The Place of Concepts in New Zealand
Secondary School Geography
Mike Taylor (VUW), Andrea Milligan (VUW) & Jody Bennett (Onslow College)
GA Annual Conference,
University of Surrey, UK
14-16 April, 2014
81 MS 02
The New Zealand context
• Patterns, process, interaction and perception driven;
set in natural and cultural environments at different
scales, times and rates.
• Three distinct curriculum levels:
– Level 6 curriculum, Level 1 NCEA (≈ Year 11, 15 years)
– Level 7 curriculum, Level 2 NCEA (≈ Year 12, 16 years)
– Level 8 curriculum, Level 3 NCEA (≈ Year 13, 17 years)
• Influence of high stakes assessment:
– Rhetoric of curriculum flexibility but specifics of assessment
requirements present constraints and encourage
perpetuation of long-standing approaches
1990-2007: Curriculum design - conceptual framing
‘Prescribed Common Topics’ & ‘School Selected Studies’
52 Important Geographic Ideas
Location
Distance
Accessibility
Patterns
Processes
Regions
Culture and
Perception
e.g., some spatial patterns are the
result of people’s organisational
structures, either social, economic, or
political
Central
concept of
environment
Systems
Interaction
e.g., interaction takes place at
different scales and with varying
degrees of intensity and
complexity
Change
Source: MoE 1990
e.g. Changes, such as destruction or development,
may be viewed as good or bad according to the
value judgements of the people involved
2007: ‘slimmed down’ geography framework
Year 11
•
•
Understand that natural and cultural environments have particular
characteristics and how environments are shaped by processes that create
spatial patterns.
Understand how people interact with natural and cultural environments and that
this interaction has consequences.
Year 12
• Understand how the processes that shape natural and cultural environments
change over time, vary in scale and from place to place, and create spatial
patterns.
• Understand how people’s perceptions of and interactions with natural and cultural
environments differ and have changed over time.
Year 13
• Understand how interacting processes shape natural and cultural environments,
occur at different rates and on different scales, and create spatial variations.
• Understand how people’s diverse values and perceptions influence the
environmental, social, and economic decisions and responses that they make.
(Source: MOE, 2007)
Seven key concepts
Environments
May be natural and/or cultural. They have particular characteristics and features
which can be the result of natural and/or cultural processes. The particular
characteristics of an environment may be similar to and/or different from another.
Perspectives
Ways of seeing the world that help explain differences in decisions about,
responses to, and interactions with environments. Perspectives are bodies of
thought, theories or worldviews that shape people’s values and have built up
over time. They involve people’s perceptions (how they view and interpret
environments) and viewpoints (what they think) about geographic issues.
Perceptions and viewpoints are influenced by people’s values (deeply held
beliefs about what is important or desirable).
Processes
A sequence of actions, natural and/or cultural, that shape and change
environments, places and societies. Some examples of geographic processes
include erosion, migration, desertification and globalisation.
Patterns
May be spatial: the arrangement of features on the earth’s surface; or temporal:
how characteristics differ over time in recognisable ways.
(Source: MOE, 2010)
Interaction
Involves elements of an environment affecting each other and being linked
together. Interaction incorporates movement, flows, connections, links and
interrelationships. Landscapes are the visible outcome of interactions. Interaction
can bring about environmental change.
Change
Involves any alteration to the natural or cultural environment. Change can be
spatial and/or temporal. Change is a normal process in both natural and cultural
environments. It occurs at varying rates, at different times and in different places.
Some changes are predictable, recurrent or cyclic, while others are unpredictable
or erratic. Change can bring about further change.
Sustainability
Involves adopting ways of thinking and behaving that allow individuals, groups,
and societies to meet their needs and aspirations without preventing future
generations from meeting theirs. Sustainable interaction with the environment
may be achieved by preventing, limiting, minimizing or correcting environmental
damage to water, air and soil, as well as considering ecosystems and problems
related to waste, noise, and visual pollution.
And a glossary of Māori concepts
e.g. Mana whenua: the right to use, manage and control land depends on the protection of mana whenua.
Mana whenua is based on ahikä (Iwi maintaining residence in a particular place) and is an important part of
tino rangatiratanga (self-determination).
e.g. Taonga: is a resource either physical or cultural that can be found in the environment (including
features within the environment e.g. lakes, mountains, rivers, also including people, te reo, whakapapa,
etc.).
Differences in nomenclature
NZ
England
Geographical Concepts
2nd order (Brooks, 2013) /
organisational (Taylor, 2008) /
Grammar (Lambert & Morgan,
2005)
Geographical Terminology
1st order (Brooks, 2013) /
substantive (Taylor, 2008) /
Vocabulary (Lambert &
Morgan, 2005)
In a context of school-based
curriculum design, how are
teachers approaching
concept-led geography?
Teachers believe concepts deepen learning
Students are supported to make connections and transfer their geographical
understanding to different settings:
They can take this understanding, that they’ve got about ‘environments’, ‘change’,
whatever it might be, and then transpose it to a different setting, context, whatever;
and isn’t that what we want from our geographers, to be able to do that? [Pania]
Concepts lift above myriad factual detail to a level of understanding that
helps make sense of an information-rich world (Erikson 2002, 2007):
You’re always trying to remind yourself that it’s not the context necessarily that’s the
important part - it’s these things that you are learning in that context, and that’s the
essential part of your teaching and that’s the knowledge that you want them to have.
Because that’s what they carry through life, they might forget the topic but if they
remember the concepts then they’re geographers. [Michelle]
Teachers see concept clarification as an
important approach
Focused on the relationship between terminology and key concepts:
For example with Tongariro [National Park] , we would say “What’s a process?” Ok,
orographic rainfall is a process, with the rain shadow effect; so when you were talking
about processes that have changed the environment, this is an example you would
use. [Wendy]
Tied to the imperative of students succeeding in exams:
Certainly for external practice, the important geographic ideas are very important
to us at year 11, 12, and 13. We have exercises around learning these: so matching
exercises, drawing diagrams to represent them…you can’t have a geographical
conversation about something without mentioning one of these… [Michelle]
Clarity over a ‘concept’, but confusion over ‘conceptual understandings’
Personally, I didn’t feel that I grasped enough what a conceptual understanding was,
and how to confidently go away and do it.[Wendy]
I think that the conceptual understanding was where we thought, ‘what the heck does
that mean?’ I mean, you’ve got the concepts, [but] what is that? [Michelle]
But grappling with concepts as an organisational
tool for planning and teaching
So I suppose the challenge for me is that I don’t want to teach a
list of concepts, I want to try and have a big idea, and the kids
have some conceptual understandings from that…so I’m thinking
of doing environments for term 1, and change for term 2, and then
I’ll slot the achievement standards – parts of them – into that. Or
maybe the whole thing. [Wendy]
I think there’s a couple of different levels of concepts; I think
there’s the big concepts, and there’s the little ones that you need
to understand to get there. So concepts such as ‘environment’,
and ‘patterns’, and ‘change’, are obviously very crucial, but over
the last two years with my year 11 course, I’ve based it around the
big concept of globalisation; more because I really feel that we’re
trying to prepare students for this big global world that they’re
heading into. [Martin]
Our uncertainties
(1) Selection: similar international approaches indicate
the contestability of geography’s ‘key’ concepts.
• pattern is a compound of other concepts such as
place, location and distance.
(2) Alignment between curriculum documents
• concepts in the achievement objectives not among
the key disciplinary concepts: scale at Level 7 and
decision-making at Level 8
• conversely sustainability is a notable absence in
the achievement objectives
(3) Application: concepts and ideas as a ‘bolt on’ to
planning, teaching and learning. Evident in two types of
teaching practice:
• Concepts/Important geographic ideas used in
planning to indicate curriculum compliance
• Concepts and important geographic ideas used for
examination preparation. Activities in one key text
reflect typical approaches, e.g.:
– match the ideas to their meanings and examples, and
– create their own definitions and symbols as an aid to memory.
The focus is therefore on defining and identifying
concepts rather than their centrality to geography
thinking.
(4) Representation through assessment materials
Geographic concepts and terminology a necessary
condition of ‘comprehensive’ answers, rather than at all
levels of achievement.
High visibility of key concepts in exams positions them as:
• an outcome of the curriculum rather than tools through
which to achieve the ends (Brooks, 2013).
• an ‘end point’ - another type of fact rather than being
changeable, contextual, contested and amenable to
geographic inquiry at all levels (Milligan & Wood,
2010).
• a matter of application rather as part of inter-connected
bundles of concepts…
Year 11 –
Extreme
Natural Events
Year 12 –
Large
Natural
Environment
Deep Vs Surface Learning
Deep Understanding
(Transforming)
Surface Understanding
(Reproducing)
Relate ideas
Routine memorization
Use evidence
Incoherent listing of information
Interest in ideas & monitoring
understanding
Disconnected ideas
Explanations argued with
evidence
Brief derivative descriptions
Individual conception of the
topic
Syllabus-bound focus on
minimum requirement
Intention to seek meaning for
themselves
Intention to cope minimally with
work requirements
Bransford et al., (2000)
A suggestion
Concept-field approach to planning, teaching and learning (after Milligan &
Wood, 2010)
Process
Time
Rapid
Slow
Continuity
Change
Policy cycles
Intermittent
Scale
Spatial Patterns
References
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Bransford, J.D., Brown, A.L. & Cocking, R.R. (2000) How People Learn. Washington, D.C.
National Academy Press
Brooks, C. (2013). How do we understand conceptual development in school geography? In
D. Lambert & M. Jones (Eds.), Debates in Geography Education. Abingdon, Oxon.:
Routledge.
Erickson, H. L. (2002). Concept-based curriculum and instruction: teaching beyond the
facts. Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press Inc.
Erickson, H. L. (2007). Concept-based curriculum and instruction for the thinking classroom.
Thousand Oaks: Corwin Press.
Morgan, J. & Lambert, D. (2005) Geography: Teaching school subjects 11-19. London:
Routledge.
Milligan, A., & Wood, B. (2010). Conceptual understandings as transition points: Making
sense of a complex social world. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 42(4), 487-501.
Ministry of Education. (1990). Syllabus for schools: geography forms 5-7 Wellington:
Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2007). The New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
Ministry of Education. (2010) The New Zealand Curriculum Guides: Geography Key
Concepts retrieved from http://seniorsecondary.tki.org.nz/Social-sciences/Geography/Keyconcepts
Taylor, L. (2008). Key concepts and medium term planning. Teaching Geography, 33(2), 5054.