New geography education text named Best Resource in Secondary
A new book edited by Mike Taylor, with Louise Richards and John Morgan, has received the Best Resource in Secondary award at the New Zealand Content Counts Education Awards 2016.
Mike was inspired to bring together the edited book when he realised there was a dearth of geography education writing easily accessible to New Zealand teachers.
“I noticed there was a gap in the market. It’s an unfortunate historical quirk, I suppose, that most writing on New Zealand geographic education is dispersed across academic journals—there just weren’t any locally produced books that a teacher could pick up carry around with them, read and use as a resource.”
The Book, Geography in Focus: Teaching and learning in issues-based classrooms, provides a thorough and inspiring examination of issues-based geography education in Aotearoa New Zealand.
“I see it as a reflection of the nature of school geography, in the sense that it is commonly presented as an applied social science in schools.” Mike says. “So, many of the topics that geography teachers cover are linked to the social issues of sustainability, the opportunities and challenges of migration, environmental issues—those sorts of things.”
According to the judges, the book goes “beyond the obvious”; they considered it a valuable resource for an often overlooked subject field, and praised its offer of transferable methodologies that can benefit teaching practice in many other curriculum areas.
‘For me the book is brain food for geography teachers, and I hope it sparks some productive conversation in school geography departments. The final product seems to have been received well—it was nice to get the award.”
The New Zealand Content Counts Education Awards celebrate the excellent resources New Zealand companies have recently released in the New Zealand education market. For the second year running, teachers from around the country joined the official panel of education experts and cast their votes to add their choice of best resources to the judge’s selection.
Published by NZCER Press, you can purchase the book here
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http://www.nzcer.org.nz/nzcerpress/geography-focus-teaching-and-learning-issues-based-classrooms