Focus

GeoCapabilities 3 focuses on teacher development by establishing a conceptual tool for social justice. The project will seek to examine the practical application of a GeoCapabilities approach in classrooms, in particular in schools situated in areas of socio-economic deprivation. It is often in such schools that teachers are constrained in their ability to enact a ‘powerful’ geography curriculum (see Mitchell, 2015).

GeoCapabilities 3 seeks to establish a set of pedagogical principles that can underpin the practical application of Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge (PDK) in teaching and learning geography.

Associate teachers will focus their work on a key theme, such as migration or climate change. These will aid the comparison of participants’ experiences and act as conceptual lenses through which to develop the pedagogical principles mentioned above.

GeoCapabilities 3 uses a teacher education approach in which networks of teachers and teacher educators are key. GeoCapabilities 3 brings partners and their associate teachers from several European countries together in planning and implementing a GeoCapabilities approach. The project will use the GeoCapabilities web site and workshops and conferences to disseminate the approach.

Project partners will support teacher development through the use of the GeoCapabilities 2 vignettes approach in order to examine what we mean by ‘powerful knowledge’ in geography. Participating teachers will then use their vignettes to devise and trial teaching materials as a means of ‘pedagogising’ powerful knowledge for their students.

Story-mapping tools will be used as a tool for teacher reflection throughout the development process (from inception to conclusion) and as a mean of both sharing experiences, teaching materials and teachers’ evaluation of those materials. We anticipate that this will allow a ‘story’ of how teachers’ thinking and doing change as a consequence of their engagement with GeoCapabilities.