far from clear when the participants stem from different disciplinary backgrounds and academic traditions. The method adopted here was to tackle development through discourse construction through an appreciation of positionality. This approach enabled students to draw on their respective backgrounds and experience critically; it also ensured that students appreciated the core concepts embedded in the discipline, while engaging in a challenging way with the issues raised by Latin American development.     

Never mind the kudos,join the dialogue

Abstract

This paper reports on the redevelopment of medical geography courses taught to both undergraduate and graduate students in a US university. The author participated in a curriculum development seminar that focused explicitly on the creation of new courses that incorporate perspectives from current research on women and other marginalised, ignored or forgotten groups. The experience and feedback from this seminar led to changes in undergraduate courses in medical geography and to the creation of a new and specific graduate seminar course that critiques medical geography for its gender and colour blindness. The paper includes a commentary on the institutional context that allowed such changes to occur and discussion of issues relating to introducing perspectives on women into the curriculum. Spin‐offs from course redevelopment included the creation of resource materials (a bibliographic database) and a reformulation of teaching strategies.     

Two modes of peer teaching in introductory college geography

Abstract

Two modes of using undergraduate students as peer teachers in introductory courses have been developed at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Peer teachers are small group leaders in a human geography course built around role playing simulations; in two physical geography courses they are tutors in a self‐paced system. A separate course provides peer teacher guidance—a course‐within‐a‐course model. Socio‐psychological, pedagogical, economic, and political implications of peer teaching are interpreted after ten years' experience with the programme.     

Curriculum development and society: West German geographers respond to the American high school geography project

Abstract

Industrial geography courses at the Historically Black Universities (HBUs) and the Historically White Universities (HWUs) in South Africa are a true reflection of apartheid education designed by the government in the 1950s. The education system offers whites good and quality education, while blacks receive poor education. The nature and history of the HBUs have affected the content and the teaching of industrial geography. Unlike the HWUs industrial geography courses at the HBUs do not contain much of the recent changes in the subject.     

International geography field courses: practices and challenges

Abstract

This paper introduces a special issue of the Journal of Geography in Higher Education on the practices and challenges associated with taking undergraduate geography students abroad on field courses. I argue that geography is positioned to benefit from both the internationalization of higher education and the demand by students for global experiences. The papers in this special issue focus on three aspects of international field courses: curriculum design and international partnerships, student engagement during short-duration field courses, and how encounters with place can be aided through reflection and play. I conclude with suggestions for future research on international field courses.     

The limits of library user education: arguments for a lecturer‐led,student‐centred approach

Abstract

The author discusses some of the thinking behind programmes of library instruction in higher education. The shortcomings of such courses are examined, with particular reference to a course for first‐year students at Portsmouth Polytechnic. The author argues that library instruction can only succeed when fully integrated with the teaching of the subject. This requires greater consideration by geography teachers of the relationship between bibliographic knowledge and substantive knowledge.     

Mathematical education for geographers

Abstract

The mathematical topics which are of use to geography students are outlined, as are the methods used for teaching mathematical techniques in geography courses at Leeds over the last few years. The concluding section relates practice to goals, and the problems of providing the student with a framework into which he can fit all the pieces of knowledge he has acquired. Possible future developments are reviewed briefly in the light of the development of new mathematical techniques on the one hand, and criticisms of the existing state of the art on the other. The subject matter of the paper is limited to mathematical education, and there is only indirect and brief concern with statistics.     

Integrating concepts in the teaching of geography in higher education

Abstract

To be coherent and effective, teaching programmes require broad integrating concepts. Such paradigms of modern geography as quantification, behaviouralism, Marxism, and systems theory are discussed as a guide to finding these concepts. Any frameworks that are adopted must recognise the dualism between methodological and theoretical concepts.     

The Open University – So Far

Abstract

The Open University was founded out of Harold Wilson's vision of a Television University at the time of the Robbins Report of 1963; it was brought into being through Jennie Lee and Peter Venables and, later, Walter Perry. Lord Crowther, as first Chancellor, outlined the openness as to people, places, methods and ideas. Among the most interesting features of the innovation were teaching by teamwork, making possible laboratory experience at a distance, the use of broadcasting, supplying students with the written word, and problems of evaluation. About 20 000 students were finally registered for tbe first year. About 15 per cent classify themselves as working-class; the majority are from working-class homes but in middle-class jobs. The undergraduate population has now stabilized at 60 000. The total number of full courses or their equivalent is to be 88 in 6 faculties. Students graduate with 6 credits or 8 for honours. A student pays at present a little over £1000 for a full programme. In addition there is a new emphasis on short courses for assciate students. The University has had considerable impact overseas and in the United Kingdom.     

'Walking the walk and talking the talk': Bodies,conversation, gender and power in higher education in England

Combinations of speaking, listening and bodily behaviour have been neglected in accounts of the operation of power. Although often described as fluid and interactionally produced, power has been the subject of few empirically based analyses at micro-interactional scales. Drawing on interviews with undergraduates and extracts from teaching interactions at higher education institutions in England, this article focuses on talk as a situated practice. It describes how verbal and bodily behaviours together are fundamentally involved in the enactment of instructor and student roles and power relations, and the collective interactional (re)production of teaching spaces. It discusses two broad types of teaching interaction in terms of gendered differences in the structure of talk, drawing attention to how these are shaped by differences in how instructors enact power. I suggest that men may routinely engage in conversations with 'feminine' structures in teaching spaces without this compromising heterosexual masculinity, and present reasons why it may be more likely that women be problematized for using 'masculine' verbal styles. I also argue that rather than simply being inscribed on to instructors' bodies in ways that accord with the hegemonic discourses of gender, authority and respect have to continually be earned from students, and verbal behaviour is deeply involved in this process. It is not enough to 'walk the walk', instructors must also 'talk the talk', in ways that students deem legitimate.     

The University of the Future

Abstract

The economic and social pressures on universities will require a more flexible approach to education to be evolved if the system is to survive. An increasingly multicultural and multiethnic mix of students and the growing number of older students demand the ability to tailor programmes to the individuals concerned. Use of fibre optic and other high speed communications technology will be crucial in this endeavour, allowing courses to be pooled between institutions, while multimedia facilities and virtual reality offer students unrivalled opportunities to expand their educational experience. The future must also rest on increased collaboration with industry and in closer integration of universities into their local communities.