![[Table of Contents]](/icons/up.gif){kind=icon}
| Teaching Geography: A Model For Action In Grades 4-12. A program designed to help teachers in grades 4-12 increase their competency and confidence in teaching geography. Inquiry-based learning methods are emphasized. The program is comprehensive and practical; it is designed for ease of understanding and adoption. The four program components are: Curriculum Guides; a Teacher's Handbook; Professional Development Workshops; and Support Services. |
Audience Teachers in any discipline in which geography plays an important role; approved by JDRP for those teaching in grades 4-12.
Description Teaching Geography: A Model For Action in Grades 4-12 is one of the National Geographic Society's (NGS) comprehensive efforts--embodied in its Geography Education Program--to enhance the status and effectiveness of geographic education nationwide. Teaching Geography's materials and services can be effectively utilized in any course in which geographic concepts and skills play a part--such as history, other social studies, science or literature. Geography is one of the five subject areas in the national goals. The Teaching Geography program's goal is to help teachers increase their competence and confidence in teaching geography. Through a combination of materials, inservice workshops, and other support mechanisms, teachers learn to view geography in a conceptual framework based on five fundamental themes and to develop the ability to present geography in this context to their students. Using this approach to learning geography, students can both understand the importance of basic geographic observation--facts about location and place--as well as the more complex analytical concepts of geography relating to human interaction and development of the Earth. A major emphasis of the Teaching Geography program is the sharing of content, lesson plans, and teaching strategies that illustrate these five geographic themes: location, place, human-environment interactions, movement, and regions.
Teaching Geography workshop sessions use a basic framework of geography content and classroom-tested teaching strategies that can be tailored to the specific curricular needs of a state or school district. These are (typically) one-day workshops, combining short content presentations by professional geographers, with guided practice in hands-on teaching activity ideas by Teaching Geography teacher-consultants, who are exemplary graduates of NGS-sponsored geography institutes. A key support service of the Teaching Geography program is offered by access to NGS-sponsored state geographic alliances. These partnerships of classroom teachers, professional geographers, and other educators provide ongoing opportunities for instructors to contribute to the understanding of geography and how it is most effectively taught.
Evidence of Effectiveness Use of Teaching Geography program materials and services leads to positive changes in teachers' understanding of geographic content, of strategies to teach geography, and to increased confidence in teachers' abilities to teach the subject. Evaluative results indicate that teachers who have been trained to use the core content, methods, and materials show a change in performance and attitude that should have a positive influence on geographic learning among students in the classroom. In postactivity evaluations on both pilot programs and geography institutes, teachers were found to be better prepared in their mastery of geographic content and effective teaching strategies, more enthusiastic about teaching geography, and more confident of themselves as teachers.
Costs Costs vary for the different components of the Teaching Geography program. The handbook, Directions in Geography: A Guide for Teachers, costs $29.95, plus postage and handling. Most of the recommended teaching activities in the handbook can be carried out using standard, readily available classroom supplies. Other optional materials vary in cost. Teaching Geography workshop fees depend on the number of attendees and on cost-sharing arrangements with state facilitators.
Services Teaching Geography program awareness materials are available at no cost, as are Geography Education Program informational materials. Program staff or certified representatives are available to attend limited numbers of awareness conferences. Teaching Geography workshop training is conducted at adopter sites (costs to be negotiated). NGS-sponsored geographic alliances offer additional inservice training opportunities, alliance teacher-generated, state-specific curriculum materials, networking mechanisms, and multiweek Summer Geography Institute training, conducted at various university sites across the country.
Developmental Funding: National Geographic Society.
JDRP No. 87-14 (5/15/87)
-###-
[History Theatre of Ideas]