Seow, Tricia

Geographical inquiry is an approach to learning that acknowledges the constructivist view of knowledge and prioritises the need for students to make sense of what they are learning for themselves. Alexander (2003; 2008) advanced dialogic teaching as a strategy for eliciting students’ understanding and engaging students in using language as a tool for constructing knowledge. This suggests that the successful use of geographical inquiry as a pedagogy entails learning how to think and talk like a geographer. Geography teachers in Singapore are encouraged to use inquiry-based pedagogies in order to help students understand the nature of disciplinary work in geography and as the main route to knowledge construction (CPDD, 2013; 2014). This chapter draws on a study that examines geography teachers’ language knowledge for content teaching (Morton, 2018) through the use of dialogic talk to guide multimodal data analysis, interpretation, and knowledge construction in geography. Using examples of teachers’ enactment of knowledge in the classroom, we suggest how geography teachers can help students make sense of geographical data through greater attention to language use. We further argue that exploring the qualitative dimension of using dialogic talk as a pedagogic strategy addresses a gap in geography education and contributes to the growing body of work on disciplinary literacy.

This qualitative study examines what six geography teachers in Singapore schools believe to be the purpose of climate change education, and how this influences their practice. A key finding of this study indicates that teachers oriented their practice around their belief that the aim of climate change education was to instill environmental values or critical thinking in their students. The belief in the purpose of climate change education was more influential compared to other factors such as the national curriculum, the school context, or their knowledge of climate change.

The concept of “waterscapes” is examined, with a focus on applications in secondary schools and the pedagogy for undergraduate geography students. The waterscape emphasis on external flows of capital, political relations, and policy that interact with the physical watershed, as well as the hydrosocial cycle, are particularly well suited to support teacher pedagogical content knowledge because of the flexibility in interpreting and applying concepts using what we have termed “the shallow sustainability approach”. Employing case studies from the Singapore geography curriculum, we explore new pathways for the traditional interpretation of waterscapes that include linking mathematical modelling of hydrologic systems with rich local narratives.

Vietnam’s tourism industry has high growth potential with forecasts of double digit growth in the next few years, as the tourism industry contributed more than 13% of its GPD even during the global economic recession in 2009 (RNCOS Market Research, 2010). With this unprecedented rate of growth in the tourism industry, two important questions arise. What are the causes of this growth and what is the impact of this growth? The Singapore Teachers’ fieldtrip offers opportunities for teachers to deepen their content and contextual understanding of Hanoi, as well as a chance to foray into conducting field based enquiry. In Singapore, a revised Geography syllabus will be implemented for the GCE ‘O’ levels in 2013 for Secondary 3 students. A key feature of this revised syllabus is the use of an enquiry approach in the teaching and learning of Geography to engage independent learning, critical thinking, reflective thinking and enquiry. In particular, the “enquiry approach” proposed in this revised syllabus is contingent on both fieldwork and classroom learning. This workshop draws on the experience in the field to advance the discussion on the enquiry process.

Research on teachers' subject conceptions of geography has contributed to a better understanding of how teachers perceive geography, and has explicated the relationships between teachers' conceptions and their practice. However, such research tends to neglect two important influences on teachers' subject conceptions and classroom practice: power structures and embodiment. The paper argues for an interrogation of the influence of power structures on the way pre-service secondary geography teachers in Singapore think about the subject, and how they teach it. In addition, this article also articulates the importance of considering the ways in which bodies are implicated in the construction of conceptions of geography, as well as in notions of how to teach it effectively. An analytical framework that incorporates power structures and embodiment into a study of pre-service teachers' subject conceptions and teaching practice is suggested as a means of integrating these two elements within research in this area.