Teaching to Develop Geographical Thinking

Abstract

To promote geographical thinking requires a conceptual and methodological renewal anchored in learning the key-concepts on which the subject has structured its identity. Teachers are responsible for planning the teaching-learning process, based on their prior conceptions of the students. The approach promoted here is to develop curriculum experiences around problem situations of major social and environmental issues, focusing on the development of real, spatial and everyday problems of students. These problem situations should be successively solved with a view to promoting significant learning, through geographical thinking. Thus, more than merely teaching the subject, the geography teacher is educating citizens by promoting the development of geographical thought.