Identifying powerful geographical knowledge in integrated curricula in Dutch schools

Bouwmans, Matthijs; Béneker, Tine

doi:10.18546/lre.16.3.07

Cited by 10 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Maude (2015: 23) argues that the Australian curriculum overemphasizes technical skills and underestimates the need for critical thinking. The same conclusion is reached in Bouwmans and Béneker's (2018) study of the interdisciplinary (human and societal) domains of written curricula in four schools in the Netherlands. They find that type 3 is almost absent from the curricula (Bouwmans & Béneker 2017: 456).…”

Section: Powerful Geographical Knowledgesupporting

confidence: 69%

“…Based on student interviews and questionnaire responses, they conclude that real-world geography experts support students to develop knowledge types 2, 4, and 5, whereas type 3 is difficult to find in the students' answers (Healy & Walshe 2020). Béneker (2018; see also Bouwmans & Béneker 2018) acknowledges that Maude's typology has helped to concretize the concept of powerful knowledge in geography, but she states that there is a risk of seeing the five types as separate, even though all five are needed to form powerful knowledge (see also Béneker & Van Der Vaart 2020). Béneker (2018) has been inspired by Maude's work to form a typology consisting of five fields of knowledge in geography.…”

Section: Powerful Geographical Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

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Geography's ability to enhance powerful thinking skills and knowledge

Virranmäki

2022

NGP

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Finnish upper secondary geography education has faced major changes within the last decade. In 2014, geography lost one of its compulsory courses in the distribution of lesson hours. Afterward, curriculum reforms were conducted in 2015 and 2019, and the geography test in the Finnish matriculation examination was digitalized in 2016. Similar major changes have occurred across the globe over the last 20 years as geography’s position in schools has weakened. Therefore, geography educationists have engaged in discussion regarding the kinds of knowledge and thinking skills that geography encourages young people to learn during their years in school. This thesis acknowledges that geography involves much more than teaching and learning simple facts about world’s topography, regions, and places, which is how geography is usually understood in popular views. The aim of this thesis is to widen our understanding of thinking skills and powerful knowledge in the context of geography education. Theoretically, the thesis brings together discussions of powerful geographical knowledge with thinking skills and knowledge dimensions from a revised version of Bloom’s taxonomy, and it suggests that these can be used as two “lenses” through which to examine geography. The main objective of the thesis is to examine geography’s potential to engage students in thinking skills and powerful geographical knowledge, using Finnish upper secondary geography education as an example. This thesis is based on three individual research articles, and thus the empirical part of the thesis consists of multiple research materials: in-service upper secondary teachers’ concept maps and in-depth interviews; the geography test questions from the paper-based and digital forms of the Finnish matriculation examination between fall 2013 and spring 2019; students’ answers to the paper-based and digital geography test questions between fall 2015 and spring 2017; and learning objectives in upper secondary geography curricula documents from the years 2003, 2015, and 2019, which are examined through the qualitative research methodology approach. Both inductive and deductive content analysis are used as methods of analysis. Additionally, quantification, descriptive statistics, and statistical analyses are used to comprehensively understand the researched phenomenon. In this compilation part of the thesis, the findings from the three original research articles are examined through the two “lenses” to reveal which geographical thinking skills and knowledge are emphasized. The findings suggest that the various thinking skills and knowledge dimensions, as well as powerful geographical knowledge types, are all present to some extent in Finnish geography’s learning objectives and test questions, students’ answers, and teachers’ conceptions. However, the majority of the learning objectives and test questions emphasize lower-order thinking skills, i.e. powerful geographical knowledge types 2 and 5. However, to some extent, teachers additionally emphasize higher-order thinking skills, i.e. powerful geographical knowledge types 1 and 4. The digitalization of the matriculation examination and the curriculum reforms slightly shifted the emphasis toward higher order thinking because the requirement to use analytical thinking skills—i.e. powerful geographical knowledge type 4—increased. Additionally, the findings suggest that students have difficulty answering questions that require them to use analytical (in digital tests only), evaluative, and creative thinking or procedural knowledge, i.e. powerful geographical knowledge types 4, 3, and 1. The findings indicate that geography has the potential to enhance students’ higher-order thinking skills and engage them in powerful geographical knowledge, but further development is needed. First, there is a need to reevaluate the optimal distribution between lower- and higher-order thinking skills in the geography curriculum’s learning objectives and the geography test questions in the Finnish matriculation examination. Additionally, there is a need to engage geography teachers and students in reflection on thinking skills and powerful geographical knowledge. Moreover, there is a need to consider the possibility of placing more emphasis on higher-order thinking skills, because this will enable the development of students’ powerful geographical knowledge in greater depth. In conclusion, this thesis provides one perspective on geography education and presents one framework for understanding thinking skills and powerful knowledge in geography. This framework can be used to plan the aims of geography education, or to choose teaching artifacts, methods, or assessments tasks. Moreover, it can be applied in order to “speak the same language” so as to develop geography education, and above all to develop students’ powerful geographical knowledge and thinking skills. Keywords revised Bloom’s taxonomy, powerful geographical knowledge, upper secondary education, geography education, geography curriculum, learning objectives, summative assessment, teachers’ conceptions, students’ performance, higher-order thinking skills

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Section: Powerful Geographical Knowledgesupporting

confidence: 69%

Section: Powerful Geographical Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

Geography's ability to enhance powerful thinking skills and knowledge

Virranmäki

2022

NGP

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“…Youngin ajattelua on viime vuosien kuluessa ryhdytty soveltamaan yksittäisten oppiaineiden, esimerkiksi historian (Ormond 2014;Nordgren 2017) ja maantieteen (Lambert 2011;Maude 2015Maude , 2017Béneker & Palings 2017;Bouwmans & Béneker 2018) konteksteihin. On huomautettu empiirisen tutkimuksen tarpeellisuudesta siinä, miten tieteenaloihin perustuvaa tietoa opiskellaan koulussa ja miten tätä tietoa sovelletaan oppiaineiden opetuksessa.…”

Section: Maantieteen Merkityksellisen Tiedon Piirteitäunclassified

“…Mielikuvat maantieteestä ei-maantieteilijöiden parissa ovat hyvin hataria (Bonnett 2008;Cresswell 2013). Huolimatta siitä, millaisia tavoitteita ja sisältöjä maantieteen oppiaineelle on asetettu opetussuunnitelmissa tai miten maantieteilijät määrittelevät tieteenalansa, monet mieltävät maantieteen opiskelun yhä maantiedon faktojen, esimerkiksi valtioiden ja pääkaupunkien nimien sekä korkeimpien vuorien ja pisimpien jokien, ulkoa opetteluksi.…”

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Ylioppilaskirjoitukset ja maantieteen merkityksellinen tieto

Tani¹,

Cantell²,

Hilander³

2020

terra

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This article introduces the main ideas of ‘powerful knowledge’, which have recently been applied to geography education, for example, by Lambert (2011), Maude (2015), and Béneker and Palings (2017). Lambert et al. (2015) have described three levels of geographical knowledge that would enhance young people’s access to powerful geographical knowledge. The first level consists of deep and descriptive world knowledge, the second of relational understanding and geographical thinking, while the third level consists of the propensity to think through alternative social, economic, and environmental futures in specific locations and the ability to think critically. These three levels of knowledge are applied in the analysis of powerful geographical knowledge in the context of Finnish matriculation examinations. The empirical data set consists of 28 geography exams from 2006 to 2019, including 273 questions in total, 63 of which have been published in the form of the digital exams offered since the autumn of 2016. Digital exams have increased the amount of background material included in the questions, but they have also lead to the disappearance of tasks in which students should draw maps. The analysis shows how all three levels of powerful geographical knowledge are present in the matriculation questions. The number of simple first-level questions has been reduced, and the number of questions requesting relational understanding and geographical thinking has increased. However, value-based issues as well as questions requiring the student’s personal reasoning and ability to evaluate certain controversial themes are non-existent in the exams, even though they are described in the framework curriculum.

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“…Maude's typology is based on what powerful knowledge allows students to do: think in new ways, analyze and explain, have control over their own knowledge, engage in debates, gain insight in the world. The categories of knowledge that allow us to do these five things are largely overlapping (see B eneker & Palings, 2017;Bouwmans & B eneker, 2018, for questions of overlap and combinations). Participation in a debate (type 4), for example, will be more effective when we know about the world (type 5), question the 'certainties' expressed by an opponent (type 3), raise questions that open new perspectives (type 1 or type 2).…”

Section: Powerful Knowledge Of Geographymentioning

confidence: 99%

The knowledge curve: combining types of knowledges leads to powerful thinking

Béneker

Vaart

2020

International Research in Geographical and Environmental Educat

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Michael Young has written extensively about "powerful knowledge" as the type of knowledge that should be central in education: knowledge that isamong many other thingsreliable and potentially testable, that helps us understand the natural and social world, and offers us a language to engage meaningfully in moral and political debates. As a contribution to the powerful knowledge debate, the authors introduce a so-called knowledge curve, depicting types of knowledge along the axes of level of abstraction and degree of explanatory power. They argue that combining elements of knowledge that are situated on different positions on this curve is what makes the use of knowledge and the thinking process powerful. The implications for school geography are illustrated with the example of global south to north migration.

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Identifying powerful geographical knowledge in integrated curricula in Dutch schools

Cited by 10 publications

References 3 publications

Geography's ability to enhance powerful thinking skills and knowledge

Geography's ability to enhance powerful thinking skills and knowledge

Ylioppilaskirjoitukset ja maantieteen merkityksellinen tieto

The knowledge curve: combining types of knowledges leads to powerful thinking

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