Internationalising Learning and Teaching: A European experience

This paper focuses on experiences with international learning and teaching in a European (ERASMUS) programme on geography and gender during the period 1990-1998. This programme forms an example of collaborative work in which the author and colleagues experimented with an array of models to bring geography students and teachers of diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds together. International learning and teaching is a confrontation with diversity. Diversity in language, in the mastery of English and the resulting hierarchies, in learning and teaching cultures and in defining geography form both challenges and opportunities to profit. In this paper the author will expound on the different strategies to deal with linguistic and cultural differences and to break down hierarchies. Furthermore the opportunities to "use" the differences as learning and teaching contexts will be discussed. Geography is a discipline concerning diversity. Direct contact between persons with different cultural backgrounds can form an efficient, effective and stimulating method to learn about differences in geographies and in teaching methods.     

Problems of Geographical Education in the USSR

Geography education in the Soviet Union is found to lag behind advances in geography as a research discipline. Courses in both elementary and secondary schools and at the college and university level are overloaded with factual material at the expense of theoretical problems and general concepts. An essential requisite for improving the content of geography education is better training of geography teachers. Soviet geography teachers are now being trained mainly in the combined geography-biology faculties of teachers colleges. Combined training in more than one teaching discipline is essential because a teacher trained in geography alone would not have a full teaching load of 18 hours a week in most schools. However, the geography-biology combination does not appear to be optimal because the emphasis in biology is no longer on botany and zoology, as in the past, but on human physiology and genetics, with less relevance to geography. It is recommended that geography as a teaching discipline be combined with other subjects of instruction having greater relevance to geography teaching, possibly chemistry, physical education or foreign languages. Less emphasis on fact-loaded regional courses and more stress on systematic courses is recommended, together with training in mathematical techniques.     

Reinforcing Diversity: From the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’

This paper focuses on Jan Monk's contribution to reinforcing diversity and collaboration in the field of human geography. It illustrates how gendered diversity and feminism is promoted in her academic work both inside the Anglo-American academic world and outside, by exposing the feminist voices from around the world and mainstreaming them in her collaborative work. Fostering and reinforcing diversity has become a body of knowledge in her extensive publications in which she assesses the varying extent and nature of feminist geography in the Anglophone world and across countries, attempting to interpret differences in terms of geographical and cultural contexts and disciplinary trends. The paper emphasizes how fostering diversity and collaboration in Jan's academic work is not only about writing articles, editing books and producing a film, but also engages the formulation of organizational structures such as the Routledge book series and the initiation and establishment of the Commission of Gender and Geography of the International Geographical Union which have contributed to the production of collaborative feminist geographical knowledge across spaces and places.     

Learning to teach geography for primary education: results of an experimental programme

Students training to become primary school teachers appear to have little awareness of the core concepts of geography (teaching). To ensure that future primary school teachers are able to develop their pupils’ geographical awareness, a six weeks programme was developed. The characteristics of this programme – named Consciously Teaching Geography (CTG) – are: principles of good geography teaching, conjunction and a recurrent structure during training, modelling and reflection. In a quasi-experimental research design the question is answered what the effects are of CTG on the development of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for the subject of geography of first year primary student teachers. The results indicated that the programme has a positive effect on the domain-specific PCK development in the short term.     

Identity and Image of Indian Geography: The People's Perspective

Geography is among the late beginner subjects at higher education level in India. As revealed in scholarly writings, this discipline had been subjected to discrimination for colonial reasons and continues to lurch even today. There have been many academic writings on Indian geography. This paper is an attempt to look at the discipline from the people's side. Against the backdrop of a brief history of Indian geography and current debates therein, various issues are discussed as revealed by ordinary people during a questionnaire-based survey across different sections of society and also focused informal discussions.     

A continuing agenda for gender: the role of the IGU Commission on gender and geography

In examining the development of the International Geographical Union’s (IGU) Commission on Gender and Geography over the last three decades, we first highlight the advances made to establish visibility for gender studies within the IGU and create structures for more inclusive feminist geographies across national, disciplinary and other borders. Given that many of the early and most widely-known advances were largely within Anglophone contexts, we then discuss the ongoing challenges and possibilities for advancement faced by feminist geographers who teach, research, and write on gender in other locations. While some of these challenges (such as a continued lack of recognition for gender studies, paternalistic hierarchies, and specific government regimes) are country-specific, others are related to broader issues of neoliberalism and corporatization, and inequities in academic publishing. Clearly, continued efforts are needed to strengthen the agenda for gender to promote more inclusive histories, practices and processes of gender/feminist geography in research, teaching and application in the international arena.     

试论高校地理专业人文地理学的教学改革

依据7所高校地理专业课程设置的分析,可以发现我国高校地理专业人文地理学课程体系基本形成,《人文地理学》、《经济地理学》、《中国地理》、《世界地理》等课程成为人文地理学的核心课程。各高校根据自身特点,通过多种方式和途径,开设了涉及目前人文地理学发展较为成熟领域的课程。《人文地理学》的课程性质决定了它在人文地理学课程群中的总括地位,该课程的教学重点应该在于阐述人文地理学的基本理论、基本方法。课程性质和教学重点对教材提出了要求,我国不同时期出版的教材各具特色,但随着高校地理专业人文地理学课程体系日趋合理,《人文地理学》教材应与《人文地理学》课程性质和功能相一致。人文地理学外业实践教学不可或缺,但目前仍较薄弱,有待加强。人文地理学外业实践教学应以人地关系地域系统理论为指导思想,选择较为典型、富有代表性的地域进行。     

Rethinking Postgraduate Education in Geography: International Perspectives on Improving Practice

This symposium brings together multi-national assessments of the current state of and challenges facing postgraduate education in geography. Contributors from Europe, Australia, South Africa and the USA identify ways in which restructuring of educational systems and wider political contexts affect programmes within the field. While highlighting the implications of initiatives such as restructuring of degrees in European universities, merging of Geography into interdisciplinary units in Australia, efforts to strengthen professional development programmes in the USA and to widen racial participation in South Africa, they also demonstrate the many challenges that remain to innovation, particularly as these are affected by economic conditions and policies.     

Flourishing in fragile academic work spaces and learning environments: feminist geographies of care and mentoring

In this article we discuss the ways in which a feminist ethos of care and the associated practice of mentoring allows feminist geography to flourish in teaching, working and learning spaces. We argue that our working relationship – based on care, mentoring and friendship – is crucial in order to survive and deflect structural inequalities. Our working relationship spans across undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate and early career stages at a single university. We offer our personal stories as examples of establishing and maintaining collaborative mentoring and caring work relationships. Further, our commitment to a feminist ethos of care and mentoring is vital for our selfcare and causes trouble for structural power differentials. First, we share stories about how our working relationship began and developed within the critical, caring and fragile spaces of the Geography Programme at the University of Waikato and other feminist geography networks. Second, literature on care, mentoring and collaboration is discussed, with a focus on feminist politics of mentoring and collaboration. Third, we return to our own experiences to illustrate the ways embodied and emotional subjectivities and associated power dynamics shape mentoring and care relationships. Examples of joint supervision and research are offered to illustrate complex sets of spatially significant emotions, feelings and subjectivities. Finally, we highlight the ways in which place matters if feminist geography is to flourish.     

21世纪高校人文地理学教学改革与实践——中山大学的探索

学科发展的根本在于人才培养,而人才培养的基石是课程体系。目前中国约有150多所高校开设了人文地理学专业,由于学科背景不同,形成了多种人文地理学教学课程体系,由此培养的学生知识结构也千差万别。在此背景下,本文基于中山大学实施人文地理学本科教学改革和教学计划调整的研究实践,在对比探讨国内外各代表院校人文地理学专业学科课程设置特点的基础上,结合本专业就业形势、历史传统、师资情况,提出了以"宽基础、强专业、重实践"为基本导向,以"突出精品、减量增效、资源共享、彰显个性、完善体系"为基本原则的课程改革计划,对人文地理学的教学改革、课程设置提出了基于实践的规范建议。希望此经验有助于国内各院校人文地理学教学改革的进一步深化,也为其他相关专业的教学改革和课程设置提供参考。     

Tutoring Relevant Geography: A People's Geography Project initiative

UK geography departments are now reaching the stage where, in light of social change and growing competition for students, the need to offer a degree programme that is relevant to the needs and expectations of students is a real urgency. Drawing on the People's Geography Project, an initiative from the USA, this paper details the experiences of the author in teaching relevant geography in first-year undergraduate tutorials. The paper contends that by providing an opportunity for students to engage in contentious debate and to adopt a political position, students are encouraged to approach issues from a critical geographical perspective, demonstrate the relevance of a geographical perspective in contemporary issues, recognise the conflicting interests from competing discourses and reach a possible, just solution to social problems. This paper reports on the choice of topics, the forum of debate and assessment through alternative coursework styles, and it analyses the learning of both geographical and transferable skills through a People's Geography tutorial programme. The degree of relevance perceived by both the students and the tutor is evaluated, and suggestions are made for further development of a People's Geography approach.     

Video annotation software application for thorough collaborative assessment of and feedback on microteaching lessons in geography education

This article discusses the process and findings of a study in which video annotation (VideoANT) and a learning management system (LMS) were implemented together in the microteaching lessons of fourth-year geography student teachers. The aim was to ensure adequate assessment of and feedback for each student, since these aspects are, in general, a shortcoming of micro-lesson facilitation. VideoANT is an online environment synchronizing web-based video application with timeline-based text annotations, and it was imported into and managed in the university's LMS called eFundi. The web videos of the geography students' micro-lessons on VideoANT were made accessible by the lecturer according to a rotational time schedule managed in eFundi. This enabled students to assess fellow students' micro-lessons in a collaborative blended learning environment and to receive feedback on their own lessons. Qualitative as well as quantitative data were collected, and the results indicate that geography student teachers held positive views of these technology applications for geography microteaching in particular and for their teaching training in general.     

Feminist Geography in Aotearoa/New Zealand: A workshop

This is a report on a workshop on feminist geography organised by the Department of Geography, University of Waikato, Te Whare Waananga o Waikato, held at Pirongia Forest Park Lodge, 29-31 July 1994.     

From Hawaii to Glasgow: The International Network for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher Education (INLT) Five Years On

This paper examines and reflects on the activities of the International Network for Learning and Teaching Geography in Higher Education (INLT) from its founding at the Association of American Geographers' Annual Conference in Hawaii in 1999 to the post-International Geographical Congress workshop in Glasgow five years later. It provides a context and introduction to the following six papers, which resulted from the Glasgow workshop. It is suggested that, despite some of the proposals in Hawaii proving over-ambitious, several other projects have emerged and the INLT continues largely to meet the goals and purposes set out in 1999. Although the desire of the INLT to move beyond its Anglo-American and Australasian origins largely remains a challenge to be met, the INLT has established itself as a valuable forum for the geography higher education community to identify and reflect on similarities and differences in national practices, to engage in debate virtually and face-to-face on issues concerned with learning and teaching, and to bring geographers from different countries to work together on educational projects.     

Problems of General Economic Regionalization at the Present Stage

Professor Ryabchikov, Dean of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University, finds that Soviet teachers colleges are adequate to supply geography teachers to the middle schools, especially in view of a gradual reduction of the number of class hours devoted to geography in those schools. He sees the primary function of university geography as the training of specialized geographers for industry, agriculture and other segments of the national economy. Universities are therefore urged to reorganize their curricula from the present somewhat academic approach to a greater practical and applied content that would benefit graduates in their new jobs. The author calls on universities to strengthen their ties with industry by taking advantage of the Soviet system of contractual research for production organizations.     

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.     

W(h)ither Development Geography in Australia?

This paper explores the changing focus and role of development geography in Australian university teaching and research. It is based primarily on interviews with Emeritus Professors Harold Brookfield and David Lea and Professor John Connell, which were conducted as part of the Institute of Australian Geographers’ Millennium Project on Geography and Geographers. Drawing on the collective wisdom of these geographers, the evolution and characteristics of development geography in Australia and the reasons for its past strength are outlined. Additionally, the contributions made by this branch of the discipline to Geography are described, reasons for the parlous state of development geography in Australia today are presented and a number of issues related to its future survival are raised. The paper argues that, for the discipline of Geography in Australia to retain social relevance, a continuing focus on global inequality and its impacts at the local scale is essential.     

The Blind Leading the Blind? Teaching Geography to Students with Vision Impairment

Geography frequently uses graphics to express the spatial concepts that are the hallmark of the discipline. Students with a vision impairment may find access to this medium limited, and consequently teachers of geography may find themselves in the position of imposing discriminatory educational conditions upon such students. This paper arises from the absence of any coordinated statement of policies or methodology for teaching in this area in Australia, and reviews strategies which may be adopted: the provision of suitable materials; the adaptation of the conceptual and administrative bases of teaching; and the provision of advice and information.     

The Scientific Principles of the Content of a Geography Course of the Soviet Eight-Year School

The author, a member of the Geography Department of Kursk Teachers' Institute, makes two points about the teaching of elementary-school geography in the Soviet Union: (1) The present topical approach should be replaced by a genuinely regional method; (2) physical geography should not be taught in isolation from human society, but as a condition for the development of society.     

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.