Survival of the GISSEST – Teachers’ opinions on the incorporation of GI-based learning in upper secondary schools in Finland

AGIT2008 – Learning with

Geoinformation, University of Salzburg,

July 2, 2008Tino Johansson

Department of Geography, University of Helsinki, Finland

Geoinformation at the upper secondary school level in Finland

new national curriculum for the upper secondary schools in August 2005

geoinformation was then included into the contents of an elective regional study course (GE4) in geography

the course is made up of 22.5 hours of lessons the main focus is on a geographical study of a

region key competences are indirectly linked with

Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and geoinformation

The challenges for implementation

most geography teachers were not familiar with GIS or geoinformation in Finland

numerous in-service teacher training courses organized across the country

focus on basic concepts, hands-on training of a few professional GIS software, and on utilizing existing GIS databases

Introduced approaches to learning

Commonly used by geography educators across the world

enquiry-based learning problem-based learning students’ spatial learning skills enhancedskills and knowledge that are valued in

working life and in higher education

A need for a study on teachers’ views and opinions on geoinformation

Introduction of geoinformation into upper secondary schools has been a state-led top down initiative

teachers have mainly been given a role of passive recipients of information and approaches

however, some geography teachers have started to use geoinformation in their courses without curriculum support in the beginning of this decade

a need to assess the situation and comprehend better the areas where more support is needed at schools

The on-line questionnaire survey

An invitation to participate was sent to 380 Finnish upper secondary school geography and biology teachers in 2006

83 teachers returned the questionnaire (21.8% reply rate)

most respondents were female (59%)

7.2% of the respondents were Swedish speaking

The age structure of the respondents

The percentage distribution of the respondents according

to their age

7,3

22

31,7

35,4

3,6

21-30 years31-40 years41-50 years51-60 yearsover 60 years

Their work experience as teachers

The percentage distribution of the respondents according

to their work experience as teachers

7,4

24,7

32,1

27,2

8,6

under 5 years5-10 years11-20 years21-30 years31-40 years

Previous experience in using GIS software

Familiarity with the concept of GIS About 10% of the respondents were not familiar with the concept of GIS

Most of the respondents had learned about the concept in in-service teacher

training

The majority of the respondents (73.5%) had used some GIS earlier MapInfo Professional

ArcExplorer

ArcView

MapInfo ProViewer

ArcGIS

But most of them had still less than one week experience on using these

software !

The use of GIS at schools

Two-thirds of the teachers mentioned that they have personally used

GIS in upper secondary school education The most common purpose was to display maps with GIS

Learning to use GIS software was the second common purpose

Enquiry-based learning, and learning spatial thinking skills were also

important purposes of using GIS in education according to the teachers

It was very common that only one teacher used GIS in the majority of

upper secondary schools where this educational technology was used

in the first place problematic for long-term adoption

demografic data (who will continue when the geoinformation expert

teacher retires?)

The use of GIS at schools

Teachers mainly used two types of GIS data at the upper secondary

schools in Finland Free data available in the internet (map archives, route map services,

Google Earth, Citizen’s Map Portal and data from the Statistics Finland

Commercially available databases from the cd-roms attached to the upper

secondary school geography books

Free data from local authorities and self-created GIS databases were also

mentioned by some teachers

GIS functionalities that correspond the teachers’ educational needs

The eight GIS functionalities which at best correspond the needs of the

teachers in the educational use of GIS software creating thematic maps

examining the attribute data of the map objects

combining and visualizing different map layers and themes

creating overlays with different map layers or themes

joining self-created data or data from other sources to the available

attribute data tables

studying a map in different scales

making queries according to the attributes of the map objects

printing maps on paper

GIS data types that correspond the teachers’ educational needs

The four GIS data types which at best correspond the needs of the

teachers in the educational use of GIS software data from the municipality

data from all around the world

national data

data from the school surroundings

The advantages and problems in using GIS in education

Advantages Problems

Visualization of different themes (20)

Lack of software (31)

Computing tool which interest students (15)

Poor ability of teachers to use GIS (20)

Motivates and interests youth to learn (9)

Lack of hardware (19)

Up-to-date information and data on topical issues (9)

Lack of time to learn GIS and integrate it to the lessons (15)

Visualization of statistical data and classification methods (7)

Lack of digital maps and data suitable for the courses (13)

Creating maps quickly and learning mapping methods (7)

Functionality of GIS software is poor and too complicated (11)

Questions and contact

I am pleased to answer to any of your questions now or later:

M.Sc. Tino Johansson

Department of Geography

P.O. Box 64 (Gustaf Hällströmin katu 2)

FI-00014 University of Helsinki

Finland

Tel. +358 9 191 51045

Fax. +358 9 191 50760

e-mail. tino.johansson@helsinki.fi

GISAS book: http://ethesis.helsinki.fi/julkaisut/mat/maant

/sarjat/julkaisuja/a/141/