An Activity-Based Learning Approach for Key Geographical Information Systems (GIS) Concepts

Abstract

This study presents the effect of active learning methods of concepts in geographical information systems where students participated in a series of interlocked learning experiences. These activities spanned several teaching weeks and involved the creation of a hand drawn map that was scanned and geo-referenced with locations' coordinates derived from virtual earth systems. These activities engaged students' attention, and the completion of the activities provided opportunities for formative feedback and summative assessments. The effect of the group of activities on students' learning was quantified through the collection of summative assessment data which was compared to performance in other assessment tasks.

Keywords:

• Active learning
• GIS
• formative and summative assessments
• integrative assessment
• pedagogical practices for GIS

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the University of the Sunshine Coast for providing resources required for preparing the manuscript. The authors are also grateful to Dr Peter Dunn for his advice on multinomial logistic regression analysis. The authors gratefully acknowledge the three anonymous referees whose comments, criticisms and suggestions on the earlier versions of the manuscript helped to sharpen the focus and improved the clarity of this paper.