Evolving technology, shifting expectations: cultivating pedagogy for a rapidly changing GIS landscape

Abstract

As humans and natural processes continuously reshape the surface of the Earth, there is an unceasing need to document and analyze them through the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The public is gaining more access to spatial technologies that were once only available to highly trained professionals. With technological evolution comes a requirement to transition traditional GIS training for the next generation of GIS professionals. Traditional GIS combined with non-traditional GIS (i.e. mobile and location media) and CyberGIS educational materials could attract new and diverse students into Geography departments while informing the next generation of geospatial tool builders and users. Here we pose an applied pedagogical framework for teaching cutting-edge GIS material to diverse student populations with varying levels of technological experience and professional goals. The framework was developed as part of the National Science Foundation (NSF) CyberGIS Fellows program and was applied as a course template at the University of Washington Tacoma’s Master’s of Science in Geospatial Technologies. We chart how the framework developed into a cyclical structure from our original conceptualization as a hierarchy. This changed the epistemological orientation accommodating the shifting technological terrain of the GIS landscape to improve the skills of those driving the machines.

Keywords:

• GIS
• pedagogy
• CyberGIS
• big data
• epistemology

Notes

1. Colloquially, GIS may refer to either a specific GISystem (the software and hardware) or the field of study that constitutes GIScience; in this article, GIS will refer to a GISystem unless otherwise noted.

2. For a more robust discussion of the specific tools that could be taught (see Roth, Donohue, Wallace, Sack, & Buckingham, 2014; Shook et al., 2016).

3. Front-end developers work with the parts of an application end-users interact with directly, while back-end developers focus on those parts end-users are unlikely to ever directly encounter, such as database structures.