5.4

5. Establishing a safe, supportive and intellectually challenging learning environment

5.4 Facilitate students’ responsibility for learning and foster their ability to take initiatives; in so doing they affirm students as active participants in their own learning.

Focus question:

In what ways do you affirm students’ capacity as active participants in their own learning?

Samples of practice

(a) Backdrop:
In this slide a student of a year 8 class, who was part of a discussion about the cyclone Nargis disaster in southern Burma, responds to the question: “How did your teacher help your learning?” What is the student’s key phrase that demonstrates this teacher uses contemporary knowledge to inspire her students to take the initiative and continue their investigations beyond the classroom?

Sample 5 GEOG06 [4. Student voice Slide 4]

Further links and resources

Description of the positive influence of discussion and active participation – interactive teaching:
“Discussion makes it possible for learners to hear ideas in their peers’ vocabulary, interact with everyone in the class and challenges students’ and teachers’ thinking. Through these interactive actions, students were able to advance their geographical vocabulary and test and develop their understanding of concepts. Class discussion was commonly mentioned as being important to learning as it produced more interest, enabled students to learn from peers, encouraged active participation, and made things visible.”
Kriewaldt, J.& Hutchinson, N. (2009) Improving Understanding of Accomplished Teaching in School Geography Through and Examination of Learners’ Perspectives. Geographical Education 22: 31

1. Knowing geography and geography curriculum

Accomplished geography teachers:

1.1 know the breadth and depth of the academic discipline including its concepts, skills, values and understandings;

1.2 assist students to understand that geography draws from the physical sciences, the social sciences and the humanities;

2. Fostering geographical inquiry and fieldwork

Accomplished geography teachers:

2.1 encourage students to carry out a range of geographical inquiries, from structured to more open ended and active investigations, from prearranged problem solving and open ended discovery to negotiated inquiry. Through these inquiries, students identify topics, generate questions, evaluate the quality of evidence, process and analyse data, select presentation methods to communicate the research findings effectively, think creatively about geographical issues, propose individual or group action in response to the research findings and, where appropriate, take such action;

2.2 make judgements about the essential skills, processes and values that students need to develop to carry out meaningful and ethical geographical inquiries;

2.3 support students to undertake inquiry in the field, to select and use fieldwork tools and techniques, ranging from simple purpose-built equipment to digital and video cameras, GIS and environmental sensors, appropriately, safely and efficiently.

3. Developing geographical thinking and communication

Accomplished geography teachers:

3.1 promote understandings of physical and human processes, structures and patterns and their interdependence in place, space and time;

3.2 assemble the many strands of geography, providing multiple resources for the further development of geographical thinking by students; they set this comprehensive knowledge in contemporary contexts, opening the way for significant interconnections to be made;

3.3 support students to think spatially and use maps, visual images and new technologies, including geographical information systems (GIS), to obtain, present, analyse and evaluate information;

3.4 provide students with varied contexts through which to construct a deep understanding of geographical concepts and use case studies to give support to the subject’s breadth and depth;

4. Understanding students and their communities

Accomplished geography teachers:

4.1 creatively link their sophisticated geographical understandings with the diverse and developing geographical understandings of their students;

4.2 bring an enriched understanding of students because of their particular sensibility to students’ communities; they are alert to the spaces and places students occupy so that they can incorporate students’ personal geographies into learning sequences, drawing clear connections with students’ prior knowledge and identities, from the local community and beyond;

4.3 enhance student learning by using students’ multiple ways of knowing and other background elements such as their social and cultural perspectives ;

4.4 enrich learning by incorporating particular insights into the local community, as a social network of interacting individuals, groups and social interests, in space, to establish relevance and connection and incorporate these resources into the curriculum.

5. Establishing a safe, supportive and intellectually challenging learning environment

Accomplished geography teachers:

5.1 foster dynamic and challenging learning environments characterised by mutual trust, equity, risk taking, independence, interdependence and collaboration; they create conditions for students to question complex geographical ideas and issues, rather than accept them without further thought.

5.2 design teaching strategies specifically for different backgrounds, learning preferences, and dispositions of their students;

5.3 generate and communicate to the students a ‘need to know’ and their own high expectations, thereby promoting study of the complexities of place, space and environments;

5.4 facilitate students’ responsibility for learning, to foster students’ ability to take initiatives; in so doing they affirm the students’ capacities as active participants in their own learning.

6. Understanding geography teaching – pedagogical practices

Accomplished geography teachers:

6.1 have current and extensive understanding of geographical education processes — pedagogical content knowledge; they select, adapt and create field specific and general teaching approaches and resources to support deep understanding of place, space and environments and they justify their choices about planning and teaching;

6.2 promote gathering of information for geographic inquiry from a variety of sources, including fieldwork, libraries, the internet, digital and print media.

6.3 use fieldwork and outdoor learning as a key practice to develop students’ data collection, analysis and evaluative skills to deepen their understanding of place, space and environments;

6.4 systematically introduce and develop a range of cartographic, statistical and graphical geographical tools and skills that enable students to think and communicate geographically, including making and interpreting maps, and a range of other representation collectively described as graphicacy and teach students to critically evaluate maps and other forms of representation.

7. Planning, assessing and reporting

Accomplished geography teachers:

7.1 design curriculum to develop geographical thinking in their students in such a way as to spark an interest among all students − an interest that is active, contemporary, enlivening and sustained;

7.2 plan and continually monitor their students’ learning, using a wide range of formal and informal assessments methods;

7.3 prepare assessment for learning, recognising the positive achievements of students and indicating directions for improvement;

7.4 conduct summative assessment which is made available to students and care-givers;

7.5 use assessment methods that are appropriate, valid and reliable; in reporting students’ achievements and difficulties, they employ a variety of procedures, ensuring they use clear and accurate language that is suitable for the intended audience;

7.6 employ diagnostic assessment to inform their own teaching and student understanding.

8. Progressing professional growth and development

Accomplished geography teachers:

8.1 continue to learn and develop as teachers, acknowledging that the greater the teacher learning, the more students learn as well.

8.2 recognise that the subject of geography is dynamic and evolving and therefore seek opportunities to further develop their disciplinary knowledge base;

8.3 commit themselves to learning formally, and to critically reflecting on their experiences both within the classroom and more widely, through travel, from literature and the arts and through engagement with professional learning communities.

9. Learning and working collegially

Accomplished geography teachers:

9.3 distribute and share their teaching expertise towards the continuing construction of a professional knowledge base for school geography;

9.4 communicate educational ideas and promote geographical education towards contributing to the resilience and renewal of their professional field.