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Survival of the GISSEST – Teachers’ opinions on the incorporation of GI-based learning in upper secondary schools in Finland
AGIT2008 – Learning with
Geoinformation, University of Salzburg,
July 2, 2008Tino Johansson
Department of Geography, University of Helsinki, Finland
Geoinformation at the upper secondary school level in Finland
new national curriculum for the upper secondary schools in August 2005
geoinformation was then included into the contents of an elective regional study course (GE4) in geography
the course is made up of 22.5 hours of lessons the main focus is on a geographical study of a
region key competences are indirectly linked with
Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and geoinformation
The challenges for implementation
most geography teachers were not familiar with GIS or geoinformation in Finland
numerous in-service teacher training courses organized across the country
focus on basic concepts, hands-on training of a few professional GIS software, and on utilizing existing GIS databases
Introduced approaches to learning
Commonly used by geography educators across the world
enquiry-based learning problem-based learning students’ spatial learning skills enhancedskills and knowledge that are valued in
working life and in higher education
A need for a study on teachers’ views and opinions on geoinformation
Introduction of geoinformation into upper secondary schools has been a state-led top down initiative
teachers have mainly been given a role of passive recipients of information and approaches
however, some geography teachers have started to use geoinformation in their courses without curriculum support in the beginning of this decade
a need to assess the situation and comprehend better the areas where more support is needed at schools
The on-line questionnaire survey
An invitation to participate was sent to 380 Finnish upper secondary school geography and biology teachers in 2006
83 teachers returned the questionnaire (21.8% reply rate)
most respondents were female (59%)
7.2% of the respondents were Swedish speaking
The age structure of the respondents
The percentage distribution of the respondents according
to their age
7,3
22
31,7
35,4
3,6
21-30 years31-40 years41-50 years51-60 yearsover 60 years
Their work experience as teachers
The percentage distribution of the respondents according
to their work experience as teachers
7,4
24,7
32,1
27,2
8,6
under 5 years5-10 years11-20 years21-30 years31-40 years
Previous experience in using GIS software
Familiarity with the concept of GIS About 10% of the respondents were not familiar with the concept of GIS
Most of the respondents had learned about the concept in in-service teacher
training
The majority of the respondents (73.5%) had used some GIS earlier MapInfo Professional
ArcExplorer
ArcView
MapInfo ProViewer
ArcGIS
But most of them had still less than one week experience on using these
software !
The use of GIS at schools
Two-thirds of the teachers mentioned that they have personally used
GIS in upper secondary school education The most common purpose was to display maps with GIS
Learning to use GIS software was the second common purpose
Enquiry-based learning, and learning spatial thinking skills were also
important purposes of using GIS in education according to the teachers
It was very common that only one teacher used GIS in the majority of
upper secondary schools where this educational technology was used
in the first place problematic for long-term adoption
demografic data (who will continue when the geoinformation expert
teacher retires?)
The use of GIS at schools
Teachers mainly used two types of GIS data at the upper secondary
schools in Finland Free data available in the internet (map archives, route map services,
Google Earth, Citizen’s Map Portal and data from the Statistics Finland
Commercially available databases from the cd-roms attached to the upper
secondary school geography books
Free data from local authorities and self-created GIS databases were also
mentioned by some teachers
GIS functionalities that correspond the teachers’ educational needs
The eight GIS functionalities which at best correspond the needs of the
teachers in the educational use of GIS software creating thematic maps
examining the attribute data of the map objects
combining and visualizing different map layers and themes
creating overlays with different map layers or themes
joining self-created data or data from other sources to the available
attribute data tables
studying a map in different scales
making queries according to the attributes of the map objects
printing maps on paper
GIS data types that correspond the teachers’ educational needs
The four GIS data types which at best correspond the needs of the
teachers in the educational use of GIS software data from the municipality
data from all around the world
national data
data from the school surroundings
The advantages and problems in using GIS in education
Advantages Problems
Visualization of different themes (20)
Lack of software (31)
Computing tool which interest students (15)
Poor ability of teachers to use GIS (20)
Motivates and interests youth to learn (9)
Lack of hardware (19)
Up-to-date information and data on topical issues (9)
Lack of time to learn GIS and integrate it to the lessons (15)
Visualization of statistical data and classification methods (7)
Lack of digital maps and data suitable for the courses (13)
Creating maps quickly and learning mapping methods (7)
Functionality of GIS software is poor and too complicated (11)
Questions and contact
I am pleased to answer to any of your questions now or later:
M.Sc. Tino Johansson
Department of Geography
P.O. Box 64 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2)
FI-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Tel. +358 9 191 51045
Fax. +358 9 191 50760
e-mail. [email protected]
GISAS book: http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/mat/maant
/sarjat/julkaisuja/a/141/