Dr. Madeleine Gregg, an associate professor in the College of Education, became concerned by the lack of information regarding effective teaching of geography education. So last summer at the National Council for Geographic Education conference, Gregg launched a national initiative addressing the need for more research.
The initiative, Encouraging Members to Belong to A Research Community, began with a workshop to facilitate conversation among geography educators about how best to conduct geographic education research.
During the past year, each educator who participated in the workshop collected data on some aspect of geography education to be used in a potential study.
At the NCGE conference in October, Gregg will help these educators learn how to discuss their research findings with respect to the literature in the field and launch another round of studies and data collections.
Gregg’s recent geography research studies how people teach and children learn about rivers. In her current study, she has collected webs, or visual organizations of thought, created by local fourth-graders to show their knowledge of rivers.
“This kind of research helps teachers anticipate the potential errors and needs of students in their classes, which makes their teaching much more powerful,” said Gregg.
“Teachers who know a certain topic may be problematic for students can alert them that there is something tricky about the concept or the action under discussion,” she added.