Richard G. Boehm

The "Bete Noir" of Geographic Education: Teacher Training Programs.

Abstract Despite many recent successes, the geographic education community faces serious problems based on its failure to create and maintain strategies for effective preservice teacher education. The development of effective preservice training is hindered by many problems, including the differing position of geography in school curricula among the states, lack of effective communication among groups responsible for curricula and teacher training, and poor interaction between universities and the schools. One remedy for this situation is cooperation and mutual respect. Preservice teacher education programs in geography need to be cast into a framework fashioned by a broad representation of those who have a stake in quality education—teachers, school district officials, bureaucrats, non-geographers and geographic educators.

A New Pathway: Video-Based Professional Development in Geography

The Gilbert M. Grosvenor Center for Geographic Education, in partnership with the Agency for Instructional Technology, and the National Geographic Education Foundation have embarked on the production of a twenty-two-program, Web-based professional development series for teachers of geography, social studies, and environmental science, titled Geography: Teaching with the Stars. Recognizing that deficient preservice preparation in geography is a serious problem in classrooms across the country, this technology-based series of programs is designed to complement and extend the impact of face-to-face in-service teacher training, the preferred method currently being used by the National Geographic Society-sponsored State Alliance program. This article includes a survey of the research literature describing and analyzing the nature of similar series in other disciplines, as well as some results of preliminary research about the effectiveness of the prototype program, “Globalization.”

A Rationale and Model for a Scope and Sequence in Geographic Education, Grades K-12

he publication of Geography f o r T Life: National Geography Standards (Geography Education Standards 1994) was a milestone in geographic education. That document represented the culmination of more than a decade of concerted efforts by geographic educators and geography organizations to reintroduce geography into the school curriculum and to demonstrate to both teachers and students the power of geography in understanding the intricacies of the world around them. Geograp h y f o r Life was widely distributed to teachers and curriculum writers by the National Geographic Society through the network of state geographic alliances and by two other major professional geography organizations, the National Council for Geographic Education and the Association of American Geographers. Many teachers, however, were intimidated by the size (272 pages) and complexity of Geography f o r Life

Round Two: Standards Writing and Implementation in the Social Studies

early 1990s, has been widely accepted by school officials, teachers, parents, and politicians, and today, virtually every state and local school district has adopted a standards-based education system (Tucker and Codding 1998; Marran 2001). In a cover letter for the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), Education Secretary Rod Paige wrote, “This historic reform [NCLB] gives states and school districts unprecedented flexibility in how they spend their education dollars, in return for setting standards for student achievement and holding students and educators accountable for results” (USDOE 2002, vii, emphasis added). Thus, states and local school districts must prepare standards-based curricular frameworks, and these frameworks must include strategies for accurately measuring student performance, therefore demonstrating accountability (Howard 2003). In earlier education plans, specifically America 2000 and the Goals 2000 Educate America Act, core subjects in the social studies were identified, including history, geography, civics, and economics. Those subjects are the principal components of the social studies as taught in America’s schools, and they are also included in NCLB as “core academic subjects.” In the early 1990s, identification of those core subjects in the education plans led to energetic projects by academic disciplines to prepare documents that contained recommended national standards. Ultimately, such documents were written for U.S. history, world history, civics, economics, and geography. After some hesitation, the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) published national standards in the social studies. In 1994, the National Geographic Society published geography’s standards under the title Geography for Life (GESP 1994). The authors defined those standards as “knowledge and able to do” statements for grades four, eight, and twelve. Little attention was paid to aligning the content standards to assessment protocols or to the manners in which the standards might work their way into social studies curriculum frameworks. This is not meant as criticism; rather, it describes the educational environment at that particular time. For example, the U.S. Department of Education, in 1992, asked for standards documents from the core subjects without providing a common definition of the term standards, and then further contributed to process confusion by failing to provide a template for standards documents that would provide some consistency across disciplines (Libbee 2001). Ten years have passed since the publication of national standards documents in social studies subjects. Many disciplines are considering revising or updating their standards work. In the meantime, states and local school districts are preparing to revise their social studies curriculum frameworks to articulate for the provisions of No Child Left Behind. In this article, we make suggestions to national standards writers in the social studies that might make their secRound Two: Standards Writing and Implementation in the Social Studies

Applied Geography: An Academic Response to the Structural Change of a Discipline

The first published reference to applied geography has been traced to British geographer John Scott Keltie’s book, Applied Geography: A Preliminary Sketch, which first appeared in 1890 (see Dunbar 1978; Stevens 1921). Keltie intended to show the importance of geographical knowledge on human interest, history, and especially industry, commerce, and colonialization (Keltie 1908). Shortly thereafter a committee to recommend changes in the curricula of American secondary school education defined applied geography as the study of geographical elements as they appeared in other fields of study — i.e., as an element in the study of history or botany (U.S. Bureau of Education 1893).

The Influence of Environmental Exploration on Geographic Performance among Adolescents: A Gender and Cross-cultural Analysis

The nature of gender differences in geographic performance is widely debated. It is suggested that one of the reasons for this disparity in learning is male propensity for exploration of the environment through personal travel. This study is an analysis of gender and cross-cultural personal travel as an indicator of performance on a standardised geography examination. Sixty, 13-year-old students from a small town in Texas kept a detailed diary of all the places they travelled to in one week. The student sample was composed of both Anglo (primarily White, European) and other (primarily Hispanic) populations. Regression analysis was used to correlate variations in an adolescents environmental exploration among gender and cross-cultural groups and performance on a geography examination. The results indicate that environmental exploration relates positively to geographic performance, depending on an adolescents gender and cultural background.

Geospatial Technology: Curricular Keystone of Applied Geography

Research into the nature and function of curricular matters in applied geography has provided an opportunity to assess the penetration and relative importance of geospatial technology to the discipline of geography. Departments of Geography with degree programs in applied geography were surveyed to find out how important geospatial technology was in the preparation of students for meaningful jobs and careers. The Applied Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers (AAG) was also surveyed about the value of geospatial technology, as was the 95 academic programs that listed applied geography as a “program specialty†in the AAG Guide to Geography Programs in the Americas. There was a uniform agreement across these various groups that geospatial technology occupied an extremely important position in their overall course offerings, and if you are watching the workplace, such courses are not only sensible but offer critical employable skills for students upon graduation. It is widely known that geospatial technology education and training require a large commitment of departmental resources, including faculty lines, equipment expenditures, space, and technical support. A geography department and its university’s administration have to understand these unique requirements and allocate resources, more akin to a computer science department than a traditional academic unit. This reality is of immediate importance to geography departments because almost one quarter of all academic jobs advertised in geography over the last six years have been in the broad area of geospatial technology. A final conclusion to this research is a policy matter that suggests geography departments take a strong proprietorial position toward providing education in geospatial technology because other disciplines and training programs see opportunities in a rapidly expanding workplace skill and they are aggressively pursuing a niche of their own.

Under-representation in Geography: Why We Should and How We Can Do Better

The Critical Concern As the population of the United States continues to diversify, it seems necessary to address the issue of minority under-representation within the higher education system to meet the needs of an ever-diversifying populace (Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, 2001). Since post-secondary institutions prepare students for the contemporary workplace, the opportunity to interact with diverse populations is essential to the placement of graduates and their success in the professional workforce of the 21st century. Exposure to racial, ethnic and gender diversity allows students to dispel myths and stereotypes of educational inferiority, incompetence and lack of professionalism that they may have previously internalised (Anderson, 2002; Delaney, 2002; Gurin, 1999; National Task Force on Minority High Achievement, 1999; Newby et al., 2000; Smith & Schonfeld, 2000). In an assessment of the Urban Teachers Outreach Programme, Rettig and Khodavandi (1998) emphasise that both minority and majority students benefit from having a minority teacher in the classroom. Exposure to a variety of cultures, not just the cultures of the students themselves, improved attitudes about academic success and self-worth in all groups. Similarly, a survey of Louisville, Kentucky high school juniors found that campus diversity had positive impacts on educational performance and student attitudes about diverse populations. Diversity Digest (2001: 1) reports: ‘Over 80 percent of [Louisville] African American and white students report that their school experience has helped them work more effectively and get along with members of other races and groups’. Finally, research developed in response to two anti-affirmative action cases filed against the University of Michigan indicates that ‘Students learn more and think in deeper more complex ways in a diverse educational environment’ (Gurin, 1999: 1). All students profit from exposure to cultural diversity and mentoring in both K-12 and higher education (Delaney, 2002; Gurin, 1999; Kobayashi, 1994; Pulido, 2002; Rettig & Khodavandi, 1998).

Transformative Research in Geography Education: The Role of a Research Coordination Network

This article considers the concept and significance of transformative research in the context of geography education. It provides an overview of how the capacity-building activities and management operations of a research coordination network (RCN) are designed to support broad-scale advances in geography education theory, methods, and practice. Vignettes of RCN activities are presented as examples of pathways toward transformative research in the areas of geography learning progressions, assessments of spatial thinking, and geospatially enabled project-based learning. Beyond the prospect of introducing new paradigms of learning and using research findings to inform and systematically change approaches to teacher education and curriculum development, an RCN offers an opportunity to plan broad-based strategy and develop leadership needed to address many long-standing challenges that have undermined the quality and quantity of geography education research. These challenges include the low visibility of geography education research relative to other geographic subdomains, the difficulty of carrying out interdisciplinary and international research collaborations, low rates of transfer and uptake of research findings in practitioner communities and in policymaking, and the erosion of graduate-level programs that prepare students to plan and design conceptually rigorous educational research in geography.

Geography: a Pathway Through College To Meaningful Careers

A background in geography can provide preparation for a broad spectrum of careers, as noted by the examples cited on the following pages.