Procedural and declarative knowledge in geography education

¶ … knowledge is presented in this project -- procedural, declarative, or both?

There are plenty of examples of both procedural and declarative knowledge in this paper. Declarative knowledge involves understanding that some particular thing is the case, that something is the case like Albany is the Capitol of New York State. Procedural knowledge entails knowing how to do a particular thing, like rope a calf or install a new cartridge into a computer printer.

Showing students their location on a map is declarative knowledge; they can better understand where they live and where their town is on the map by showing them rather than telling them. And understanding the language that goes along with landforms and topography is declarative. On the other hand teaching students how to find alternative words to describe something is procedural in nature. Finding out that Messa Verde really means "Green Mesa" is showing students that locating words that mean the same thing, or are the definition of a word that is difficult on first encounter, is procedural in terms of teaching. In other words, giving students the meaning of erosion (in a box at the corner of the page) you are teaching students the procedure for locating meaning.

It is the use of declarative knowledge to show students that "streams" can be used as a verb ("Sunshine streams down through the clouds after a rain…") or a noun ("There are many small streams that spill into the Colorado River to make it a powerful force…").

What vocabulary is essential for learning the context?

Students should actually be given a thesaurus, in hindsight looking at this project. But to answer the question, the kind of vocabulary that the author uses is one instance is past progressive (words like wearing and carrying indicate what did happen and was happening -- past tense and present tense uniting). And students learn vocabulary by actually doing experiments using the words. Just like showing students where they live on a map, and showing how mountains protrude into the sky by using relief maps, in this case students learn what "sediment" through the vocabulary involved in the experiment (students create sediment in the classroom).

What are the key concepts that are being addressed?

The key concepts are: nominalization, morphological borrowing, definitions understood by showing, not just telling; passive voice; scaffolding; homophones (means two different things); and pre-teaching.

What are the learning strategies that can be taught to support the content?

One learning strategy that is effective is showing, not telling. Showing how erosion works through a time-lapse video is far more effective and dramatic than telling students about erosion or reading about it from a book. Creating sediment in the classroom is a very successful learning strategy. Explaining what a homophone is and demonstrating that a stream is a small river and stream also means the sight of sunlight coming down through the clouds; most students today know that one can "stream online" using the Internet, and that is very different than water traveling along a downward slope. These strategies do support the content being taught to students for whom English is a second language.

Can you use graphic organizers or visual aids to make content easier?

As has been mentioned in this paper, visual aids are wonderful tools to give students context (the example of erosion and of mountains using a relief map). Graphic organizers are wonderful instructional tools; they help the learner link one image with another in a diagram or illustration.

What ESL methods are applicable (tpr, modified texts, etc.)?

Students whose original language is not English need all the help they can get when it comes to teaching them the language. The total physical response strategy works wonders through story telling (using visual aids); pre-teaching vocabulary is actually required if a teacher wants his ESL students to stay interested in a lesson; scaffolding is very effective in showing students a visual presentation of the word.

Analysis of three sentences

"The Roman soldier was a citizen and a professional, committed to serving on the battlefield for at least 25 years. Away from his homeland for years at a time and forbidden to marry during his long service he formed strong bonds with his commander and comrades."

This is a declarative sentence (it explains that soldiers were committed to the service for 25 years) and procedural (it tells how to become close to comrades and commanders). This is also an example of the dual processing theory because the declarative knowledge comes first, procedural knowledge second.

"The earth piled up from the trenches formed with ramparts, which were then covered with turf."

This sentence is declarative -- and "ramparts" is a both noun and a verb, so it is a homophone.

"It is commonly thought that the crowd waved handkerchiefs to appeal to the emperor to spare the loser." This sentence is procedural -- it tells how to get the emperor to spare the loser of the battle in the ring.