Geography for Education

The objective of the study programme is:

- to provide students with the basic professional skills based on expert knowledge in the field of geography as well as educational and psychological disciplines so that they could enter an appropriate profession or continue in a follow-up master’s degree study programme;

- to develop professional skills and acquire knowledge of geography and related disciplines which graduates will use in practice or in a follow-up master’s degree study programme;

- to acquire geographic knowledge and skills in school, in the GIS laboratory and outside the school environment during fieldwork;

- to develop geographic knowledge and skills in order to use them in practice;

- to prepare graduates for learning to teach geography at elementary or secondary schools.

Graduates have fundamental professional education combined with a field-didactic component, and they are ready for a follow-up master’s degree study programme specialised in geography teacher training or studying the field of geography. According to the Act No. 563/2004 Coll. on Pedagogical Staff and on the Amendment to Some Other Acts, they can work as teacher’s assistants, teachers in leisure centres, educators in youth homes, educators in after-school activity classes, and in different civil society organizations dealing with pedagogical work.

Through studying for the Bachelor’s degree graduates gain the necessary competences that allow them to critically apply the use of their pedagogical and psychological knowledge in practice as a teaching assistant or other educational worker (e.g. free-time instructor in youth centres or after-school clubs, in various civic associations engaged in pedagogical activities) in an appropriate manner.

The degree develops students’ analytical and comparative skills, which enable them to understand the diverse pedagogical reality and to use subject-specific, pedagogical, and psychological publications in their work for planning, implementing and reflecting on educational activities. They develop communication skills important for communication and collaboration with pupils/clients, colleagues in the workplace, with parents of pupils/clients and with practitioners. An important benefit of the degree is the development of self-reflective skills that provide space for the development of attitudes towards one another, to educated individuals and to the profession: perception of the responsibility of the teaching profession, the acceptance of the moral obligations of a helping profession and its ethics.

The studies emphasise the principle of interdisciplinarity (interconnection of some pedagogical and psychological subjects); the principle of sequence and gradation of themes and courses, from the more general to the more specific. The concept is also characterized by the interdependence of theory and practice. An important part of the concept is the reflective teaching practice. The principles of reflection on teaching practice and self-reflection are related both to practice and to other experience-oriented subjects. An important part of the concept is also the promotion of inclusion, which is perceived as a cross-curricular theme (also supported by a separate course).

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• To address geographic issues as a basis for geographical thinking.
• To seek, collect, organize and evaluate geographic information and sources of data.
• To use correct geographic, topographic and cartographic terminology.
• To assess geographic objects, phenomena and processes in environmental geography, their regularity, rules, differences, co-relation and compliance.
• To apply methods and knowledge of constituent sub-disciplines of physical and socioeconomic geography, cartography and a GIS during fieldwork.
• To integrate the content of sub-disciplines of physical and socioeconomic geography, cartography and a GIS into the elementary school curriculum.
• Cooperate with various teachers at school and under their leadership to plan, implement and reflect on the sequence of teaching and activities in relation to the appropriate school curriculum
• Describe and analyse an educational situation using specialised terminology and rules of effective pedagogical communication and to propose a change; use their knowledge and skills in communication with pupils, parents and teachers.
• Use self-reflective skills to reflect on their actions: for example, to better justify and evaluate their arguments, to give voice to their emotions and their connection to some behaviour or to review their own attitudes towards education
• Use basic methods and tools of pedagogical diagnostics in teaching to support differentiation and individualization in teaching, thus gaining data which is available for the support of an individual pupil/client. The results must be communicated.
• Explain the basic principles of inclusive and special education; to reflect on their attitude towards diversity and its influence on their own teaching.
• Explain the basic concepts of developmental and social psychology and identify potential development difficulties or difficulties in social competences or pupil adaptation at school.

A graduate of the Bachelor’s study program is a qualified expert ready to work as a teacher’s assistant who gained the appropriate professional competence considered as a set of professional knowledge, skills, attitudes, experience, values and personal qualities that are reflected in particular professional activities.

• Teacher´s assistant

The system of compulsory teaching practice is aimed at developing the students’ professional competences and preparing them for the full-fledged role of a teaching assistant. The aim of the teaching assistant practice is to acquire the necessary skills for individual work with a pupil outside the process of teaching (tutoring at school in the pupils’ homes) and also when working with a teacher during lessons.

The teaching practice consists of a coherent system of consecutive subjects, which are taken from the third to the fifth semester of the degree. These are the subjects teaching assistant practice - tutoring 1, teaching assistant practice - tutoring 2, consisting of individual tutoring (60 hours), teaching assistant practice - teaching assistant 1 (60 hours) and teaching assistant practice - teaching assistant 2 (60 hours) and teaching assistant practice – teaching assistant 3. Overall, there 180 hours of teaching practice.

In the third and fourth semesters, the teaching practice is followed by the subjects self-experiential preparation for the profession 1 and self- experiential preparation for the profession 2, in which the students of the teaching assistant practice reflect (24 hours). Their aim is to enable students to have real experience with selected themes (see seminar topics) regarding personal and professional development through experiential learning with an emphasis on reflection; to encourage students to gradually take responsibility for their own learning process (self-directed learning); to enable students to become aware of and, if necessary, to revise their attitudes towards their future profession.

The system of teaching practice is regularly evaluated both through closed and open questions, both by students and the mentor teachers. The reflective seminars are also evaluated.

The Bachelor’s thesis completes the corresponding stage of university education. The aim of this work is to test a student’s ability to work independently and apply knowledge acquired during university studies. It is a methodical approach, a sequence of a set of partial tasks leading from a project of the Bachelor’s thesis project through a supervisor’s tutorials to accumulating new evidence and its documenting.

Instructions for writing the Bachelor’s thesis at the Faculty of Education of Masaryk University in Brno are adapted by Dean’s Directive No. 1/2015 the Guidelines for Writing Theses.

A graduate of the Bachelor’s degree study programme Geography for Education can (after fulfilling the admission requirements) continue studying in a follow-up Master’s degree study programme. The Faculty of Education enables graduates to continue their studies in a follow-up Master’s degree study programme Lower Secondary School Geography Teacher Training and subsequently in a Doctoral study programme Didactics of Geography.