Educational programs are designed in order to make students develop better concepts in regards to the field of study. Developing programs for the students of 11-12 school years in the context of the Australian education system can be a difficult prospect. The educational framework at this point in the school systems depend greatly on the students’ ability to learn subjects more deeply and develop extensive understanding. The report will focus on introducing effective learning programs for the subject of Geography for students of the higher school years (Keighren et al., 2017). It is important to understand the value of programs that are designed towards helping students to reach learning outcomes that will leave a lasting impression on their lives even after graduating from school. The analysis of the innovative approaches towards educating students in better ways and the subsequent implementation of teaching techniques are discussed through the study. The study objectives concern obtaining the most relevant and significant implications.
As a subject geography relies on both theory and practical based knowledge in order to help students develop a deep understanding of the subject. Currently many school curriculums across the world depend on the implementation of GIS data systems to make students understand geographical concepts in better ways. GIS refers to Geographic information systems that are designed in order to acquire, analyze manage and to some extent manipulate geographical data that is presented spatially (Adagale, 2015). The GIS tools can be used to create interactive question and answer sessions, map editing and effective presentation of all the following significant data. Moreover, the GIS system of teaching and learning approach is being complemented by the use of models. Additionally, the use of problem-solving instruction modes based on hypothesis are being extensively used across geography classes. The later approaches are however newer than the GIS system approaches. In many countries GIS systems are being used for inducing better learning among students (Zhong, Li & Chen, 2016). The systems are improving student participation levels across geography classes. The implementation of the system is however not extensively done across various educational institutions. However, the few places where the technique has been implemented have witnessed a steady growth in both student participation and performance levels. It is important to consider that as a subject geography requires learners to understand the various physical features of the world. This becomes a difficult task considering the currently existing curriculums for the teaching of geography. It becomes much essential for the better understanding of the subject that actual representations of geographical data are provided to the students (Savery, 2015). One of the crucial advantages of the implementation of accurate geographical data is that the students are able to perceive geographical aspects in better ways.
Spatial memory of the learners are enhanced through the implementation of GIS technology in classes. Spatial memory is the ability of students to identify with their surroundings by having a clear conception of the geographical aspects of the given area (Haigh, Cotton & Hall, 2015). This is much important for students as this also enhances their abilities to use geographical concepts in their practical lives. For example students can navigate properly through the application of GIS systems in their cities or residence areas (Brooks, 2015). The practical applicable knowledge of students can be greatly enhanced due to the implementation of GIS across classrooms. However, a significant shortcoming of the issue that was identified was the lack of proper equipment for the implementation of the innovative learning techniques. The main problem occurs when institutions try to gather hardware and software and integrate the same towards providing a practical learning environment for the students (Kwadzo Mrs, 2015). Both the software and hardware gathering part is financially demanding. It is much important that the educational institutions are financially stable and funded enough to implement GIS in their geography classes.
A systematic learning plan need to be formed in order to effectively develop a strong curriculum for teaching geography in schools. The curriculum will be focused towards increasing the practical knowledge of the students more than that of the knowledge of theoretical concepts (Savery, 2015). It is important that the curriculum is provided in a way to enhance the genuine learning outcomes of the student. The curriculum has to be equally divided between theory and practical in order to make the learning outcomes more effective for the students. The essential contemporary concepts for teaching geography to students are based on the student’s understanding of the various geographical concepts (Maude, 2015). The students need to develop significant concepts for the formation of landmasses and the diverse landforms that can be witnessed across the world. Moreover, knowledge of geography is not limited to landforms. Thus, essential importance should also be given towards understanding the water bodies, oceans, rivers, lakes and also develop a strong concept among students about the geological aspects of the world. In essence it is a subject that covers the entire world. Hence, it is important to develop the curriculum based on significant learning outcomes concerning the same.
The curriculum for the various subjects in Australia have been directed by the education regulatory authority of the country ACARA (Kelly et al., 2018). The specific curriculum for geography is focused towards enhancing the capabilities of students to analyze, investigate and provide explanations in regards to the various places across the world. The curriculum is divided into two parts. The first part is from school years 7 to 10. The second part is the senior secondary part. The curriculum will essentially be formed for the senior secondary students that will need to move on from the concepts learned till the 10th year to understand the greater implications of the same in the years 11-12 (Ramos et al., 2015). The curriculum will focus on the greater growth of the geographical concepts of the students.
The implementation of the program will be based on several significant assessment areas that will test mostly the practical knowledge and understanding of the students. The assessment points would be divided in accordance with a specific number of chapters that will be related to each other (Brooks, 2015). For example- there will be a primary assessment after the completion of the first 3 chapters and so forth. Thus, groups of chapters will be divided into modules and at the end of all the modular assessments there will be the final assessment based on all the chapters that have been covered. Both the initial and the final module assessment will be divided equally between theoretical and practical parts. The program will be of 1 year duration and will be divided into 6 months for year 11 and 6 months for year 12.
The assessment will be done on the basis of how much the students can relate to geographical concepts and aspects. Students will be assessed through various models and representations of geographical features and other aspects (Preston, 2015). Students need to provide general ideas in their assessment papers. The theory papers will be designed in a way to assess the students’ depth of understanding with regards to geography. The assessment will be designed for the all-round evaluation of the students.
|
Month |
Month Beginning |
Module 1 |
Module 2 |
Module 3 |
|
1. |
1/3 |
Chapter 1: Basic Geography Chapter 2: Australia LG- Students will be able to understand basic concepts and relate with Australia |
Chapter 3: Australian geographic division Chapter 4: Australian topography practical LG- Students will be able to understand the deeper concepts of geographical divisions of Australia |
Practical 1- Map pointing Practical 2- Topography sheet presentation LG- Students will learn the practical aspects |
|
2. |
1/4 |
Chapter 5- Australian Political Divisions Chapter 6- Australian state wise LG- understanding the physical features of Australia as per the region |
Chapter 7- Oceania basic geography Chapter 8- Oceania geographical division LG- Understanding the position of Australia between Oceania and Asia |
Practical 3- Oceania map pointing Practical 4- Oceania topography LG- students will understand the geographical features |
|
3. |
1/5 |
Chapter 9- Oceania political division Chapter 10- Oceania geographical division LG- define the various features of the continent |
Chapter 11- Asia political Chapter 12- Asia physical festures LG- find out the physical features of Asia and the particular countries in which they belong |
Practical 5- Using GIS systems LG- learn to use to GIS system |
|
4. |
1/6 |
Chapter 13- Europe Political Chapter 14- Europe Physical LG- determine the physical features of different parts of Europe |
Chapter 15- Americas Political Chapter 16- Americas Physical LG- Find out the diversity of Americas |
Practical 6- GIS System usage Practical 7- GIS and plotting LG- System usage and finding out the essential ways in which to derive results |
|
5. |
31/7 |
Chapter 17- Africa Political Chapter 18- Africa Physical LG- relate the landmass to the political countries of the region Understand the formation of the continent |
Chapter 19- Antarctica Chapter 20- Arctic LG- understand the various landforms of the region State the essential facts of the regions |
Practical 8- Excursion tour of the state stage 1 Practical 9- Excursion tour stage 2 LG- critically identify the geographical aspects in real time Figure out the landforms |
|
6. |
1/8 |
Chapter 22- Landforms Chapter 23- Water bodies LG- critically assess the various aspects of landforms and waterbodies |
Chapter 24- Applied Geographical Concepts Chapter 25- Geographical Zones LG- Plot the geographical zones |
Practical 10- Excursion to special geographic zones LG- gather samples from various geographical zones |
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework
(Source- (As developed by Author)
All the students that will be evaluated through the assessment will not have the same learning capabilities or backgrounds. Thus, it will be important to design the assessment and evaluative framework in ways that will be flexible enough for all the students. In some cases assessment differentiation might be needed in order to provide better learning value for the diverse number of students (Mälkki & Paatero, 2015). Usually in Australian schools there are students from various cultural, ethnic and linguistic backgrounds. It is important that students are able to identify with the course despite their cultural, religious, socio-economic or religious backgrounds. Primarily the essential way of differentiating will be to develop significant strategies to communicate with the students in a way of pre assessment. The special classes for the modules will be considering the area or ethnicity specific geographical models as modes to make students of diverse cultural background to relate with the course in some way or the other.
The learning needs of students from different backgrounds will be given much importance. It will be one of the major aspects of the innovative framework of the program. It is important that the various cultural aspects are considered before implementing the program. Integrative learning technique will be used through which the students from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds will be made familiar with each other’s geographical heritage. Geography is all about understanding the world. Thus, cultural assimilation can be easily stressed upon while teaching the subject. The module will focus towards providing knowledge in such ways that the various differences of the students can be easily overcome by the vastness of geographical aspects that are present on earth (Mitchell, 2016). There will be students from lower socio-economic positions. These students will be offered special assistance with regards to their assessments. Students with lower levels of cognition will be taught with the help of models and other essential practical exercises (Mälkki & Paatero, 2015). Through initial assessments these types of students will be identified. The students will be given special classes if required and the focus will be towards the enhancement of their learning abilities. More emphasis will be given towards generating a multicultural environment for the program that will continue throughout the rest of the 11-12 school years.
It is much important to be familiar with the basic concepts of geography for the students. Geographical literacy is much important for students as it is the basis of understanding the world around them. Hence, the course will focus towards making all the participants geographically literate concerning all the essential aspects that will be understood through the learning outcomes. It becomes important to also understand the importance of numeracy towards gaining better practical knowledge in the subject. Geography to some extent requires mathematical knowledge (Maude, 2014). This is mainly because the subject requires a person to understand the number of various geographical aspects that are present in the specific area. Since the study is aimed towards senior students it becomes much important to generate higher levels of literacy and numeracy among them.
The introduction will be made in a way to re-generate interest in the concepts already known by the students. It will essentially be a background check for the students where the concepts they were already familiar with will be re stated or re-visited. This will make sure that an effective background is created for the students to understand deeply the following concepts that will be studied. The rest of the program will be focused towards building literacy on the subject through the further enhancement of the previously known concepts of geography. The students will be made literate about the various geographical aspects that are present in the region, the country and the world. It is important to understand the number of geographical features that are present in Australia. Like the number of lakes, rivers, mountains, plateaus and other areas. The geographical diversity of Australia and the world would be essentially made known to the students. The basic need to know the geographical variations of the region, country and the world will be effectively managed though the program (Maude, 2014). One of the very basic requirement for the program will be to make the students literate in the subject.
Conclusion:
The program will be focused towards enhancing the course learning objectives for the particular subject of geography for the senior students. This will be helpful for the students to understand geography in a better way and at the same time develop a significantly good base knowledge of the subject if they want to continue with the same after graduating. The program will take into consideration the prevalent regulations and directives that are present in the country with respect to educational standards and try to combine the same with innovative teaching approaches to make the students learn better. In all the program will be much effective towards establishing an optimal level of understanding of the geographical concepts among the students in order to help them enhance their much required knowledge concerning the subject of geography. It will be optimally beneficial for the development of the senior students.
References:
Adagale, A. S. (2015). Curriculum Development in Higher Education. IJAR, 1(11), 602-605.
Brooks, C. (2015). Geography teachers and making the school geography curriculum.
Haigh, M., Cotton, D., & Hall, T. (2015). Pedagogic research in geography higher education.
Keighren, I. M., Crampton, J. W., Ginn, F., Kirsch, S., Kobayashi, A., Naylor, S. N., & Seemann, J. (2017). Teaching the history of geography: Current challenges and future directions. Progress in Human Geography, 41(2), 245-262.
Kelly, N., Dawes, L., Wright, N., Kerr, J., & Robertson, A. (2018). Co-Design for Curriculum Planning (CDCP): A white paper on the co-design approach to developing teachers’ 21st Century skills.
Kwadzo Mrs, G. (2015). Awareness and usage of electronic databases by geography and resource development information studies graduate students in the University of Ghana.
Mälkki, H., & Paatero, J. V. (2015). Curriculum planning in energy engineering education. Journal of cleaner Production, 106, 292-299.
Maude, A. (2015). What is powerful knowledge and can it be found in the Australian geography curriculum?. Geographical Education (Online), 28, 18.
Maude, A. M. (2014). Developing a national geography curriculum for Australia. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 23(1), 40-52.
Mitchell, D. (2016). Geography teachers and curriculum making in “changing times”. International Research in Geographical and Environmental Education, 25(2), 121-133.
Preston, L. (2015). The Place of Place-Based Education in the Australian Primary Geography Curriculum. Geographical Education, 28, 41-49.
Ramos, T. B., Caeiro, S., Van Hoof, B., Lozano, R., Huisingh, D., & Ceulemans, K. (2015). Experiences from the implementation of sustainable development in higher education institutions: Environmental management for sustainable universities. Journal of Cleaner Production, 106, 3-10.
Savery, J. R. (2015). Overview of problem-based learning: Definitions and distinctions. Essential readings in problem-based learning: Exploring and extending the legacy of Howard S. Barrows, 9, 5-15.
Zhong, D., Li, Z., & Chen, C. (2016). The Research of Electronic Information Professional Applied Talents Cultivation Based on the CEA Innovation Practice Teaching Mode. DEStech Transactions on Social Science, Education and Human Science, (eeres).
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