Understanding of Developing and Setting Tasks in Geography Lessons by German and Dutch Student Teachers

Abstract

Setting tasks plays a key role in geography lessons, as they enable students to engage with the subject content, guide lessons towards predefined learning outcomes, and are therefore important for assessment. At the same time, the use of tasks is complex as numerous aspects regarding the content and the students have to be taken into account. Based on theoretical and empirical literature, we identify seven quality criteria for tasks in geography education: motivating and engaging students; addressing the heterogeneity of students; structuring learning processes; comprehensible formulation; considering individual and social learning processes; making meaningful use of materials; and fostering the development of subject specific competences. These criteria were applied in observation of lessons, which were given during an exchange between student geography teachers from a Dutch and German university. Overall, it was found that student teachers recognize the defined quality criteria, but half of them focus on only one or two aspects. The difficulties student teachers face in task setting during their traineeship can partly be explained by their phase of apprenticeship and the context. The developed observation form was considered to be valuable for preparation and observation of and reflection on tasks in geography lessons, and the exchange enabled student teachers to gain an insight into their own teaching practice.

Curriculum contexts, recontextualisation and attention for higher-order thinking

“…Accordingly, geography teachers use tasks for more than 40 per cent of lesson time, of which textbook tasks form a substantial share (Krause et al, 2017). One of the criteria that tasks should fulfil in geography lessons is the development of competences (Krause et al, 2021b). A distinction often made in this respect is between lower-and higher-order thinking.…”

Higher Order Thinking by Setting and Debriefing Tasks in Dutch Geography Lessons

“…To realize the students’ cumulative learning, the teacher has to have a clear idea about students’ prior knowledge and the curriculum aims in order to close the gap between the intended aims and learning objectives to be accomplished [ 31 ]. Task setting is a very complex activity [ 3 ], in which next to the subject-specific competence development the teacher has to consider how tasks can motivate and engage the students [ 32 , 33 ], how to address the heterogeneity of the students [ 34 , 35 ], how to structure the learning process [ 36 ] and formulate the tasks [ 37 ], how to foster individual as well as cooperative learning [ 38 , 39 ], and how materials can promote a broad scale of subject-specific skills [ 40 ]. A key aspect for competence development is the debriefing of tasks.…”

“…Earlier research shows that in Dutch upper secondary geography lessons, working on tasks and debriefing accounted for 38% of the lesson time [ 2 ]. An important aspect of setting tasks a teacher must consider is the development of general and subject specific competences [ 3 ]. “Cumulative learning is at the heart of education” [ 4 ] (p. 199), and students should increasingly engage with complex knowledge structures and the abstract nature of knowledge, which Winch refers to as the “epistemic ascent” [ 5 ].…”