 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
A Computer-based, Articulated Geography Curriculum K-14
Purpose
GeoLinks evolved out of a need for an outcomes-based, K-14 curriculum in geography that could be offered via electronic technology. Its creation coincided with three major developments in geographic education: the National Geography Standards, the Minnesota High School Graduation Standards, and new entrance requirements for the Minnesota State System of Colleges and Universities.
Macalester College, in partnership with Mounds View Public Schools, produced an electronic geography curriculum that not only conforms to national and state geography standards but was embraced by classroom teachers, allowing them greater flexibility in designing classwork that matches the standards.
Innovative Features
Because the high school outcomes had been previously established, the task was to determine GeoLinks’ scope and sequence, i.e., the appropriate grades at which to introduce geographic concepts, and how best to reinforce them so that students would master the outcomes by the time they graduated
.GeoLinks consists of a set of 128 testable outcomes tied to the National Geography Standards—arranged in a K-12 sequence and defining what a student should know and be able to do after completing a high school geography course—and a diverse collection of geography lessons, units, and resources.
Most of the GeoLinks lessons are interdisciplinary, providing lessons about geography together with mathematics, science and reading. They were written and pretested in collaboration with hundreds of teachers from Minnesota school districts in the suburbs, the inner city, and rural regions, and with Russian teachers from Moscow State Pedagogical University. Writing the lessons required a prior evaluation of the preparation in geography that Minnesota teachers typically receive.
The creators of GeoLinks strove to include lessons that would also be useful to social studies teachers who have never taught geography before and to students with special needs. For teachers who do not have computers equipped with compact disc (CD) players, a special feature allows them to download portions of the curriculum from the CD to a diskette.
The GeoLink design allows teachers to locate lesson plans for teaching a particular set of outcomes to diverse groups of students. Its Hypercard software lets teachers use a few simple computer commands to sort through 1,022 geography lessons in 30 seconds or less. The lessons cover all grades, from kindergarten through high school, and include worksheets, quizzes, special readings, maps and color slides. They can be used by school districts creating new curricula, by teams of teachers developing shared lessons, or by individual teachers shaping their own year-long curriculum.
The lessons follow a standardized format, including objectives, classroom materials, teacher preparation, activities guides, and outcomes evaluation. Not only may teachers select lessons according to the national and state standards, but also according to learning style, cognitive level, grade level, key word, continent, intended outcomes, or a combination of these.
If, for example, a teacher would like illustrative lessons on post-Soviet Russia, she can find appropriate maps and slides with just a few key strokes. Once a teacher selects a standard, all the learner outcomes related to that standard are displayed on the screen. She selects the outcome that best fits her interests and local setting, starts a search, and waits while GeoLinks locates lessons for that outcome. Then she can either print out the lessons or copy them onto a diskette. This feature of "just-in-time publishing" allows teachers to print out only those worksheets or illustrations they need for a certain class from among the vast amount of information stored on the GeoLinks CD.
Evaluation and Project Impact
In 1994-1995, 1,978 students in twelve middle schools participated in an evaluation of GeoLinks as a classroom tool, using four schools as controls. GeoLinks users and non-users were given pre- and posttests in their geography courses based on the standardized test for intermediate grades developed by the National Council for Geographic Education. An item-analysis was conducted of the number of incorrect answers for each school, the difference in the class averages before and after the course, and the percentage difference of correct answers.
The analysis of the pre- and posttests turned up dramatic differences in student performance between those classes that used GeoLinks and those that did not. Correctly answered questions rose seven percent in GeoLinks classes and only two percent in non-GeoLinks classes.
Lessons Learned
Even though project staff put more effort into the project than they had originally anticipated, several problems hampered progress. The writing, editing, entering and proofing of the lesson plans proved to be an arduous task because the lessons were written by a wide range of teachers and the quality of the lessons reflected that range. Some of the teachers originally selected to write lesson plans either failed to produce them or submitted unacceptable ones—only half the lessons written for GeoLinks were suitable for inclusion. The apparent lesson about lesson plans is that it is necessary to recruit teachers with substantial experience and writing abilities.
Project Continuation and Recognition
In 1995, the Minnesota Association of Supervision and Curriculum Design named GeoLinks an "Outstanding Curriculum Project," and it was selected for inclusion in a special exhibition of innovative curricula at their national convention.
GeoLinks is now self-supporting, having been nationally disseminated without additional grant funds from FIPSE or other federal agencies. The fees from GeoLinks site licenses enabled the project to maintain a half-time staff associate to continue the diffusion effort during 1997.
The curriculum was originally designed to be operated by the Hypercard software package that is available at no cost for all teachers who have Macintosh computers. To broaden the curriculum’s usefulness, GeoLinks has been redesigned to operate on a Web site and thereby be accessible through either Macintosh or Windows machines. New lessons have been added to this edition, and there are plans to produce low-cost simplified, diskette versions of GeoLinks by grade level for individual teachers.
In 1998, a summer institute for teachers interested in teaching advanced placement geography continued to articulate the electronic geography curriculum from elementary grades to college by producing a model AP course for students.
The gap between K-12 and postsecondary geography instruction was identified in the initial grant proposal. Faculty from Macalester College and Minnesota State University, Mankato, ran faculty development seminars for geography professors and social studies teachers to build a connection between the K-12 curriculum and first year college courses. This resulted in a new FIPSE- and National Science Foundation-funded program for preservice teacher training at Minnesota State.
Dissemination
At this time, approximately 800 sites across the nation have purchased licenses for the curriculum, which is available to every teacher at these sites. Several states have purchased licenses to use the curriculum in their resource collections. The number of teachers using the CD could not be monitored easily. However, assuming that at least two teachers taught 100 students per year for three years in these 800 schools, at least 480,000 students have used GeoLinks lessons.
Information about GeoLinks has been communicated to diverse educational audiences through numerous national and state conventions, such as those of the National Diffusion Network, the National Geographic Society, the National Council for Geographic Education, the Minnesota Education Association, the Minnesota Council for Social Studies, the Minnesota Educational Computing Corporation, and many others.
GeoLinks was also disseminated through direct mail, telephone, e-mail, press releases, training sessions, interviews, and articles, and was featured in every recent issue of The Geography Connection, the newsletter of the Minnesota Alliance for Geographic Education. The National Geographic alliances have included GeoLinks in their resource collections and summer institutes, and it now has its own Web home page. Free workshop demonstrations have been offered to Twin Cities schools.
Teacher training with GeoLinks has been incorporated into GeoTeach, the FIPSE-funded preservice training project underway at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Available Information
Articles about the new curriculum have appeared in the Journal of Geography, the MEA Advocate, Geography in Schools, and National Geographic Update. Information about other GeoLinks-related articles, catalogs, and multimedia and videodisc compendiums for education and training is available from:
David A. Lanegran
Department of Geography
Macalester College
St. Paul, MN 55104
Telephone: 651-696-6504
[Preface] [ Table of Contents ] [Mary Baldwin College]
|
||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
| |
||||||||||||
