By Derry Corey and Sarah Witham Bednarz
The second symposium of the International Network for Learning and Teaching (INLT) ran alongside the main Royal Geographic Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) Conference January 2-5, 2001, in the lovely seaside town of Plymouth, UK. From the shores of the Pacific to the shores of the Atlantic, INLT members are clearly willing to travel to share ideas, develop policies, and strengthen bonds across the network. Geographers from New Zealand, Finland, the USA, Israel, the Netherlands, Australia, Ireland, Scotland, and elsewhere in the British Isles attended the two days of intense sessions.
The first opportunity for INLT participants to meet was on Tuesday evening with an invited guest lecture by Richard Howitt, Department of Human Geography, Macquarie University, NSW, Australia, entitled Constructing Engagement: geographical education for justice within and beyond tertiary classrooms (http://www.es.mq.edu.au/humgeog/staff/rhowitt.htm).
This excellent lecture focused on education practices and how they can be improved through research. Richie began by highlighting the fact that education has long been valued by marginal groups but the paradox is that education can also alienate talented people from their class and cultural roots by suppressing difference, privileging advantage and incorporating graduates into the 'system'. He stressed that for many indigenous groups around the world the colonial practices were central to systemic cultural genocide through suppression of language and cultural practices.
This was challenged in tertiary classrooms a decade ago by the recognition and accommodation of polyphony and the unsettling of the teachers' authoritative place. His talk reflected on his experiences as an educator, education bureaucrat, researcher and activist for indigenous rights as a way of framing a new challenge for geographical education in tertiary institutions. Howitt explored the prospects for decolonising the geographical imagination fostered by academics by drawing on the work of diverse thinkers such as Paulo Freire, Emanuel Levinas, Deborah Rose, and Jaques Derrida. This helped him to identify key challenges in weaving a dialectical unity between teaching, research, and community service. He argued that in educating for justice and sustainability we have to integrate environmental, socio-cultural and political-economic perspectives with students but more importantly we have to overcome multiple fractures within and between higher education institutions and marginalised and excluded groups.
The main INLT workshop presentations, held on Thursday and Friday, began with an introduction by Ken Foote (University of Colorado, USA). While refreshing our thoughts on the aims of the INLT, Ken welcomed delegates to the INLT and gave them the opportunity to say 'hello', renew old acquaintances or make new ones.
To get us thinking in terms of higher education (HE) learning and teaching in geography, the first set of presentations focused on international contrasts. Four snapshots of HE were given by Roy Jones (Australia), Gideon Biger (Israel), Susan Hardwick (USA) via Ken since Susan was prevented from attending at the last minute, and Brian Chalkley (UK). The contributors focused on issues such as organisational structures, curriculum patterns and national trends and issues in geographical education at degree level.
One of the most remarkable aspects of the sessions were the ways that each presenter modeled best practice in teaching to enable participants to learn as much as possible. All who attended the sessions were encouraged to be actively engaged in each presentation. Most engaging was the session led by Pauline Kneale (University of Leeds, UK) on Enhancing Geographers' Employability: Embedding Careers Guidance in the Curriculum.
At one time most UK geography graduates moved straight into work, but Pauline highlighted a shift to a situation where graduates not only have no job, but have made no attempt to find one. The job market may be easier in the next five years but there will be more graduates ready to fill them, which means that there is an increasing need to assist students into careers. Graduates have never been so skilled, but many find it difficult to relate their experiences to what employers require. She claims that the trick is to get UK students to recognise that they have these skills and are able to acknowledge them on CVs.
With the help of the Careers Staff and both finance and input from the private sector career guidance has been embedded into the curriculum. This workshop session explored some of the issues relating to why students did not move straight into work and the value of these alternative models for embedding career guidance within the curriculum.
Continuing the tradition of modeling good teaching, Alan Jenkins (Oxford Brookes University, UK) and Mick Healey (Cheltenham and Gloucester College of Higher Education, UK) led the group in a session entitled Linking Teaching and Research: Strategies that Work!
The draft report for the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) on the interactions between research, teaching and other academic activities accepted the almost universal assumption that research benefits teaching but was surprised at the small number of institutions with specific policies in place to either monitor, or to develop and maximise these beneficial synergies. Alan asked participants "Would this statement also apply to your department?" This workshop set out a range of strategies that individuals, course teams and departments could adapt to effectively link staff research in their discipline with student learning. Alan introduced a basic model, which is further developed at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsd/link1/cdesign1/cd1.html.
Developing the scholarship of teaching and learning is becoming a key issue in HE in many countries but there is no overall consensus. Mick recognised a 'scholarship hierarchy' - in which 'we might expect that all teachers in HE should strive to be scholarly in the way that they approach their teaching, some will be involved in investigating teaching and learning within their discipline and a few may wish to engage in full-blown pedagogic research.'
In the last session on Thursday afternoon, 11 delegates presented a total of 19 posters relating to recent developments in teaching and learning geography in higher education, four of which were from international delegates. These posters will be scanned on to the GDN website in the near future (see below). They were reviewed by participants and we assessed the extent to which these developments illustrate a scholarship of teaching. There were a number of innovative elements in these posters, particularly those that showed an effective awareness of a particular theory and distance learning.
Overall Hutchings & Shulman (1999) claim that the critical thing about the scholarship of teaching is that it shares the characteristics of excellent and scholarly teaching but also includes communicating and disseminating about the teaching and learning practices of ones subject as well as researching into how students learn within a discipline.
Friday began with a session presented by Michael Solem (Southwest Texas State University, USA ) entitled Using Collaborative Inquiry to Teach Global Issues on the Web.
Inquiry-based learning has a long tradition in geography education and many geographers are using collaborative methods to tap the constructivist potential of the World Wide Web (WWW). Michael's proposal was for an international web-based curriculum development initiative - The Global Inquiry Project. The aim is to link faculty and students in collaborative, inquiry-based studies of global issues. He claims that this would address two goals of the INLT: (1) to link student projects internationally, and (2) to establish pilot projects to explore learning and teaching strategies.
Delegates studied three scenarios and discussed a list of seven questions. As a result of these discussions it was a decided to be a worthwhile and an appropriate venture for the INLT. A committee was organized to look into the issue of forming a competition with a prize which would be awarded at the 3rd Symposium of the INLT in Los Angeles at the Association of American Geographers (AAG) meetings in April 2002. Participants felt strongly that it was important to make the competition an international team effort to prove collaboration and to show the benefit of sharing and learning from other nations. However, other participants urged organizers to keep the project as feasible as possible.
This led nicely into a discussion on future plans for the INLT chaired by Brian Chalkley. The session began with a brief overview of the INLT's developments since its launch in Hawaii in April 1999 at the annual conference of the AAG. This provided a platform for future INLT activities and a provisional programme for the third symposium was outlined. Brian also introduced Helen King, manager of the National Subject Centre, who under another hat, outlined the work of the International Geoscience Education Organisation (IGEO) http://reaction.psc.sc.edu./cse/igeo.html. This organisation promotes innovation in teaching. They hold conferences relating to teaching at all levels, staff development and also public education in terms of Earth Science.
On Friday afternoon two hands-on, lab-based sessions gave participants a chance to think about two important aspects to HE learning and teaching, field work and the web. Ken Foote led the first session on Developments in Web-based Teaching.
At this session delegates reviewed the progress geographers have made using the WWW over the past five years and were asked to examine some of these websites to consider which strategies would appear to be the most successful in promoting and sustaining innovation. The websites were evaluated using the following criteria:
Many of the sites did not score highly. Ken gave a number of website addresses for Strategies and Models for Collaboration and asked delegates to consider these methods of collaboration.
On the plus side it is possible to build on work already invested in development and can employ some existing institutional reward. However, the rewards for participation are modest, funding models are looking for long term developments and implication of some innovative projects. There were also problems regarding legal accreditation and it is difficult to establish and enforce standards of quality control.
Clearly there is the possibility of considerable research to evaluate which, if any, of these sites contributes the most to student learning and to determine how best to support faculty innovation.
Finally, Ken suggested that geographers should also consider framing some curriculum development projects to explore the potential of new on-line learning and teaching environments.
At the final session of two very busy days Andrew Williams and Andrew Elmes (University of Plymouth) presented on Enhancing the Student Learning Experience Using a Virtual Field Course. In this second hands-on session the presenters explained that this course did not substitute work in the field but was used to introduce students to the field work activities and the conditions on Dartmoor. After the fieldtrip students posted their results and were able to complete their inquiry. One of the main advantages of this website is that the photographs on it were taken in favourable weather conditions and that is not always the case on Dartmoor. Furthermore, the exercises on the web pages gave them a good understanding of the data collection and analysis. The web page address is http://www.geog.plym.ac.uk/labskills/.
Brian Chalkley proved to be an excellent host for this second INLT meeting, organizing two excellent dinners and a rich array of workshop presentations. The first dinner was very informal and followed Ritchie Howitt's lecture on Tuesday. Brian booked a delightful Italian restaurant and this gave participants the first opportunity to meet. The second dinner was held at the newly opened National Marine Aquarium. Delegates experienced a wealth of aquatic life as they were taken on a journey of ever changing habitats. Beginning on high Dartmoor where a moorland stream bubbled through to a river and then an estuary; and finally from the shoreline to the continental shelf and beyond to the tropics. This was followed by dinner at The Deep Reef, where we dined as if on the Atlantic sea bed in front of a spectacular wide screen deep reef tank, relaxing with conger eels, rays, small sharks, giant cod and many other captivating exhibits (some of us even had the temerity to eat fish!). This was certainly a suitable place for a dinner. It will be hard to find a similarly wonderful dining location in Los Angeles.
Thanks to Mick and Brian and others for a wonderful experience.
Hutchings, P. & Schulman, L.S. (1999) The scholarship of teaching: new elaborations, new developments, Change, September/October, pp.11-15.
The past decade has witnessed a revival of geography education in the United States. Based largely on the efforts of the national Geographic Alliance network, which continues to retrain social studies teachers to teach "good geography;" the identification of geography as one of the core subjects of the K-12 curriculum by national and state policy makers; and national efforts of professional organizations to enhance geography instruction at all levels, the field has enjoyed a major comeback in pre-collegiate classrooms and in higher education in the U.S. in the past ten years.
This paper outlines major trends in geography education in higher education in the U.S. in the year 2000 with reference to the past half century of change. First, information about the specializations of various geography departments in the nation are compared with the research specializations of geography faculty who belong to the Association of American Geographers. Next, general requirements of graduating with a major in geography are discussed. This section of the paper is followed by an overview of geography as an integral part of "General Education" in today's higher education curricula. Finally, recent developments in teaching geography in higher education are listed. Links to referenced programs and projects are indicated throughout the text where appropriate as and aid to learning more about ideas listed in this very general overview discussed in my brief conference paper.
Discussions about the future direction of the INLT project were held during the group's symposium, 4-5 January 2001, in Plymouth, England. The following notes indicate the projects that participants were interested in developing over the next 12-18 months.
A wide range of topics were suggested for these sessions, though volunteers will be needed if these sessions are to be organized:
Thanks to the generosity of Paul Broome the INLT website will soon be moving its physical location to the Centre for Developing Areas Research, Department of Geography, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College. The site has been stored at the University of Texas until now. It will retain the same virtual address www.inlt.org. Please let me know if you have new materials to be posted in the website. Ken Foote, k.foote@colorado.edu.
The following posters from the INLT symposium can be accessed as pdf files:
The Royal Geographical Society with the Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG) is working with the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) on a project to encourage more undergraduates to think about teaching geography in order to fill over 1000 training places this year. This joint initiative to raise the profile of teaching as a career is the first shortage subject-based initiative to be supported by the TTA, which seeks to involve the whole subject community in its work.
Most people would agree that the quality and enthusiasm of teaching at school is one of the most important elements in maintaining the health of the subject in HE. The skills that Geography graduates possess make them highly employable, and with the buoyant labour market, teaching has been faced with strong competition in recent years.
In recent years the national target for geography places set by the government department responsible for education (DfEE) has failed to be reached. In 1999, the percentage of geography acceptances of places to initial teacher training was 89% of the target, while in 2000 the figure had reduced to 82%.
Vacancies for Geography teachers in the maintained secondary sector hover around the 0.6% mark (0.6% in 1998, 0.5% in 1999, and 0.7% in 2000), but there continues to be marked regional differences, with notable high percentages of vacancies in inner London (2.4%) and outer London (1.3%).
Without sufficient numbers of high calibre Geography teachers, classes may be taken by non-specialists, especially at the earlier (lower school) stage. As Geography is not compulsory in the National Curriculum after Key Stage 3 (post 14) there have been smaller numbers of middle and upper school candidates which threatens the future of potential Geography teachers. By reinforcing the importance of Geography teachers directly to undergraduates and academics the RGS-IBG / TTA project aims to reverse this cycle.
On 30 March 2000, in recognition of the general problem in teacher recruitment, the Secretary of State for Education announced that training salaries of £6,000 would be paid to all students entering PGCE initial teacher training courses in England, as from September 2000.
In October 2000, the TTA launched a new £7M advertising campaign attracting 'Those that can, teach', into the profession.
A number of initiatives have been established since September 2000, when a project development officer post was created. They address the recommendations in the report Understanding the Teacher Supply in Geography, which was published following the conference in April 1999. Measures to-date include:
We welcome your comments on this project and further information can be obtained by contacting Felicity Thorne, Project Development Officer, tta@rgs.org
Those of you - and your colleagues - who want to link your teaching and research may find this web site useful: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/planning/LTRC/outputs.html. Though based in disciplines such as Planning its main ideas and some of the case studies can be transferred into geography. Indeed a geographer of sorts (Alan Jenkins) is central to this project. (You can also read his fascinating article on this issue as applied to geography in Journal of Geography in Higher Education, vol 24, no 3, 2000.)
Ken Foote has received a five-year grant of approximately $830,000 from the US National Science Foundation for the "The Geography Faculty Development Alliance: Workshops and Seminars to Improve the Teaching and Learning of Geography in Higher Education."
The project is designed as a long-term, broad-based project to improve the learning and teaching of geography in higher education in the United States. It is targeted at pre-service and untenured faculty in two-year and four-year colleges as well as in comprehensive and research universities. The aim is to provide junior faculty and advanced doctoral students with the theoretical and practical knowledge needed to excel in the lecture hall, seminar room, and laboratory. Stress will be placed on methods of active pedagogy, inquiry based learning, and teaching with today's graduate curriculum - course planning, student assessment, discussion leadership, lecturing skills, field study, and evaluation methodologies. Key objectives of the project are to foster a culture of support and success for young faculty, to help them understand the fundamental interconnections between their teaching and research, and to advance the scholarship of teaching and learning across the entire discipline. To this end, the workshops will be led by some of geography's most accomplished scientists, scholars and teachers. These senior scientists, who will comprise the project's advisory board, will also assist in establishing a mentoring network for participants in the project.
As part of the project, two one-week workshops will be held each summer for five years (2002-2006) in Boulder, Colorado. In addition, follow-up seminars, panel discussions, and paper sessions will be scheduled at the annual meetings of the Association of American Geographers and the National Council for Geographic Education to broaden the impact of the project. A longitudinal evaluation/research component will consider the value of the training to young faculty during the tenure review process. A final component involves publishing the workshop materials as a stand-alone course for use in graduate geography programs.
The budget includes travel funds to allow some INLT participants from abroad to visit the US to help lead the workshops and seminars. Young faculty from outside the US who may wish to attend the workshops should contact Ken Foote at k.foote@colorado.edu. Although the grant from NSF cannot cover the costs of attendance by non-US faculty, other funds will be sought to assist participants from outside the US.
Further information about the imminent symposium of IGU Commission on Geographical Education "Innovative Practices in Geographical Education" to be held in Helsinki, Finland, 6-10 August 2001 can be found at the Symposium www page, http://www.igu-net.org/cge/sympo/.
The draft Web-based guides from the Geography Discipline Network HEFCE-funded project on 'Providing Learning Support for Disabled Students undertaking Fieldwork and Related Activities' are now available at http://www.chelt.ac.uk/el/philg/gdn/disabil/index.htm. They focus particularly on giving guidance to staff taking fieldcourses in geography, earth and environmental sciences in HE. Many of the issues raised are also relevant to the teaching, learning and assessment of disabled students on campus as well.
We would welcome comments and suggestions for improving the guides.
We are also looking for further case studies of colleagues who have experience of supporting disabled students on fieldwork and the testimony of disabled students who have fieldwork experiences. Please send your comments and case studies to Phil Gravestock (pgravestock@glos.ac.uk) by 28 July 2001.
There are six guides:
There are also links to several other outputs from the project. An annotated bibliography on fieldwork is available at http://www.chelt.ac.uk/el/philg/gdn/disabil/fieldwk.htm.
Mick Healey
Items for the next Newsletter should be sent to Phil Gravestock (pgravestock@glos.ac.uk) by 28 September 2001.
