This article draws upon indigenous praxis to teach emplaced indigenous knowledges to non-indigenous students in a study abroad fieldwork course. We argue that employing Indigenous methodologies can help students engage in contemporary indigenous worlds, frame indigenous knowledges as generative and creative way of knowing the world and connect students more deeply to their study abroad sites. The course taught took students from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US to Ecuador over two summers. We reflect on the complex and conflicting obligations involved in this pedagogical adoption of these indigenous methodologies. This second study abroad employed three key Indigenous methodologies for knowledge production. Students were encouraged to develop a "shared body" by tasting and touching the forest. This cultivated "yacharishka" (familiarity) with the forest and its beings. Finally, we envision this practice as potentially working toward iyarina, a practice of remembering a place to envision its future and one's role in care for the place. During the second year, students were more engaged and aware of power dynamics and demonstrated greater familiarity with the Amazon and Quichua thinking. It is important to note that not all Indigenous praxis increased student engagement and learning.
With geography teacher educators (GTE) research still scarce, we introduce the Fibonacci sequence and the golden ratio as analytical tools for examining the balance of initial teacher education (ITE) for future geography teachers. Drawing on 46 in-depth interviews with GTE from nine university departments in Czechia, we investigate how they perceive ITE's current curriculum structure and its ideal form. A novel research instrument, based on Fibonacci proportions, is used to compare the perceived weight of disciplinary knowledge, subject-specific pedagogy, and teaching practice. The findings reveal a persistent gap between the real and the ideal. Current programs are dominated by theoretical geography knowledge, while the ideal model shifts toward geography-to-teaching skills and classroom practice. This contrast highlights educators' professional agency and the structural constraints imposed by accreditation, institutional traditions, and entrenched paradigms. The Fibonacci framework reveals hidden hierarchies in ITE curricula and guides their coherent redesign. More than a metaphor, it provides a diagnostic lens and roadmap for aligning disciplinary expertise with pedagogical application and practice. By exposing the knowledge - skills - practice imbalance, the study contributes to debates on teacher education (TE) reform and calls for a more practice-oriented geography TE model.
The genesis of this paper occurred in mid-2024, when the lead author - and Geography field school lead - considered how they could not only better understand the impacts of international-focused pedagogical practice but include transdisciplinary students as partners (SaP) in academic scholarship related to Geography-focused field schools. Most studies on international field schools have written about participants rather than with participants, and therefore opportunities for students to directly contribute to field school pedagogies have remained limited. Using a new 2-week sustainable development field school set in Malaysia as an exploratory case study, students from diverse disciplines, including Law, Tourism Management, Secondary Education and Creative Writing share their reflections and perspectives as co-authors of this study. The insights gained from this study shed light on how participants from different disciplines experience and make meaning of a Geography field school, even if their prior knowledge of Geography is limited. Critically, their experiences additionally underscore how undergraduate students can be encouraged and empowered to participate in pedagogical research as partners, particularly as they will be primarily impacted by the learning outcomes international field schools offer.
This study examines how geography teacher-education programmes in normal universities in the Sichuan-Chongqing region prepare future middle-school geography teachers in the context of China's New Liberal Arts Construction reform. In this article, Geography Normal University students refer to undergraduates enrolled in geography education programmes at normal universities, whose primary purpose is to train subject-specialist teachers for the school system. New Liberal Arts Construction denotes the national initiative to reorganise liberal-arts education by integrating traditional humanities with information technology, interdisciplinary learning and a stronger emphasis on practice-oriented competence. The study adopts a mixed-method research design that combines both quantitative and qualitative methods. A questionnaire survey and in-depth interview are used to collect data from Geography Normal University students and middle school geography teachers. The research results reveal misalignments between the expectations of the New Liberal Arts reform and existing training provision: students report gaps in theoretical geography knowledge, weak basic teaching skills, limited and often superficial opportunities for micro-teaching and school-based practice, and insufficient support for developing teaching-research capacity. Overall, the paper argues that the reorganisation of the school curriculum under New Liberal Arts Construction requires corresponding adjustments in the design of geography teacher-education programmes.
The authors have previously demonstrated that students pursuing individual GIS projects adopted different strategies, recognising that further research was required to understand how they used online sources of help. Here, we explore how students engaged with these sources and provide future students with advice on how to use them more effectively and efficiently. Adopting self-efficacy as a theoretical construct, we analyse the students' progress and the effects of their GIS projects on their self-confidence and resilience. We adopt a mixed-methods approach comprising two linked, online surveys, conducted before and after the project work, and a series of one-to-one, semi-structured interviews. The former sought to quantify confidence in using online sources of help and translating real-world problems into GIS. The latter sought to gain deeper insights into students' resilience, given the challenges of GIS. We show that most students are significantly more confident after completing their GIS projects, supported by online sources of help, but for individuals, the areas and degrees of improvement are highly variable. We recommend that students develop a positive mindset when engaging with online sources of help and conclude that self-efficacy must be treated more critically to be considered operationally useful and theoretically insightful.
This paper uses multiple data sources to trace the spatio-temporal evolution of geography higher education institutions in China from 1904 to 2024, dividing it into two sub-periods (1904-1977 and 1978-2024). The evolution was complex and fluctuating, shaped by social contexts, educational policies, and geography's inherent transdisciplinarity. Social contexts, as external factors, both generated demand and imposed constraints linked to economic capacity and higher education conditions. Educational policies, including educational goals and institutional frameworks, acted as internal factors and greatly influenced the diversity and spatial patterns of these institutions. Moreover, geography's transdisciplinary nature aligned well with China's higher education system, potentially facilitating its growth and proliferation. Currently, geography in higher education is flourishing, yet several challenges have emerged: disparities among institution types, educational objectives, degrees, majors, and department sizes; risks of departmental closures in affiliated, non-comprehensive, and non-normal colleges; frequent absence of "geography" from departmental names; marginalisation in smaller departments; and poor performance evaluations from some administrators and reviewers. These issues require Chinese geographers to reflect deeply and respond proactively, and they should also consider expanding geography knowledge production from an institutional perspective to enhance the discipline's inclusivity and productivity in China.
This paper presents a seminar-based teaching activity in geography higher education with two aims: first, to explore the use of generative AI (GenAI) as a pedagogic tool to support the design of teaching activities, and second, to examine the pedagogic value of role-play as an active learning strategy. The activity was implemented in the Big Questions for People and Planet module, where Year 1 students acted as "peace consultants" addressing fictional conflict scenarios in the imaginary country of North Terbonnew and other invented regions. GenAI tools were employed to co-create case studies, introducing evolving political, environmental, and socio-cultural drivers of conflict and enabling the iterative development of crises to which students had to respond. Drawing on Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory, the role-play seminar design foregrounded emphasised collaborative learning, peer-to-peer dialogue, and the co-construction of knowledge through scaffolded interaction. Feedback from participants highlighted the session's high engagement, collaborative nature, and its ability to develop critical thinking, empathy, and real-world problem-solving skills. This paper situates the activity within geography education research on active learning, and by critically reflecting on the opportunities and limitations of GenAI in this context, the paper contributes to ongoing debates about innovative pedagogic practices in geography higher education.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is transforming higher education pedagogy, through increased use, curriculum design and engagement. While it can enhance geographical thinking and spatial analysis, concerns exist about superficial learning and effectiveness. This paper examines the pedagogical value of GenAI-generated audio resources, presenting a case study from a second-year undergraduate geography module in a UK university, "Climate Change: Challenges for the 21st Century," where JellyPod was used to turn lecture slides into short podcasts. A survey with 45 students found that 90% believed the podcasts improved learning, citing clarity, brevity, and the ability to distil complex topics. The podcasts accessibility and flexibility were praised, with 92% integrating them into routines for independent learning. However, 47% noted the AI voice was "robotic" or "monotone," and that some content was superficial and lacked interactivity. Overall, GenAI podcasts are effective, scalable tools for reinforcing content, but future improvements should focus on voice realism, interactivity, and personalisation to promote inclusive, student-centred geography education.
This short essay introduces the symposium "Teaching financial geography". Despite financial geography gaining more prominence, particularly since the 2010s, there has been little collective reflection to date on how financial geography is taught and what role it plays in geographical education. This introduction here and the three papers that make up this symposium seek to bridge this pedagogical gap. We uncover some tactics to enrich this particular field, considering how best to overcome internal and wider constraints in teaching financial geography and capitalising on the growing demand for teaching and learning sustainable finance.
Agency is central to many subfields of geography, yet far less attention has been given to fostering agency - the capacity to act - in our classrooms and for our students. We suggest that for an individual to have agency, they must possess knowledge about sociocultural conditions and structures, the skills to navigate such conditions, and the power to act. In other words, agency is a kind of phronesis emerging out of a matrix of component capacities, each of which has deep roots in geographic theory and practice. In this paper, we explore how a role-playing activity, specifically a hearing about a proposed windfarm, can help students recognize and cultivate these capacities. Deploying rarely used before-and-after surveys with over 60 students across multiple terms, we isolate the learning impact of the role-play activity, finding meaningful and unexpected developments in students' self-assessment of their agency. In an era where the function of higher education is rapidly evolving, instructors have an opportunity to rethink outmoded pedagogies and reconsider how to help students cultivate critical thinking, problem-solving, and their agency to act on topics of global importance. Role-play activities can be the type of pedagogic technique that fosters agency through authentic, applied learning.
This paper presents the methodology and outcomes of a community-driven mapping initiative involving secondary school students across five European countries. Leveraging OpenStreetMap (OSM) as the primary platform, students tackled local environmental and social challenges through pupil-led projects. The study showcases the tools, applications, and collaborative processes used to map diverse local issues, including mountain tourist routes in Italy, urban youth needs in Spain, city greenery in Slovakia, graffiti and workout spaces in Portugal, and waste bin locations in Romania. By highlighting the significance of these projects, we illustrate how youth engagement in geospatial activities fosters critical thinking, community involvement, and practical problem-solving skills. The process presented, connecting university knowledge with secondary schools and their local contexts not only has boosted geospatial literacy but also contributed to active citizenship and sustainable development.
Blended learning has reshaped geography education, yet how students experience blended Human Geography courses remains insufficiently understood. This study investigates how teaching resources, teaching methods, and instructional interaction shape students' course experiences in a blended Human Geography class at a major Chinese university - part of one of the world's largest geography education systems yet rarely examined in depth. Drawing on structural equation modeling and in-depth interviews, the study finds that instructional interaction is the strongest determinant of course experience, exerting both direct and indirect effects through engagement and perceived learning outcomes. Teaching resources and methods contribute primarily through mediated pathways, indicating that meaningful experiences emerge when online and offline components are coherently integrated. Qualitative findings further reveal that dialogic learning, feedback, and collaborative inquiry help students bridge abstract theory with applied spatial practice. Together, these results demonstrate that blended Human Geography teaching in China operates as a systemic and relational pedagogy. The discussion highlights interaction-centered design as key to transforming geography learning into a process of knowledge co-creation. The study offers a contextually grounded yet globally relevant framework for understanding blended geography education and highlights how interaction-driven design can bridge conceptual knowledge with spatial practice in the digital age.
Higher education in geography has been emphasizing active learning approaches that connect academic knowledge with professional practice. This paper presents a case study of an attempt to integrate Problem-Based Learning and Project-Based Learning within a master's course in Human Geography focused on Healthy Urban Planning. The learning design, centred on urban green spaces as real-world planning challenges, engaged students in the analysis of environmental urban infrastructure with a focus on health promotion. The course involved graduate geography students working collaboratively through problem definition, data collection, analysis, and solution development, mirroring professional workflows. Students' perceptions of the learning experience were explored through two anonymous open-ended surveys administered after course completion. Thematic analysis revealed high problem engagement, enhanced understanding through applied learning, and the development of autonomy, collaboration, and other transferable professional skills. Instructor guidance and peer interaction were identified as key supports, while challenges related to workload and uneven participation were also reported. The findings suggest that integrating Problem-Based and Project-Based Learning offers a valuable pedagogical framework for geography and planning education, particularly for place-based topics. The paper contributes to ongoing discussions on innovative teaching practices in higher education by illustrating how active learning supports disciplinary understanding and professional skill development.
