Task Specification
What do pupils learn and not learn using information and communication technologies in geography?
The aim is to develop the geography curriculum using GIS in appropriate ways. Geographical Information Systems (GIS) offer great potential for applying ICT to the task of understanding and managing environments. Rapid developments in ICT and the wealth of data now available enable GIS to play an important role in addressing real-world issues and questions. Although GIS has been available and widely used in the world outside schools for some time, and despite its obvious potential, its use in school geography has been limited and confined to the classrooms of a few enthusiasts. You will be entering the teaching profession at a time when GIS offers great potential for enhancing the geography curriculum in schools. One of the key aims of this assignment is therefore to involve you in the process of curriculum innovation in geography. It will therefore have wider benefits for your professional learning in addition to completing a subject assignment. You will no doubt be involved in sharing the expertise you develop with other teaching colleagues in your placement schools!
An assumption that may underlie this project is that using ICT enhances children’s learning. They may also learn a little about ICT, but the assumption may be that children will gain more knowledge, understanding and skills of a more general nature through the medium of geography using ICT. Is this true? Like most educational matters the ‘truth’ is certainly complex - depending on the topic, the setting, the children, the resources, the teacher... Your project must confront this question. You must evaluate the resources and approach you develop in terms of what the pupils did (and did not) learn.
Standards for the Award of QTS covered by this assignment
The use of Information and Communications Technology in subject teaching
A Effective teaching and assessment methods.
B Knowledge and understanding of, and competence with ICT
Task Guidance
You will need to identify an area of the geography curriculum in your placement school where there are opportunities to develop a geographical enquiry that makes relevant and effective use of GIS. Consider the issues, questions and problems where GIS plays an important role in making decisions that affect people such as the location of public facilities and provision of public services, urban planning, transport logistics, the management of natural resources, responding to natural hazards and disasters. All of these can find a place in the school geography curriculum. The use of GIS in other areas such as community-based participatory mapping (e.g. London’s Green Map Project) is also growing. The changes that will inevitably occur in London as a result of the successful 2012 Olympic bid can also be investigated using GIS!
Follow these steps:
- Identify your learning objective(s) for geography and the use of GIS.
- Identify the criteria you value in order to evaluate the success of the project.
- Translate the criteria into ‘measurable’ indicators (the source of your ‘evidence’).
- Plan the unit of work and deliver it making your observations about the teaching and learning.
- Evaluate the resources and teaching strategies used, and the resulting pupil learning.
- Make a judgement(s) about the question “What did pupils learn using ICT in geography?”.
What is reported here is a sequence of lesson plans (2-3) which demonstrate the application of GIS in the teaching of an aspect of the geography curriculum at any level (including AS/A2 levels).
The key to a successful task will be its evaluation, based around the question: What have pupils learned, and not learned, using ICT?
In writing up your report for this assignment you should provide important information about the rationale and educational contexts for this GIS development including:
- School/department, Age/ability range, Level (KS3/GSCE/A-LEVEL/GNVQ)
- Geographical content (NC/Syllabus) and Subject Knowledge
- GIS applications and relevant aspects of the ICT NC covered, ICT software and hardware
As with Assignment 1a (Subject Unit) your report should include lesson plans and copies of resource materials together with a full explanation and justification of the learning activities and teaching strategies used. Your evaluation of this GIS development project is a crucial part of this assignment revealing your understanding of how to use ICT to develop a geographical enquiry as well as your skills of critical reflection. It should analyse the ICT skills developed by the pupils (ie in relation to the ICT NC) and the geographical learning outcomes. Annotated examples of pupils’ work could be included in this evaluation to illustrate these learning outcomes. Finally, your conclusions should include ideas and recommendations for ways of improving or developing this use of GIS in geography.
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