An Investigation on Curriculum Articulation of Spatial Thinking between Junior and Senior High School
Date Issued
2012
Date
2012
Author(s)
Huang, Chun-Ling
Abstract
Enhancing spatial thinking is one of the key goals of geography education. Spatial thinking is defined as “a collection of cognitive skills comprised of knowing concepts of space, using tools of representation, and reasoning processes”. To cultivate students’ spatial thinking, there needs to be the support of education system, such as textbooks, curriculum, and pedagogical strategies.
This study explores how current junior high school and senior high school textbooks connect the teaching of spatial thinking. This study seeks to identify the problems facing this bridging process and further propose ways to tackle these challenges. Meanwhile, I explore whether the main concepts covered in senior high school courses can be effectively absorbed by students based on their pre-knowledge.
Methodologically, I use content analysis of curriculum as well as in-depth interviews to capture current situation. The finding reveals a discrepancy between curriculum at the junior high school and the senior high school levels, in terms of difficulty and proportion of learning. Without pre-knowledge, it is hard for senior high school students to absorb the knowledge. This implies that students do not have a comprehensive pre-knowledge to fully connect to the senior high school curriculum.
It is anticipated that the result can be useful for improving the design of teaching materials and K-12 education in the future.
Subjects
spatial thinking
curriculum articulation
Type
thesis
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