Using the ‘Grieving’ Process and Learning Journals to Evaluate Students' Responses to Problem-Based Learning in an Undergraduate Geography Curriculum

This paper offers a critical review of the role of the International Network for Learning and Teaching geography in higher education (INLT) in the production of geographical knowledge. Through an examination of the Network's membership and activities, it explores some of the ways in which INLT—as a global virtual group—may be inadvertently perpetuating geographies of oppression through, for example, assumption of Anglo-American modes of educational standards and practice; reinforcement of existing unequal/inequitable social relationships; predominance of English language; and a reliance on technologies that favour wealthy nations and institutions. The paper sets out practical suggestions for postcolonial membership and activity structures designed to overcome difficulties with the Network's existing power/knowledge geometries.     

Teaching Research Methods Courses in Human Geography: Critical Reflections

The authors reflect critically on their experiences of teaching research methods/methodology/techniques (MMT) courses in human geography for the first time. Through a highly reflexive process involving journaling, they engage with the broader scholarship of teaching and learning approach. Three themes characterize commonalities in their instructional experiences: (1) prior knowledge, (2) preparation, and (3) confidence. Specifically, they were challenged by needing to teach particular MMTs that they had not previously applied in their own research, by not knowing how best to prepare for teaching such courses, and by a lack of confidence with their approaches that stemmed from numerous issues.     

Engaging with Economic Geography in the ‘Real’ World: A Central Role for Field Teaching

Debates concerning how to engage students with economic geography have ignored the important role of field teaching. This paper argues that fieldwork must remain a key component of economic geographical teaching and that it offers a variety of advantages to overcoming student disinterest in the sub-discipline. It goes on to argue that field teaching must be developed, not neglected, in economic geography and illustrates its pedagogical advantages with reference to the example of a field class in north-east England.     

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.     

Globalisation Lived Locally: A Labour Geography Perspective on Control,Conflict and Response among Workers in Kerala

Abstract: Supported by the labour geography framework, I analyse how spatial practices of labour shape the economic geography of capitalism, by looking into a model not at a global but at a very local scale of organisation and showing its effectiveness while confronting social actors organised at global or extra‐local scales. Questioning global stereotypes on economic responses to globalisation, I argue that labour becomes actively involved in the very process of globalisation and the expansion of capital, empirically demonstrating the relevance of this in the globalisation literature. I deal with one region—Kerala—and processes in its labour markets, taking the case of apparel workers in an export‐promoting industrial park.     

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.     

On Dittmer's Popular Culture,Geopolitics, and Identity as a classroom resource

In this intervention, four geographers, all of whom have used Jason Dittmer's book, Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity, in their classes, assess its status as a teaching resource. All have had considerable success using Dittmer's book, alongside other resources, to cultivate critical thinking and critical knowledge production in a wide range of classes.     

Pedagogical declarations: feminist engagements with the teaching statement

To produce a teaching statement, current and aspiring teachers undertake the ostensibly straightforward task of putting their teaching philosophy onto paper. But upon close examination, the teaching statement – a seemingly simple object – is much more complex. The teaching statement is full of dual functions, many of which can be conceived of as working at cross-purposes. This paper draws on the teaching statement's history along with a collaborative and feminist mentorship methodology to highlight these dual functions. We discuss how teaching statements can be negotiated and inhabited from our perspective as early career scholars.     

The Interview Hurdle to Postgraduate Studies and the Job Market

Abstract

This paper explores the educational value of a rural trail—a field visit on foot—using as an example a trail in a small area of countryside near Lancaster in northern England. This trail provides those teaching rural geography in higher education with a means of developing their students’ skills of informed observation and interpretation of field evidence based on study and discussion on‐site. A trail can enhance the appreciation and teaching of conceptual matters such as cultural approaches to rural geography. It also encourages the integration of diverse theoretical approaches to rural studies (based on culture, planning and management) and the simultaneous consideration by students of both local (often personal) details and national (or even global) pressures for change. The paper concludes that the rural trail has considerable pedagogical and academic merit for rural geographers.