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GeoVisions BPRS Projects
'GeoVisions' describes all of the GA's creative professional development opportunities that lead to new developments in school geography.
Opportunities, such as Why Argue? and Where Will I Live?, will seek funding support for 'local solutions' for curriculum innovation. Thus, 'Worldwise' for students, and 'GeoVisions' for teachers!
Origins and development
GeoVisions originated from a Birmingham DEC (now Tidec) in 1998. The project provided a forum to debate, raise issues and make proposals about the future of school geography. The project was unconstrained by short-term objectives or immediate political concerns.
Between 1999 and 2003, GeoVisions was an official GA Working Party. The objectives and outcomes of which are shown in the table below. Over the four years the Working Party met, it did much to raise the profile of geographical thinking in school geography. Indeed, the work of GeoVisions informed the original Valuing Places bid to the DfID.
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GeoVisions objectives 1999
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Outcomes to 2003
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Identify shared vision and consensus about geography in the curriculum
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A revised Position Statement for geography
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Develop an action plan for geography in the curriculum
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Advice to the GA's ESC on the ongoing campagin for geography in the curriculum
Advice to the QCA geography curriculum development group
Advice to OCR during the construction of the Pilot Hybrid GCSE
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Identify levers of change
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Develop the subject community for providing teacher-to-teacher dialogue
Involve university and school geographers in thinking together
Links with QCA
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Continuing to share ideas with and to engage the wider geographical community
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Numerous workshops, conferences, updated in GA News and on websites
The awarding of BPRS funding to create a team of teacher-researchers
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Establish a framework that enables teachers to be creative
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A web-based Forum to develop the GeoVisions curriculum thinking
Many of the GeoVisions ideas informed the GA's DfID and Tubney-funded Valuing Places project
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| GeoVisions' wider contributions |
Members of the GeoVisions Working Party contributed to many continuing professional development (CPD) events, including the GA's Annual Conference. It also communicated more widely via this website and GA News through, e.g. the following dispositions:- Places are complex and diverse
- We need to make transparent the ways in which individuals develop their partial views of the world
- We must recognise the plurality of knowledge
- We need to engage in critical reflection
- We must use alternative texts, and think about how we inform and misinform the children we teach
- We must be confident that geography is plural, dynamic and contested
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Through the Best Practice Research Scholarships (BPRS), eight teachers were funded to revisit geography's enquiry questions. These were then reviewed in the light of evidence about how young people learn. Aspects of the BPRS work will be included in the Secondary Geography Handbook, which is to be published in late 2005.
Ideas from this work has informed the activities of the GA/DEA Geography: the global dimension book and webpages. The GeoVisions team also contributed directly the the GA's 2002 Position Statement.
During 2002-03, a GeoVisions subgroup developed ideas for an innovative geography GCSE. The group was commissioned by QCA to produce both a briefing paper and a Teacher's Resource Guide. Both can downloaded from the Pilot GCSE pages. |
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