Critical Intersections of Knowledge and Pedagogy: Why the Geographic Literacy of Preservice Elementary Teachers Matter?

Year 2015, Volume: 5 Issue: 3, 249 - 273, 31.12.2015

Karen Thomas-brown Allison Rıchards

Abstract

This
research examines the geographic literacy of a group of preservice elementary
(K-5) teachers in a mid-sized university located in America’s Midwest Rust
Belt. The research sought to achieve three main aims using a geographic
literacy survey. The first aim was to examine the approximate geographic
literacy of the participants. The second aim was to determine how comfortable
the participants were with teaching geography content in the future, and the
third aim was to determine the extent to which preservice teachers demonstrated
the ability and willingness to adopt a critical stance to spatial thinking in
the future. From the geographic literacy survey, we found that many of the
preservice teachers demonstrated adequate place-based and geographic knowledge.
However, many of the participants also showed some deficits in spatial thinking
skills, and in the application and contextualization of geospatial knowledge
beyond map-based activities. The research also found that the participants
expressed an overall discomfort with teaching geography materials in the
future, this indicated their inadequate mastery of key geographic literacy
skills.  To arrive at these findings,
this research used a multi-method approach that was epistemologically framed by
Kolb’s Experimental Learning Theory (KELT) and Critical Literacy Theory (CL).

Keywords

Geographic literacy, Geospatial thinking, Preservice teachers, Geography education

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