Congratulations

You belong to a group of teachers who want students to know the answers to more challenging geography questions (“Why?” questions).

You enjoy solving geographical problems that pupils have to deal with. In your classes, students often work as real geographers. You create opportunities to work with text and other information sources, students independently collect data and then analyze it and draw conclusions.

Your teaching often leads students to recognize and discover the interactions between people and the environment, or you deal with the causes and effects of geographical phenomena.

In addition to doing geographical research with your pupils, you are also interested in studying more general geographical topics, including in the teaching of regional geography. You and the pupils also spend more time studying selected places or regions in more detail, even at the cost of not having time to discuss other places or regions.

Example:

When information about a volcanic eruption appears in the media, you can immediately prepare a lesson about the processes that lead to the emergence of volcanic activity. In geography lessons, pupils deepen their knowledge of how volcanoes are formed and, above all, what are the consequences of volcanic activity for people’s lives and the surrounding environment . Using examples of specific places affected by volcanic activity, students demonstrate the relationships between the natural and social components of the landscape . In addition, students explain the pros and cons of living in places affected or threatened by volcanic activity. Pupils have the opportunity to think about it, why people live in the immediate vicinity of volcanoes, why, for example, there are fertile soils around volcanoes, how volcanoes can be used in terms of tourism and how people deal with the various consequences of volcanic activity on a local and global level.

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Teachers focus on scientific reasoning and making connections

Get to know the conceptions in which you scored high and develop in the conceptions that are not quite close to you.

YOUR PREVALING CONCEPTION. Know more about your conception:

Localist

Get to know and discover the immediate surroundings

Other preferred conceptions. Take a look at whar is still close to you:

Environmentalist

To warn against the environmental crisis and climate change, to look for possible solutions

Synthesizer

Connect the curriculum of different subjects

Less represented conceptions. Here you will already discover new things:

Placeist

Discover and get to know diverse places and the life of the people in them

Interactionist

To reveal the relationships between people and nature/environment

Facilitator

Educate through geography, develop students’ personality and key competences

Completely marginal conceptions. Here is where you can really go wild exploring.

Map-lover

Analyze, interpret and create maps

Earthist

To understand what is happening on Earth, how the Earth works

Globalist

To orientate in the world and have a general overview of it

Your dominant conception of geography teaching is

Localist

Get to know and discover the immediate surroundings

Supported questions

The teacher chooses questions related to the closest place in which we live. Is it possible to find “ours” somewhere else? How does it manifest itself in the immediate vicinity? How are the events of the world reflected in the place where we live? How can we, with our daily actions, influence what is decided on a national or global level?

Oriented to

location and immediate surroundings of the school, place of residence, city. Topics such as the impact of global topics on the local level, processes of urbanization, migration, floods, cultural differences, world institutions and organizations, unique occurrence, etc. (according to local topics) are addressed.

Recommendation

Working with the immediate environment requires knowledge of places as typical cases of geographical phenomena and processes. Distinguishes geographical concepts such as scale, place, regions.

Typical methods and tasks

It offers tasks that encourage you to look out of the window, go out into the terrain, and perceive the place with all your senses (“sense of place”). It demonstrates what and where it occurs in the immediate vicinity, and that problems and events faced by people far away in the world can also appear at home “outside the window” or right in the school classroom. Teachers often include group work as well as individual work. Field sketches and online map applications are used, and photo documentation of the surroundings is taken.

Demonstration of specific learning objectives

The student explains why cemeteries are usually located on the outskirts of villages.

Using a SWOT analysis, the student evaluates the condition and use of playgrounds.

Using observations in the field, the student assesses the intensity of traffic in designated locations.

Using interviews with disabled people, the student locates barriers and dangerous places on the map.

The student will find out what geographical issues are dealt with by the council of the municipality in which he lives.

The student records the chosen route in the place of residence on the map (defined in advance).

Topics for students' work

search and analysis of world geographical problems or events that affect the place of residence of the students or are somehow connected with the place. Searching and analyzing problems, events and traditions that are typical only for the immediate surroundings. The local region is suitable for collecting primary geographic data or for orientation on the map and in the field. Description and analysis of the use of areas in the surrounding landscape according to own observations and according to plans, maps and other aids. Orientation in the field – work with various sources of information before entering the field and during field training and subsequent reflection.

Focusing on

development of higher cognitive processes and skills: development of the ability to “see” in the immediate surroundings, orientation in the field, understanding of problems and events occurring in the place of residence, naming and analyzing them, processing SWOT analyzes (external and internal factors of problems), questioning, observation and other methods of data collection, evaluation of the use of areas on the sketch, evaluation of the images taken, etc.

Expectations from pupils

knowledge: thorough in geographical phenomena and processes (from social and economic as well as physical geography), use of areas in the surrounding landscape

skills: orientation in the field, working with various sources of information, entering the field with a prepared interview scheme or questionnaire, preparing suitable map materials, presenting, and transferring knowledge from the local to the global scale

attitudes: expressing feelings of belonging to the immediate surroundings, experiencing how others live in the immediate surroundings, various manifestations of pro-ecological, environmental, etc. behaviour, forming a “sense of place”

Theoretical background

Streetmix

Assessment ?

To verify student results, we use observation of student behaviour in the field according to observation sheets or provide feedback when entering the field. We can also use worksheets.

For this reason, we use rather analytical descriptive feedback based on the following criteria:

geographical in content: correctness of the terms used, reading and orientation on the map and according to maps, interpretation and creation of maps of the immediate surroundings, determination of important points in the landscape, knowledge of the principles of questioning, transfer of knowledge between different scales,
competence: expression (in different ways) of the “sense of place”, support for arguments, justification of one’s position related to the place, presentation of survey results and proposals for measures,

when presenting and arguing (fulfilling KK), we use evaluation criteria such as accuracy, clarity, structuring of ideas so that expression is understandable, accurate presentation of the problem, etc.

For formative feedback, we recommend asking questions based on the evaluation criteria for each of the topics:

Why do you perceive the surroundings as you describe?

What’s on the map that you don’t understand?

How did you interview people?

Is it possible to find out in another way?

What else would help you to find out how people around you live?

How has it changed your attitudes towards…?

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Teacher:

Teaching geography around the school
Data collection in the outdoors
Building students’ relationships with the place where they live

Local teachers often anchor their teaching in the realities surrounding the pupils’ residence and the school. Teaching and learning are so-called locally anchored. Teachers perceive the school’s surroundings as a laboratory for the demonstration and application of geographical theories and rules, or for collecting data in the field (collection of artefacts, taking photographs, observation and measurements). This is a perfect concept for field education because geography takes place so-called “outside the classroom window”. Teachers in the localist concept work with highly current topics in the vicinity of their residence or school. They often cooperate with local authorities – the mayor or the village council, local associations, etc. They thus stimulate the building of local identity/belonging, thus contributing to the formation of a positive image of geography and awareness of the relevance of geography to the everyday life of pupils. The concept of a localist extends from the knowledge component of the curriculum not only to skills but also to values and attitudes. The localist concept conveys direct geographic experience to students. Teachers often create their own textbooks, or even atlases, based on their own experience, thematically focused on the local region.

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Student:

Interest in the place of residence and the surroundings of the school
Linking the curriculum from regional geography with problems in the place of residence or the surroundings of the school
The popularity of outdoor education

This is a concept highly relevant for the student and, at the same time, also very popular. The educational content is anchored in the place of residence, even in cases where pupils discuss subjects in lessons seemingly unrelated to the pupil’s place of residence. In this way, the pupils perceive the fact that the problems they face also concern people living on the opposite side of the globe. The localist concept awakens pupils’ interest in visible and sensitively perceived problems. This concept can motivate students who are passive or not very willing to study or students with no interest in geography.

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Teacher:

The feeling that he is not engaged in the subject matter that he should be covering
Challenging preparation, incl. preparation of pupils
They do not see topics relevant to the teaching of regional geography around the school

Localist teachers run the risk of forgetting to generalize the curriculum towards higher-order levels. Geographical phenomena and processes that the teacher demonstrates on the example of the place of residence of the pupils or the surroundings of the school may not be understood by the pupils in all their complexity. The negative of the concept is that it requires the teacher to be interested in the school environment, and to have a relationship with it. Locally oriented topics are not part of regular textbooks. If locally oriented textbooks exist, the teacher may not know about their existence. This concept is also not widely represented in teacher training and further education. It’s not about going out with the pupils/students, but about them learning something there. Some teachers do not see geography in this concept, because they do not see the potential in the overlap of the curriculum discussed around the school into general or regional geography. For example, it may not occur to the teacher at all, that when, for example, he discusses Australia, he can go out with the pupils and solve the problems of Australia using the example of the surroundings of the school or where the pupils live. Although it may not appear at first glance, this concept requires a deeper geographical knowledge, as the teacher must identify relationships and connections in geographical contents and demonstrate them at different regional levels. There is a danger that topics that are not included in the curriculum will be addressed to a greater extent in the teaching of geography. There is a risk that the expected outcomes will not be met if the localist concept is not thought through and embedded in a more general thematic curriculum plan. At the same time, attention must be paid to the need to convey a geographical perspective on locally oriented topics and problems. Otherwise, the geography may be diluted and the field identity may be lost. There is a high level of uncertainty in this concept.

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Student:

Pupils often do not realize that they are also learning in the field
Difficult generalization of the subject matter – towards other localities, states or regions
The lengthy preparation for teaching and the necessity of subsequent reflection of the teaching, preferably in the classroom

Although students enjoy field study and are happy to solve topics anchored in their area of residence, it often happens that they fail to identify what they have actually learned. A weak point is also the generalization or transfer of the curriculum discussed in the field to the curriculum related to other topics or regions. For the generalization of the curriculum to be effective, the reflection and summary of the curriculum must take place in a separate block, preferably in the classroom. If pupils are not made aware of the more general context and relevance of the issues discussed within the local region, they tend to perceive the local region curriculum as a diversion without greater educational value.

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Other conceptions in which you scored high