The benefits of GST for teaching and learning have been identified in many studies since the beginning of the 1990s. Many studies addressed the supporting role of GST as a versatile tool for teaching and learning geography (Bednarz and Van der Schee2006; Demirci2011; Kim et al.2011; Patterson et al.2003; Wang and Chen 2013). Although it can even be used in traditional educational settings (Lidstone and Stoltman 2006), GST changed the landscape of teaching and learning (Alibrandi2003), and transformed it into an environment in which constructivist educational strategies are applied (Bednarz and Ludwig 1997; Doering and Veletsianos2008; Kerski et al.2013). Instead of being passive receivers of infor- mation, constructivist approaches and methods with GST make students active explorers of their own understanding (Huang2011) and allow them to learn through their own experiences (Bednarz2004).
GST provides students with a large amount of information and many mapping tools (Huang2011) for geographic data analysis, exploration and visualization with which students gather and analyze information (Liu and Zhu 2008) to ask and answer geographic questions (Shin2006). Geospatial practices turn students into researchers (Baker and White 2003) by helping them to visualize and examine geographic patterns in their data (Breetzke et al.2011), and relationships between and among spatial phenomena (Stoltman and De Chano2003). Practices with GST increase student-map interactivity, which enables students to see the possibility of discovering unknowns (Wiegand2003). A diverse set of activities such as gather- ing, storing, visualizing, querying, analyzing and managing data with various GST supports many constructivist educational strategies, approaches and methods.
According to Liu and Zhu (2008, p. 14), “these tools [GIS technology] can support geographic inquiry by allowing learners to formulate geographic questions or hypotheses, access and obtain geographic data from multiple sources, present geographic data and information in forms of maps, images, tables, and charts, explore the data through carefully constructed queries, and analyze the data to answer the questions or draw conclusions.” As addressed in many other studies, GST supports issue-based, student-centered and standard-based education (Kerski 2003), encourages problem, inquiry and project based learning (Akerson and Dickinson2003; Favier and Van der Schee 2012; Lidstone and Stoltman 2006;
Meyer et al.1999; Nielsen et al.2011), facilitates collaborative work, individual learning (Baker and White 2003; Keiper 1999) and assists to create inductive learning environments (Milson and Earle2008).
Practicing with GST to enhance teaching and learning in geography can have broad educational benefits for students, which can be classified in three different
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categories in this chapter. GST helps students to (1) develop skills, (2) provide knowledge and (3) gain motivation, attitude and understanding. One of the most important reasons for practicing with GST in education is that it provides students with many valuable skills. Apart from various personal, entrepreneurial and mar- ketable skills that enhance students’future careers (Goldstein and Alibrandi2013) and contribute to improving youth employability (Shin2006), teaching with GST encourages critical, effective and scientific thinking in education (Akerson and Dickinson2003; Bevainis 2008; Goldstein and Alibrandi2013; Roulston 2013).
As addressed in a growing number of studies, GST also has great potential to develop high-order-thinking skills (Doering and Veletsianos 2008; Kerski2003;
Linn et al. 2005; West 2003; Wilder et al. 2003), enabling students to apply, analyze, evaluate and create information rather than merely memorizing it (Liu et al.2010). Spatial thinking is also among the most cited skills that GST develops, especially for geography education (Audet and Abegg 1996; Bednarz 2004;
Biilmann2001; DeMers and Vincent2008; Lee and Bednarz2009; Kerski2008;
Wiegand2001). Being an important skill for everyday life, spatial thinking is used to solve problems by analyzing the spatial relationships of objects and places with reference to locations, distances, directions, shapes and patterns (Kidman and Palmer 2006). Practices with GST allow students to perform functions such as spatial querying, statistical analysis and visualization, which facilitate students’ manipulating, querying, analyzing, summarizing and editing spatial data (Goldstein and Alibrandi 2013). All these functions of GST help students to think spatially (Lee and Bednarz 2009), to ask spatial questions (Nellis 1994), to gain spatial awareness (West 2008) and, finally, to solve spatial problems (Audet and Paris 1997; Demirci et al.2013a). By considering all the skills, whether mentioned here or not, we can easily say that many different in and out-of-class practices involving GST helps students to think geographically (Baker et al.2009; Shin2006), and to ask and to answer geographic questions by acquiring, organizing and analyzing geographic information, which are the key issues in secondary school geography education (Keiper1999; Schultz et al.2008).
The practice of GST has a great potential to enhance geographic learning and to improve geographic literacy (Benimmas et al. 2011; Favier and Van der Schee 2012; Liu and Zhu2008; Shin2007; Wechsler and Pitts2004). Students practicing GST can understand geography more efficiently (Demirci 2008) by exploring geographic issues and problems (Bednarz and van der Schee2006; Lemberg and Stoltman2001; Liu and Zhu2008) with real-world relevance to the subject (Baker et al.2009). Shin (2006) studied the use of GIS with primary school students and concluded that it improved geographic literacy better than other methods. In their quantitative study, Wechsler and Pitts (2004) practiced GST with high school students and asserted that the application significantly increased students’ geo- graphic knowledge. In another study, Milson and Earle (2008) observed an enhancement in geographic learning when they used an Internet-based GIS with their students. GST can also improve students’abilities to carry out location-based scientific research (Baker and White2003) and provide them with important tools to explore and study local issues and environments (Bednarz2004; Lemberg and
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Stoltman2001). Geospatial practices also allow students to study and understand local, regional and global geographical issues and problems and thereby enhances students’ achievement in geography lessons (Demirci 2008; Goldstein and Alibrandi2013; Wechsler and Pitts2004).
Skills and knowledge are not the only attributes that can be developed and enhanced by the practice of GST. As stated in many studies, GST has an even greater potential to motivate students to learn and make them more interested in lessons. Goodchild and Kemp (1990) addressed this more than two decades ago by stating that GIS helps enhance students’interest in geography and motivates them toward careers in science and engineering. Many other studies consolidated this and presented that learning with GST improves students’ attitudes, motivation, self- efficacy and enthusiasm in geography lessons (Baker and White 2003; Demirci 2008; Demirci et al.2013b; Doering and Veletsianos2008; Kerski2003; Nielsen et al.2011). If applied with proper methods, GST may also make students more responsible and sensitive toward local/global issues and problems (Demirci et al. 2013b; Keiper 1999). The author of this chapter worked together with 124 students from three public schools in Turkey for nearly a year in nine different GIS-based projects that were related to local communities, and found that the students’ sensitivity towards society and its problems increased (Fig. 12.1) (Demirci et al. 2013b). In a similar study, Milson and Earle (2008) stated that Internet-GIS projects can benefit students with cultural awareness and empathy for distant others.
Fig. 12.1 High school students in Turkey are measuring noise pollution with GIS in their school district
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