Howard Gardner is well known to teachereducators,particularlyforhisearlier book,Frames ofMind: The Theory ofMuir tipleInteUigences(1983). Morerecently, the ConferenceonArtistic Intelligences (1989) and the development of Arts PROPEL havefamiliarized musicteacher educators even more specifically with Gardner's work. In The Unschooled Mind (1991), Gardnercontinues topricktheconsciences ofeducators by gettingdown to the very heartofthematter. Schools, hesays, do not nowteachthewaychildrenlearn, andoften what children learn before or outside of school is more powerful than competing information presented in school and can interferewithschool-delivered knowledge. Gardnercontendsin hisintroductory material that schools, even when publicly acknowledged as successful, are failing at their most critical task-teaching for real understanding. As always, Gardner provides examples that areabundantandtothe point. He offers evidence that early-developed ideas, stereotypes, and "scripts" (descriptions of recurrent events) continueto dominate the thinking of even advanced

The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think and How Schools Should Teach:

Competences : voila un mot qui a envahi les discours et pour lequel une definition est difficile a proposer. Une competence, c'est une aptitude a mettre en oeuvre un ensemble organise de connaissances, de savoir-faire et d'attitudes permettant d'accomplir certaines tâches. Comment penser la complementarite entre competences et connaissances dans l'apprentissage et dans l'enseignement ? Ces questions sont eclairees par les doutes de Vincent Dupriez, nourris par sa pratique de l'enseignement superieur pedagogique. Et, pour l'enseignement primaire, Veronique Baudrenghien nous montre que ceux qui ont concu les nouveaux programmes ont surtout ajoute des exigences de competence aux connaissances deja exigees anterieurement, en oubliant que ces competences font appel a des capacites de base dont l'acquisition demande du temps.

Des compétences à l'école

Thanks to the enactment of Law 170/2010, in Italy teachers are required to adopt forms of teaching that differ significantly from the “traditional model” for students with dyslexia. A consideration on disability is an opportunity to reflect on the teaching of geographic skills, which consists mainly in the search for strategies that can facilitate the learning process of the students, even for people with learning difficulties. Geography becomes the discipline that can meet the needs of students with learning disabilities and which has great potential for teaching, because by means of values training and the organization of knowledge characterizing it, they can emphasize and highlight the processing of information that takes place on the basis of the person’s cognitive style.

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Geography and disability: a reflection on opportunities offered by teaching geography to dyslexic students

Geography is a discipline particularly suitable for the development and construction of knowledge common to several disciplines; in fact, through the use of many tools, which are based on the use and multiplicity of languages, the pupil builds his own “baggage” of knowledge through a conscious and critical approach. The introduction of technologies in the training courses is essential as it leads the student to learn interactively and Geography lends itself perfectly to this type of approach, as through computer resources it becomes a strategic discipline for teaching. The use of new tools leads the student to simulation experiences, virtual manipulations and graphic representations for a greater assimilation of geographic content. This article is intended to be a contribution in trying to identify the traditional and innovative tools used in teaching Geography. The results obtained, through the administration of a questionnaire to teachers belonging to schools of all levels in Sicily, showed that the use of geotechnology is still not widespread in teaching today, and therefore the future goal will be to involve teachers in an active training in the use of innovative tools that allow a new approach to Geography by students through GIS.

Traditional and Innovative Tools in Teaching of Geography: A Case Study

This study investigates the role of political maps in the didactics of the International Relations (IR) discipline within the higher education institutions of Turkey. Examining the syllabuses and textbooks of the Introduction to International Relations course in three distinctive universities – Bilkent University, Middle East Technical University (METU) and Hacettepe University, I argue that the discipline of International Relations (IR) supersedes the geography of lived spaces and renders spatial practices onto territorial boundaries. Based on textual analysis, this paper demonstrates how the anachronic conceptualization of the State through political maps homogenizes the world space. Exploring how the historical foundation of IR is constructed in the coursebooks, I critically engage with the territorial representations of IR space. The outcome of this intertextual analysis concludes how IR didactics makes it epistemologically difficult for the scholarship to comprehend the scale jumping of varying socio-spatial phenomena such as transnational (forced) migration.

Maps that map the mind: Abstraction of Geography by IR Discipline

Geography helps knowing, educating, orienting; today it plays an educational role, aimed at developing the knowledge of space in order to observe, analyse and interpret the relationships between environment and human society (Ubertazzi and Forte, 2005a, p. 15). From an educational point of view, it contributes to the development of culture on one side and of the fundamental abilities and skills to achieve personal autonomy on the other. How to describe geographical knowledge from the perspective of constructivism? How to implement a competence-based didactic of geography? This contribution attempts to answer these questions by analysing the idea of competence in terms of pedagogy and didactics, thus examining constructivist didactic models which lead to new interchanges between knowledge, didactics and technology. The role of geography in competence training turns out to be fundamental, as it makes it possible to practice basic space skills, which are necessary to orient oneself in an active and responsible way in the world, and to recognize and face problems at different levels. Lastly, a practical example of competence-based didactics is presented, which proposes the analysis of a geographical region in a dynamic, interactive, laboratorial way; living relevance to meta-cognitive learning, which guides students to acquire: discovery strategy and methods, operational procedures to apply their knowledge, new solutions intuition and invention procedures.

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Competences and Geography. A meta-cognitive approach

Geographical knowledge has a didactic heritage which is particularly stiff and mnemonic and has prevented geography from approaching special didactics New geographies look for a new disciplinary approach by which the teacher uses creativity and keeps up with the different learning paces, encouraging discovery, cooperation, initiative and openness towards other people and other places Finally, a didactics that emphasises the emotional dimension of intelligence, stimulating curiosity, interest, enthusiasm and motivation Integration and inclusion imply extreme stances in organizing didactics and methods so that the categories of time and space are shaped according to the “Special Educational Need” Each problem requires focused didactic, pedagogical and methodological solutions, in terms of personalised plans and adjustments in didactic strategies and methods The idea is of a special didactics of geography that may provide not only technicality but an authentic training: it is fundamental to regularly implement a methodological approach which makes it possible to tackle tools, languages, knowledge of disciplines and general learning, in an inclusive viewpoint Such a perspective establishes a dynamic interactive relation between the teacher and the pupils and therefore implies a constant use of the knowledge and skills of any individual involved

http://www.j-reading.org/index.php/geography/article/download/25/37

Angela Caruso

Papers

Competences and Geography. A meta-cognitive approach

Special didactics of geography