School geography teachers’ pedagogical choices : the claim for ‘geographical thinking’

Abstract

The role of the geography teachers today is not just to provide information about patterns and processes that can be easily accessible on the internet, but to provide disciplinary knowledge that leads students to ‘thinking geographically’. ‘Thinking geographically’ provides the students with a language; a set of concepts and ideas that helps them to make connections between places and spaces, scales and connections, proximity and distance and relational thinking (Jackson, 2006). It satisfies their curiosity about people and places while providing opportunities to develop a broader skills and knowledge set to think about alternative futures (Geographical Association, 2009). The main aim of this study is to see if the teaching strategies adopted by a number of geography teachers may lead students to ‘think geographically’. The research focuses mainly on the enquiry approach to engage the students with school geography. The data generation was based on a qualitative approach. The participanting teachers were selected through stratified random sampling from all school geography teachers. Interviews were conducted with each participant followed by one lesson observation. Thematic analysis of the data was carried out using Braun and Clarke (2006) six stages of analysis. Interview data was coded and clustered into three main themes while observation data was analysed according to the criteria decided upon. It was concluded that the most common teaching strategies observed may not be leading students to ‘think geographically’ due to several factors that limits the teaching strategies of school geography teachers. A number of recommenations are made to enhance the learning of all their students by leading them to ‘think geographically’.