GTE (Geography Teacher Educators) 2021 Conference

1. Sophie Wilson
Senior Lecturer Secondary Geography
sophie.wilson@stmarys.ac.uk
Rm K307. Tel: 020 8240 4318
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GTE 2021 Conference
29th- 30th January 2021

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Contents
About the project
Innovative Pedagogical model for Teaching with GIS
Toolkit of innovative pedagogical approaches
Teacher training course
Case studies and a digital exhibition of the findings

3. About the Project
• 3 Year Erasmus+ funded Project
• Builds on past work done on the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in
Secondary schools
• Aim is to focus directly on innovative Pedagogy and Teacher Training for *Early Career
and *Trainee Teachers.
• + working with 6 European partner Institutions who come from a variety of countries
including Belgium, Spain, Romania, Austria and the UK
• this started with an initial meeting at St Mary’s University in December 2019, to finalise
our plans
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3x Universities:
▪ St Mary’s University
▪ Ugent,
▪ UNED (Madrid)
2x Secondary schools
▪ Liceul Teoretic "Dimitrie Cantemir" Iasi
▪ The Kings School, Ely
Professional Geography Subject Association
▪ EUROGEO
Kick-off meeting at St Mary’s University

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O1: An Innovative Pedagogical Model for Teaching with GIS
1) Literature review

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The GI Pedagogy Project
Responds to a need
• to train teachers how to integrate innovative GIS into lessons and especially
young teachers
• to bridge the chasm between the early adopters of GIS and the whole educational community
• main issue is not access to technology, but the *capability to establish meaningful web-based
learning and teaching approaches.
Teachers need to recognise the importance of these technological advances and new paradigms for
exploring spatial relationships
BUT little research into how to teach this skill which is so applicable to real-world context (Hartig and
Klieme, 2007).
The adoption of GIS in school education remains fragmented (Jackson and Kibetu, 2019) with teachers
often unaware of its potential + how much industry needs these skills.
Pedagogical tools are needed to help new teachers integrate GIS into the classroom which is rapidly
evolving (Mitchell et al., 2018).

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A DigCompEdu Framework = competences 6 areas

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Rosenshine and effective instruction
Rosenshine (2012) developed ten Principles of Instruction derived from
• research-based evidence from cognitive science and
• how brain acquires and uses information,
• classroom practice of expert teachers
→ Cognitive instructional methods can help learn more complex tasks like GIS
BUT research recommends experiential activities should always be used after the basic knowledge is learned

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Modelling the brain (Sherrington,
2019)
Based on the simple model of how the brain works Sherrington (2019)
• working memory limited + learning needs to develop schema in
the long-term memory
• connect new information to existing knowledge
• reinforced by practice for more fluent retrieval to reduce
cognitive overload ,↑ capacity of the working memory for new
learning
• difference between novice and expert learners.
Sherrington (2019) connecting Rosenshine’s Principles into
4 groups to offer clearer guidance for teachers
• Sequence + model – small steps + scaffold
• Question – ask to check understanding
• Review/ reflect on material regular
• Practice – guided and independent

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Practical recommendations for student learning from the research:
Draw on Principles of Cognitive Load Theory:
• include practice, increasing challenge of questions, new contexts, retrieval and self-quizzing for retention
of ideas and knowledge (Stringer et al., 2019).
• adapt pedegogy for interaction of working + long-term memory, building of schema; notion of novice+
expert (Rosenshine, 2012; Sherrington, 2018)
• meaningful learning + power of stories through the narrative used (De Miguel, Koutsopoulos, and Donert
2019) –
• assess impact on subject being taught + specifics of the school context (Stringer et al., 2019) + potential
employability +.
• Practice - needs guiding using a variety of learning activities which ‘rephrase, elaborate and
summarise new material’
• high success rate - help form schema + build confidence. Sherrington (ibid)
• ultimate goal = independence - transition from guided scaffolded practice.
• students set own goals for improvement based on feedback as support reduced
• cooperative learning Rosenshine (1986) - well-structured practice by explaining and
questioning one another.

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2) Small-scale survey of expert teachers

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O2: Toolkit of innovative pedagogical approaches to teaching
with GIS
Resources, materials, training and
case-studies..

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Focus on the P of the well known TPACK approach: the pedagogy.
This model is based on current thinking in cognitive science and will
be accessible for teachers at all levels of pre-existing competence in
the use of GIS, so there will be something there for you.
Source: https://www.wethetalent.co/education-learning/teaching-methods-you-said/

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Draft module
• Review experiences of partner schools in trialling new approaches to teaching with GIS (face to face?)
• Develop implementation plan for MOOC creation
• Design and develop MOOC content and implementation
3) a Teacher training course
4) Case studies and a Digital exhibition of the findings
• a project conference to communicate, review, and evaluate different approaches to
teaching with GIS
• Create an online 'exhibition' of teachers' findings
• share findings through journal publications
• use case studies to develop quality indicators
How to organise? How many
schools - test group vs normal
school group?
What impact will online vs face to
face teaching have on the use of
these innovative pedagogies??
Looking forward

17. What next?
? How will the pandemic influence teaching/GI
pedagogies?
? What will the ‘new normal’ look like?
Any questions?
GTE 2021 Conference
29th- 30th January 2021