Improving the learning processes of Physical Geography through the use of landscape photographs in class

The use of alternative teaching methods to lectures is one of the keys to develop a more participatory and effective education. In the teaching of Geography, greater interaction of students with elements of the landscape through the active use of photography could be one of the ways to achieve this efficiency. This article describes an experiment conducted in 2016 with students of the subject Physical Geography of the Iberian Peninsula. Two different teaching methodologies were applied to two groups of students. The first one was based on dividing the time of each class between participatory comments of landscape photographs and imparting theoretical knowledge through lectures. The second methodology consisted only of lectures, following a more traditional approach. Additionally, some students from the first group actively participated by uploading and tagging their own field pictures to a photographic repository of the University of Seville. The effectiveness of the different activities in each group was assessed through four tests, performed monthly. The results indicate that the use of landscape photographs as a participative teaching resource allows a more efficient learning of theoretical concepts. Therefore, the proposed methodology should be considered by those interested in improving the quality and effectiveness of their teaching of Geography.     

文化景观研究的历史和发展趋向

文化景观是文化地理学着力研究的五大主题之一。本文详细回顾了国内外文化景观研究的历史,阐述了文化景观研究的意义、内容及其在人文地理学中的地位,最后论述了目前文化景观研究的几个方向。     

Foundation Degrees in Geography and Tourism: A Critical Reflection on Student Experiences and the Implications for Undergraduate Degree Courses

Over the last decade, some UK Geography Departments have diversified their range of courses to offer Foundation degrees (Fds), providing students with alternative routes through higher education (HE). These courses are delivered either offsite at further education colleges (FECs), embedded within an undergraduate programme at higher education institutions (HEIs), or by work-based learning. These pathways present students, staff and institutions with new opportunities, issues and challenges. This study examines contrasting pathways of offsite and onsite Fds in Tourism Management and Development Geography offered by two HEIs and two FECs in southwest England. The needs and experiences of Fd students are varied, related to the individual's personal and academic background, the course pathway taken, institution-specific issues and the degree of support and preparedness for HE. The contrasting academic cultures, teaching methods and assessments encountered in FECs and HEIs, and the availability of resources, raise generic and specific issues, such as confidence building and learning to become independent and autonomous learners, which challenge Geography and Tourism students during their academic careers. This study concludes that closer collaboration between the HEI and the partner FEC is necessary for Geography and Tourism courses, and highlights the need for better alignment and reinforcement of HE systems in FECs, for instance through fieldwork, and the offering effective induction and support in study skills. Finally, it is important to facilitate the smooth transitions of students ‘topping-up’ to Year 3 of an Honours degree at the parent HEI. Managers of undergraduate courses in Geography and associated subjects can also learn from the vocational and contextualized learning promoted by Fd courses and direct entry students to undergraduate courses.     

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。     

Teaching Europe in Spanish Universities: Looking for new approaches in regional geography

The teaching of the Geography of Europe in Spanish universities is analysed with the aim of detecting the relationship between the practice of teaching and recent geopolitical changes in Europe, along with the evolution of regional geography studies. The organisation of the subject, the study environment and the focus adopted are all examined, along with any issues that are recurrent, absent or new. Attention is also given to the bibliographic resources used in the teaching process.     

The changing nature of GIS and the provision of formal GIS education in the UK: a case study

The arrival of the term Geographical Information System (GIS) in the 1960s soon created a demand for training and education in the use of this specialist hardware and software. Initially the main focus was on training people to use GIS, formal named degree programmes leading to postgraduate and undergraduate qualifications arrived later. This paper explores the changing landscape of U.K. degree level GIS education drawing on contemporary information from Higher Education Institution websites and a case study of the first single honours degree in GIS in Europe. The paper identifies a rise and fall in the number of named undergraduate “GIS” degrees since the late 1980s sandwiched between the continuation and development of postgraduate qualifications. In parallel with this trend the teaching and learning of GIS skills has emerged as a core component of undergraduate degree programmes with “Geography” in their title and in national school and degree level benchmarking statements for the discipline.     

Teaching and learning on a transnational education programme: opportunities and challenges for flying faculty in Geography and related disciplines

Within the context of the internationalization of UK higher education, an increasing number of UK-based institutions are developing collaborative degree programmes with overseas institutions, of which partnerships with institutions in China are the most common. This paper employs a critical reflective approach to explore, from different perspectives (self-reflection, student feedback, our colleagues’ experiences), some of the opportunities and challenges that exist for flying faculty through critical reflection on the author’s own flying faculty experiences delivering an introductory Physical Geography module in China. Teaching in an unfamiliar environment brings with it a plethora of challenges, however; for staff in Geography and related disciplines, active engagement with the external world through field-based learning is perhaps the most challenging aspect of any overseas teaching experience. As such, a particular focus of this paper is on the challenges, and potential solutions, of incorporating field-based learning and teaching in the international classroom. Ultimately, faculty with international teaching experience are best placed to develop and enhance the internationalization of their own institution’s curricula.     

非物质文化空间数据库与地图表达方法——基于蔚县剪纸的实证研究

本文提出了"文化景观→文化载体→空间数据库→载体联合→文化景观"的非物质文化空间数据库与地图化表达模式,为开展系统性文化地理研究奠定基础。蔚县剪纸的实证研究中,通过解析蔚县剪纸文化景观,建立了包括艺人、生产作坊、文化受众、网络店铺等10种文化载体的空间数据库;通过不同的文化载体整合实现艺人分布空间、艺人行为空间、艺术风格空间、艺术传承空间和产销空间等地图表达成果。地图表达为进一步开展景观格局特征及其驱动机制的挖掘分析奠定了基础。本文是针对文化地理研究方法论的探讨和实证,通过文化景观的抽象语言描述到地图可视化表达,为非物质文化现象的时空研究提供了新模式。     

Issues in improving geography and earth science teacher education: results of the #IPGESTE 2016 conference

Earth Science and Geography teacher preparation has developed to some degree along different lines, despite sharing many of the same issues, especially with regard to challenges in teacher education. The conference “International Perspectives on Geography and Earth Science Teacher Education 2016” wanted to bring together educators from both sciences from around the world together to move the debate about these challenges forward. From the research presentations and the discussion during and after the conference, several issues emerged: (1) the importance of the two subjects not losing sight of each other; (2) the need to overcome language barriers; (3) the question of standards/objectives for geography teacher education (e.g. with regard to teachers’ (P)CK); (4) media used in teacher education (including ways to improve them); (5) ways to improve learners’ geography and earth science content knowledge; and (6) strategies to increase teachers’ professionalism. We already suggest some specific steps teacher educators in the two fields can take to improve teacher education. Yet, it also became clear that more research and strengthening international collaborations are needed, as well as better communication of the results of these efforts to practitioners.     

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.     

Editorial

Colleges and universities in the USA and many other countries find themselves in a deepening financial challenge that is significantly influencing operating decisions as well as student access to higher education. These trends are attributed to the weakened finances of governments, competition from non-discretionary public spending, the nature of education as a service industry and the fraying of the social contract between higher education and the public. This paper argues that Geography as a discipline can both survive in and benefit from this changing educational landscape. There are several themes that will strongly influence higher education in the years ahead, including competition, technology, globalization and sustainability. The nature of such forces over space and time continues to be ripe for geographic inquiry, but they will require the field to be more analytical, more connected to other disciplines and more international in its teaching and research.     

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.     

Providing University Education in Physical Geography Across the South Pacific Islands: Multi-modal Course Delivery and Student Grade Performance

Enormous distances across the vast South Pacific hinder student access to the main Fiji campus of the regional tertiary education provider, the University of the South Pacific (USP). Fortunately, USP has been a pioneer in distance education (DE) and promotes multi-modal delivery of programmes. Geography has embraced DE, but doubts remain about comparability of various modes of study. This paper offers a diachronic examination of final grade performance of undergraduate physical geography students learning via three different modes. Data collected over 10 years on the pass rates of >1300 students are analysed. Various influences on student achievement are highlighted.     

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。     

Connecting high school and university teachers in national and international contexts: perspectives from the 2012 Bangalore workshop of the AAG-CGGE

This paper focuses on the Center for Global Geography Education teaching workshop held in Bangalore, India, in March 2012 which served as a collaborative forum linking geography teachers in secondary and higher education in the USA and India. It considers the inclusion of the Advanced Placement Human Geography teachers from the USA and the building of global teaching content in collaborative teams as a useful way to connect geography teachers across institutional contexts. Based on a survey of workshop participants, it also highlights some of the issues that need to be addressed for further strengthening of high school–university linkages within national and across international contexts.     

Fieldwork@40: fieldwork in geography higher education

ABSTRACT

Fieldwork is the most powerful learning invitation in the toolkit of Geographical Education. This review of papers in The Journal of Geography in Higher Education (JGHE) suggests seven modes in the development of fieldwork. These are arrayed as a kind of historical, perhaps evolutionary, sequence but most remain current in Geography fieldwork practice. At the far end (1960s) of the sequence are didactic modes that are teacher centred and use the field as an adjunct to the classroom, in the middle (1990s) are modes that involve active learning and focus on the development of students as investigators and at the near end (2010s) are those that centred on the field study area and its qualities, that involve concern about the ethics of student engagement and that employ blended learning technologies. The review charts the JGHE’s gradual shift away from its original, almost exclusively, UK-focus toward something rather more international and inclusive. Fieldwork is where Geographers learn “from doing” Geography to “do” Geography. Its special attributes include providing experiential, sometimes transformative, learning through the immersion of the learner in the field experience. In 40 years, JGHE has helped Geography Fieldwork move from the margins of the curriculum to its current place at its core.     

Practitioner Perspectives on the use of Technology in Fieldwork Teaching

During the last decade, technological developments in computer hardware, software and networks, combined with increasing pressures on staff and students, have led to a proliferation of Communication and Information Technology (C&IT) within the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences (GEES) disciplines. This research investigates the role of C&IT within field courses, which in this paper are conceived of as a specific approach to teaching in the GEES disciplines. Through a national survey of field courses, the general level of usage of C&IT in the field was established. This was supplemented by an expert group analysis, which focused on the reasons behind the use of C&IT in the field. It was concluded that most use of C&IT in the field is driven by technological rather than pedagogic innovation.     

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 Present State of Medical Geography in the USSR

A review of the present state of Soviet medical geography based on an analysis of papers presented at the Second National Medical Geography Conference held in Leningrad in November, 1965. The authors, representing four departments of the Geography Faculty of Moscow University, stress geophysical and geochemical causative factors of human disease and the contributions being made by medical landscape science in relating environmental prerequisites to particular diseases.     

TOWARD A UNIFICATION OF CONCEPTS AND TERMS USED IN INTEGRAL LANDSCAPE INVESTIGATIONS

A discussion of the concepts and terms of landscape research developed and applied for more than a decade at the field stations of the Institute of Geography of Siberia and the Far East (Irkutsk). The key concepts are geosystems, which represent the sphere of interaction between animate and inanimate nature; ecosystems, which focus on the biotic aspect of geosystems. Geosystems are said to fall within the sphere of interest of the landscape geographer, while ecosystems are viewed as the study objects of ecology, a biological discipline. Although the two approaches are said to be distinctive, the interests of geographers and ecologists overlap, and a common terminology for both disciplines is proposed.