Geography Education in Elementary School:

Geography Education in Elementary School: Best Practices

The education which is required to effectively instruct early education in developing children is constituted of equal parts applicable procedure and theoretical underpinning. This is an idea that is expanded upon in this analysis through the lens of a three part framework for understanding a suitable education program. Particularly as such a program will apply to the development of usable learning-strategy resources, the approach is uniquely situated to ensure that all necessary aspects of geography instruction are touched upon and in light of statewide Alabama Course of Study standards and objectives.

By dividing learning strategies into categories of comprehension, an educator will identify the cognitive, affective and psychomotor domains as those by which individuals assemble the strategies needed to adopt the skill sets needed to pursue desired educational ends.

Essentially, this discussion is concerned with modeling comprehensive training methodologies with a flexibility available to all manner of discipline but with specific aspects channeled toward improving social studies instruction using those objectives defined by the state. The endeavor of social studies instruction in particular can be evaluated as a significant beneficiary of the opportunities revealed by the division of learning strategies, placing such demands of balance upon developing young learners. At the foundation of such a learning structure therefore is the notion that education is to be thought of as a goal-oriented training of a student's learning behaviors. This refers not only to what the student learns but how the student learns as well. Considering this strategy in light of reading education, we will find that the appropriate manner in which instruction must be approached in this challenging educational field has become more lucid. And this is crucial with an ever-diversifying student body and an increasingly universal store of information, perspectives and sources vis a vis the internet demanding that young American-educated students be removed from the patterns of ethnocentrism that have produced far too many Americans with little knowledge of the world and cultures outside of our own.

Not coincidentally, this mode of beginning to teach geographical proximity, regionalism, nationalism and the distribution of world languages, cultures and geological parameters must begin -- as must any disciplinary instruction -- with a recognition of the inherent diversity which denotes any classroom. Particularly, by recognizing that different learning strategies and strengths vary for all learners and consequently focusing on the domains distinguishing these learning strategies, we gain a considerable opportunity to distill learning paths for children of widely arrayed needs and styles. Therefore, a consideration of the three separate domains which we have identified points us to the theoretical impetus of the first domain. It is this cognitive element of education which offers stability, a framework for proper decision-making and guidance on deciphering the strategic needs of a specific reading challenge. Therefore a focus on the development and sharpening of the needed mental tools to take on the challenging logistical and informational aspects of geography is sensible and will demand us to consider the emphasis on theoretical course framework in classroom activities.

This is especially important given the young age of the selected pupils. Elementary school level learners will often be engaged in an array of simultaneous foundational learning processes, with the most important among them being literacy education. As the objectives to be here identified have been selected according to the Grade 1 standards offered by the State of Alabama, it can be deduced that said learners are in the particular position of adding new building blocks to this process of literacy at all times.

With this in mind, we denoted that Moats endorses this idea, contending with specific regard to literacy education that "one of the most fundamental flaws found in almost all phonics programs, including traditional ones, is that they teach the code backwards. That is, they go from letter to sound instead of from sound to letter. Such programs disregard the fact that speech evolved at least 30,000 years before writing. Alphabetic writing was invented to represent speech; speech was not learned from reading." (Moats, 240) Thus, the employment of theoretical training in the context of speech and apart from the processional difficulties of systematic teaching should be considered crucial to inducement of greater cognitive understanding of the reading process. Where this applies to geography, we must approach the matter in a nearly identical framework, incorporating literacy training into verbal training concerning the often challenging names of geographical locations and distributions.

For instance, one activity might use a map of the world without labels identifying proper names of locations. This blank map could be used first to introduce the building blocks of geography. Namely, the map would be employed to induce a recognition of such key terms as continents, oceans and countries. Additionally, this tool would be used to introduce the concept of the map itself, equating the premise of this representation with an actual physical entity.

This approach is consistent with a best practices understanding of the manner in which students come to integrate such scholastically presented information as applicable and real. The symbolic elements of a map help the learner to visualize the scheme by which we collectively comprehend the shape and distribution of the world around us. The induction of the concept of a map in the form denoted here is indicative of a number of the developmental steps which become apparent at this young learning age.

Indeed, Huitt tells that "Behavior (adaptation to the environment) is controlled through mental organizations called schemes that the individual uses to represent the world and designate action. This adaptation is driven by a biological drive to obtain balance between schemes and the environment (equilibration). (Huitt, 1) Our findings illustrate that among these schema, the emergence of an understanding of the categories and divisions which constitute the world can become an immediately relevant factor in social behavior.

According to the research conducted here, there are a number of proven methods for improving or stimulating childhood learning processes as well as created positive learning environments. Government programs and individual teachers alike will stress the importance of involving a child in game-like learning activities at an early age. According to the Department of Education, "even if this involvement is as simple as reading out loud to a child or games which involve spelling and early reading strategies, these lessons are monumental in the long run." (U.S. Department of Educaiton, 1) Most effective early childhood educators will adopt this finding into the creation of fun and engaging classroom activities such as word association and matching games or other competitive actions that stimulate involvement and learning even as the child hones his or her newly developing tools. (Castaldo, 1) the difficult initiation into the performance and evaluation nature of education can be given effective prelude with an elementary geography education that orients a child toward both without the stigmatizing implications of formal grading.

This is why many educational professionals tend to strongly advocate the use of games and classroom wide interactive experiences. It is here within that students are truly given the ability to apply specific and increasingly complex ideas to a geography education. It is here that we consider the conditions promoted by the State of Alabama concerning Social Studies objectives. Though many of such objectives justifiably focus on learning and better understanding the conditions of the local community, there is a great deal of room for expansion of the areas relating to geography as a worldwide concept. The Alabama Learning Exchanges denotes such discussion points in 1st Grade Social Studies as those relating to clothing styles both past and present, identifiable landmarks, holidays and customs and other characteristics by which we can easily identify specific geographical locations. (ALEX, 1) These are features by which we can add further informational complexity to the eventual recognition of maps and their related schema. With the introduction of specific locations, using games to draw characteristic associations centered on style of dress, landmarks, languages and other human related concepts can help to create an understanding in the learner of the real meaning to the symbolic relationship between a name and a place.

This approach points us in the direction of a second domain of learning, which concerns the affective wherewithal of the individual to contend with the real educational challenges of integrating strategy with comprehension.

As Moats explains, again in the context of literacy, there is a crucial importance to following up on instruction by graduating students to relationships between the object and application. Indeed, the author notes that "once an association between sound and letter(s) is taught, children need cumulative practice building words with letters they know. Systematic programs begin with a limited set of sound-symbol correspondences -- a few consonants....and one or two vowels... so that words can be built right away." (Moats, 238) good example of a game and a lesson segment incorporating this concept might begin with a map of the United States, or more likely at the early learning level, a map of a specific region of the United States. Displaying a large version of the map on the board at the front of the room and handing out identical personal copies for students to mark, a fun activity might be to have individual students come to the front and pin cut-out landmark images to the corresponding locations on the map. Once a cut-out from an image bank has been properly affixed to a location and students have marked the location on their personal maps, the instructor can offer a little educational anecdote about the specific place or landmark that will help to associate the information gained from the game with some knowledge thereabout.

Indeed, among the other activities which are shown to be best-practices in an elementary setting and which are important to promoting the development of all important faculties for future education, an interactive story time is particularly appealing. By telling a story and involving the children by asking them questions that might help them to understand central themes and to assimilate subtextual ideas, this activity is an ideal prelude to the kind of classroom setting that facilitates interactive learning in later stages. Elementary school can be the opportune setting for forging a meaningful foundation in children for the integration of future multicultural ideals by serving as a catalyst to the development of the necessary cognitive, social, physical and emotional tools for recognizing the broadness and cultural diversity that inherently characterizes the global community.

That noted, and returning to the best practices contended by Moats, is of great importance that the learning domains of cognitive and affective learning be directly incorporated, given above all else that the individuality of the student learning process must still be respected in this context. To this end, Moats contributes the overarching observation that "systematic, explicit instruction contrasts with incidental, implicit instruction. In incidental teaching, sound-symbol elements are taught without instruction to follow a sequence from easier to more difficult." (Moats, 243) This might mean using and incorporating the diversity represented within the classroom to help improve the understanding and case-by-case basis of geography and its relationship to culture, diversity and learning strategy. A good way might here be to instruct students to conduct research on the geography in their own family history. As a homework project, students might be asked to consult their parents on their family tree's history. Then, students will be asked to identify the country or countries which they encounter on a map and to learn a few meaningful or interesting facts about said countries. By sharing these facts in a classroom presentation, students will come to individually recognize that they are part of a diverse global geography, even if they have all come to learn in a single place. Promoting pride in diversity rather than a need for cultural assimilation, this type of activity seizes on the opportunity of having a diversity within the student body as a way to improve the collective knowledge of the many nations and cultures which surround the United States. According to the taxonomical structure here induced, this is demonstrative of the importance in allowing application to instinctual processes rather than forcing conformity to a preferred learning strategy. The knowledge gained will both be collective and, for each individual student, an initiation into the prospects of geography and the broader discipline of social studies that demonstrates its capacity for personal appeal.

At the heart of the strategy endorsed by this research and the curricular specifications provided by Moats' framework is the shared notion that a clear integration of cognitive, affective and practical considerations must inform the creation of a curriculum for proper geography education. Especially as this specific discipline is so often concerned with the processes engaged by young learners in the midst of literacy education and other forms of schematic construction, there is a distinct value to ensuring that the correlation between the formative and the applicative aspects of education is drawn through intuition and not through the forced uniformity of learning strategies and expectations. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge in all regards that geography education relies heavily upon a coordination of conceptual demands. As they are highlighted here, they predispose geography education to the need for a certain dispensation of early formalities in exchange for the type of curricular flexibility that will ultimately influence learning flexibility as well. Indeed, in the geography discipline, as in nearly any aspect of elementary school education, for the educator and the student alike, experience and practice are likely to play the greatest role in defining differentiated skills and learning strategies.

The diversity of learning styles which is implied here, as well as the introduction of certain take-home learning activities, also points us to the consideration of technology uses as a way to improve educational nuance. Carrington's study is perhaps one of the more interesting sources used to inform the broader research topic. Her discussion focuses on a diversity of learning potentials that is constructed not by way of race or ethnicity, but by individualized media preferences and sensory strategies for learning. The article presents the conclusion that such methods of literacy development which occur in one's formative stages before school will reveal learning dispositions. For example, in her study, she sites television as one potential source by which many young people today begin to integrate the skills necessary to read and comprehend such ideas as multi-culturalism or a global community proficiently. Thus, she argues that it would be counter-productive to stifle such learning proclivities in favor of a strictly print form of reading.