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.

Show less

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:

Map-lover

Analyze, interpret and create maps

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

Interactionist

To reveal the relationships between people and nature/environment

Earthist

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

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

Localist

Get to know and discover the immediate surroundings

Synthesizer

Connect the curriculum of different subjects

Facilitator

Educate through geography, develop students’ personality and key competences

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

Environmentalist

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

Placeist

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

Globalist

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

Your dominant conception of geography teaching is

Map-lover

Analyze, interpret and create maps

Supported questions

What does the map show? What and how best to show on the map? What does the map show? What does a quality map look like? What elements are missing from the map? How to choose an appropriate map to answer a question or solve a problem?

Oriented to

maps (digital, printed, atlases), plans and diagrams, but also models. Map as background, map as a path, map as a destination. Maps show the world, places and events in places, maps record stories.

Recommendation

diverse map work requires both precision in detail and a creative approach, which can often be counterproductive. Uncovering the stories recorded in the maps requires abstract thinking. A map is a tool for solving geographical problems and at the same time, it is a subject of school research. Of the geographical concepts, order and distribution are dominant

Demonstration of specific learning objectives

The student analyzes the school’s escape plan and justifies its function.

The student creates a map around the school according to cartographic principles.

The student explains what thematic maps are and selects appropriate thematic maps to explain the context.

The student evaluates maps in terms of various topics (distribution of the population, natural conditions, etc.) and properties (quality of representation, colour spectrum, etc.).

The student expresses an emotional connection to the place using a “story map”.

The student independently collects materials for creating a map, e.g. using the Survey 123 application.

Show less

Typical methods and tasks

It uses the individual work of each student, the tasks focus on the development of map skills: not only reading or redrawing but especially analysis, interpretation and more complex creation of maps, sketches and simple plans – simply a map in the field of vision.

Topics for students' work

reading and analysis of various maps (basic and thematic – historical, geological, geomorphological, soil, transport, etc.), orientation using printed and digital maps, using various atlases, working with several maps at the same time, working with scale, contours, creating maps, sketches, land use map, board map games, story maps, survey 123, thinking about map representations, working with plans and schemes

Focusing on

development of abstract thinking, understanding of scale, representation of relief (e.g. using contour lines), logical thinking over 2D and 3D distortion, experiencing and recording personal stories on the map, creative construction and modeling of terrain or own islands, planning and organizing routes, collecting curious and historical maps

Expectations from pupils

knowledge: cartographic terminology and language, knowledge of map sources and applications

skills: reading a map, measuring and searching on maps, interpreting maps, creating a map (also digital), orientation in the field using a map

attitudes: expressing feelings on maps, perceiving the surroundings through cartographic eyes, appreciating the difficulty of creating maps, recognizing the results of cartographers’ work (historical maps, unique maps)

Theoretical background

The True Size Of ...

Google Eatrh

Old Maps Online

Assessment ?

To verify the pupils’ results, we use tasks in which the pupils can demonstrate developed skills.

The evaluation is based on the following criteria:

geographical in content: correctness of the terms used, accuracy, attention to detail (carefulness), knowledge of the scale and properties of maps, reading contours, deriving the curvature of the Earth, determining map elements, points and marks, sorting map materials and map resources, accurate orientation in map materials and parts,
competence: expression of emotions, presentation of created map works, map processing

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

Is representational accuracy important or not?

Why don’t you have it marked exactly?

Why are your contours like that?

Why do I want you to be precise?

Do you know why, do you sort your maps?

Show less

Teacher:

- Orientation of teaching on working with a map
- Works with an atlas (paper or electronic) in almost every lesson
- The map not only as a source of information, but also as an output

Map-lover teachers enable students to develop higher levels of map skills – moving beyond map reading to map interpretation and creation. The lessons of map-lover teachers almost always include work with an atlas, teachers also use digital maps. Teachers use multiple atlases at the same time (e.g. from different publishers) in both paper and electronic (fast, fresh) form. For map-lovers, opportunities to create maps can also often be observed. Teachers develop students’ love for maps and awareness of the added value of maps for learning and thinking. The map is understood as a source of information as well as a prized output. Teachers make full use of the potential of maps in tests and other ways of evaluating students.

Show less

Student:

- Emphasis on building map skills
- Map as a specific language of expression
- Creation of maps, including digital ones

Pupils have a large number of maps and map sketches in their notebooks or portfolios, they are often involved in the creation of maps. Based on the creation of maps and subsequent work with one’s own maps, it is possible to see and demonstrate the variability and impermanence of places and space as well as their development.

Show less

Teacher:

- The danger of mechanically redrawing maps from an atlas or textbook
- A blank map is not a map-lover, you need to work with maps at a higher level
- Emphasis on teaching cartography takes a back seat to geographical content

Some teachers tend to overestimate this conception and others underestimate it. With map-lovers, there is a risk that the teacher thinks he is developing the students’ map skills while only testing the students on blank maps. In addition, some map-loving teachers tend to slip into very low cognitive demands when creating maps. Pupils often create their own maps, however, the creation is based on mechanical rewriting or redrawing of the facts contained in the atlas into their own map (pupils only “paint”). Maps are often static, without showing relationships, connections and processes. Another risk lies in sticking to cartographic principles without their ongoing application and connection with real geographic content. An example can be perfect land-use maps created by pupils, which are not used further in geography lessons. To a lesser extent, it is also possible to observe a separation of cartography from general and regional geography among some teachers. The teacher reduces geography to map representations and the doctrine of the representation of phenomena and processes on maps. Qualified map-lover teachers realize that a map is an ideal tool for developing students’ higher thinking operations and map skills.

Show less

Student:

- Overwhelmed with maps
- The danger of boredom – when it comes to just mechanically redrawing maps
- Absence of geographic thinking if the student only deals with maps or technical skills in GIS

In some cases, map-lovers do not systematically develop pupils’ map skills (interpretation or creation of maps), and thus pupils often get stuck in the initial stage of developing map skills (e.g. they just redraw maps from a textbook into a notebook). For example, students most of the time assign the names of states, cities, rivers, mountain ranges, etc., to blank maps or create their own maps based on mechanical redrawing or coloring. For students, the creation of simple maps and sketches can be a welcome diversion but also a source of boredom, especially if the resulting map is not accompanied by other follow-up learning tasks that develop geographical thinking.

Show less

Other conceptions in which you scored high