1. Does the GeoCapabilities approach enable a Future 3 curriculum?
Duncan Hawley
Geographical Association
Partner in the GeoCapabilities Project

2. If you gave your trainees and mentors the following task
If you gave your trainees and mentors the following task – what do you think would be their response(s)?
Think about the last group of students that you taught. It may have been earlier today, or even some years ago!
What were you teaching them?
Who decided what you taught them?
Why did you teach them that particular topic /
skill / concept?
Consider the following pair of questions:
Would it matter if students hadn't experienced the lesson that you described in your answer to question 1? What did they 'gain' through the experience? 
More generally, would it matter if geography was absent altogether from the school curriculum?

4. Trainees – Day Session on GeoCapabilities Response to Questions
Conversation 1
Trainees – Day Session on GeoCapabilities Response to Questions
Many felt they could make decisions about how to teach (pedagogy)
but….
No control over what they taught (or why they taught it)
Trainees felt they needed to do what they were told to do.
Many thought that the why was the responsibility of the Exam Boards.
When asked would it matter if pupils hadn't been taught the lesson  a significant proportion of students highlighted generic skills rather than the contribution of geography.

5.
External controls on teaching geography and impact on the geography curriculum
Source: GeoCaps research survey 2014

6. X School
We have incorporated the “School of the Future” concept into our multi-leveled educational organization. Our aim is to improve the quality of services offered and to meet the expectations and needs of our students, their parents and our society.
School educational model incorporates the concept of 8 key competences as set by the European Commission, therefore, the knowledge, skills and values that are necessary for the citizen of the 21st century.
Our main interest is “how” students learn (not “what” and “how much” they learn) - encouraged through: active participation, involvement, self-managed knowledge.
Teachers have to collaborate, monitor, organise, inspire and design hands-on activities.
So, the students can create activities and are responsible for their own knowledge.

7. Towards a Future 3 Curriculum - a curriculum of engagement
Future 3 curriculum thinking takes on these characteristics. It is …
a knowledge-led curriculum (not led by ‘skills’ or ‘competence’)
based on ‘powerful (disciplinary) knowledge’ (and what Winch (2013) calls ‘epistemic ascent’)
Progressive – motivated by social justice (ensuring the ‘pedagogic rights’ of all young people)
Distinguishes curriculum from pedagogy (the why and what shall we teach, is distinguished from the how)
Pedagogic selections need to be fit for purpose (the how is dependent on what we are trying to teach, and why)
Source: Future 3 thinking is developed fully in Young and Lambert (2014)

8. The capability approach:
A person’s Capability set
Leads to
Choices about how to live a free and fulfilling life
A young person’s education
Choices about how to live a free and fulfilling life
Capability set

9. To what extent can school geography…
Life itself; bodily health; bodily integrity (including the freedom from assault from others); the freedom to use and develop the senses, imagination and thought; emotional health; to engage in practical reason; affiliation; respect for other species and nature; play (including enjoyment and laughter); control over one’s material and political environment. (Nussbaum 2000)
To what extent can school geography…
1. Promote individual autonomy and freedom, and the ability of children to use their imagination and to be able to think and reason?
2. Help young people identify and exercise their choices in how to live, based on worthwhile distinctions with regard to their citizenship and to sustainability?
3. Contribute to understanding one’s potential as a creative and productive citizen in the context of the global economy and culture?

10. 2 minute video short on Geocapabilities
It is important for students to be knowledgeable about locations, places and regions. It is also important to recognise the practical skills students learn when studying geography. Above all, students develop intellectual abilities to think about the world in new ways: to think geographically.
Thinking geographically is developed in students by deepening their conceptual understanding of the Earth and the way humankind interacts with it. Armed with geographical knowledge, and thus the ability to think geographically, young people become more capable.
This is why the GeoCapabilities project uses the “capabilities approach”. Conceptualising capabilities helps us clarify the aims of teaching geography.
To achieve this it is essential to engage with the question "why geography is worth teaching?" by illustrating the many ways geographical knowledge and thinking geographically contributes to human capability.
Click the image for a
2 minute video short on Geocapabilities

11. What are human capabilities?
There are clearly many ways to deconstruct a subject like geography into chunks of facts, concepts, and skills for teaching purposes. The value of these subject contents is given by how well they contribute to educational aims - sometimes called the 'fundamental aims' of the school curriculum.
Reflect on this point using this Hans Rosling video - where Rosling promotes what he calls a ‘fact based understanding’ of the world.
Click the image and wait for the video clip to start– it will open in a new window

12. Geography as powerful disciplinary knowledge
So what, then, makes geographical knowledge powerful?
Deep descriptive ‘world knowledge’ that includes :
countries, capitals etc - providing place and locational context
substantive concepts extending understanding of (for example) rivers and mountains; also global wind patterns, distribution of populations and energy sources, and the characteristics of world biomes, cultures and religions.
Relational thinking that includes theories and concepts such as place and space, the local and the global, the human and the physical environment, and notions of interdependence and spatial interaction. Being derived from the discipline, concepts like place, space and environment are complex, evolving and often contested.
Applied thinking that includes using geographical facts, principles and concepts for analysis, problem solving, prediction and modeling of alternative social, economic and environmental futures in particular place contexts.
Understanding geography in this way is not straightforward and it is not easily derived from everyday experience and popular images of what is meant by the geography.

13. Description and Discussion
PDK Vignette -
Description and Discussion
Title (geographic topic, theme or issue)
Description (250 words maximum) – Describe your chosen topic, theme and issue in geographical terms.
Illustration – photograph, diagram, image
Discussion (250 words maximum) – Add a reflection that offers an explanation of what makes your example evidence of powerful disciplinary knowledge (PDK). For example,
What is geographically theoretical or conceptual about the example?
How does the example support ‘geographical thinking’ in a way that is systematic? (i.e. it is part of a wider system of thought, showing the intellectual significance of geographical concepts such as location, place, region, pattern, spatial hierarchy, regional identity, etc.)
How does the example support ‘geographical thinking’ in a way that is relational? (eg it links human and physical components of environment; or the local and the global)

14. Conversation 2
Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge
Vignettes
Example: Conservation and National Parks
Teaching about conservation areas and National Parks features strongly in my geography teaching. It is easy to teach ‘factual’ information in these topics, especially if taught by using a series of case studies of the sort illustrated in text books. However, I have asked myself what ‘PDK’ was key to understanding certain questions: For example, (i) why some types of environment need special protection, and (ii) how particular types of environment have come to be. Furthermore, I am interested in how students might be helped to consider certain ideas: For example, (i) the value of environments, (ii) the conflicting demands on environments and (iii) the possible implications of changing and managing environments. GeoCapabilities helps in thinking these questions through. Thus, we can think about how the key geographical ideas that may be helpful to students. Can we deconstruct the general idea of environmental conservation from a geographical perspective

15. Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge
Example 2: Conservation and National Parks
Different places have individual (unique) characteristics.
Some environments are considered valuable to people (for different reasons), and sometimes in ways that are hard to measure.
Places can be altered by people's activities
Some types of places can be easily created and some types of place cannot be easily re-created once destroyed or altered.
Some valuable places might need special protection to slow down change or reduce to levels that are acceptable or where ‘natural recovery’ occurs.
People who are directly affected by the special protection of an environment are often involved in the creation of alternative lifestyles, or at least new ways of thinking about the protected environment.

16. Powerful Disciplinary Knowledge
Example 2: Conservation and National Parks
DISCUSSION
These are all ‘geographical’ perspectives. They represent generalisations that are not necessarily self-evident or obvious. And yet they are helpful to underpin an intelligent conversation about conservation or National Parks
These ideas provide a very useful way of thinking about environments and highlighting conservation from a specifically geographical perspective. The deconstructed (key) ideas in the statements can be reconstructed in several different ways, depending on the particular case being studied or the resources available or selected as most appropriate in the curriculum making process. Using their geographical understanding students gain the capability to reason critically: for example, to decide whether an environment might be given a designation of being ‘special’ (whether considering a ‘natural’ or urban environment). They can be given the opportunity to argue over alternative scenarios for the management of change in these environments.

17. Storymap Geocapabilities
- a (geographical) way of sharing teachers' ideas and experiences of powerful geographical knowledge.

18. Conversation 3
X School
We are especially interested in “how” students learn. It is not easy for us to decide “what” they learn, because the Ministry of Education configures the content of the curriculum. But, what each individual teacher actually teaches is not identical. Teachers can control a lot. The Vignettes activity reveals this! We can not deviate from this content, since the subject is examined at the end of the year. But you can teach this content well or less well, as part of a bigger picture or as isolated fragments, with a greater sense of purpose or as an end in itself. On the other hand, we are interested in “how much” our students learn and that’s why we try to design experiential approaches in order to “…  increase efficacy of learning at school…” Our effort is not just limited to give the knowledge (this is Future 1) but we seek to engage our student with the data YES, and the knowledge making. We try to offer stimuli that can lead our students beyond their experiences. X School is an innovative school and all of us try to plan our lessons in a way which is dynamic. Anyway, we want our students’ skills (which we try to develop) to be subservient to the knowledge goals. This, in our project, is the wrong way around - Future 2. In our project skills serve the knowledge goals - Future 3.

19. At first glance, the X School approach to the curriculum is what we call Future 2.
Our main interest is “how” students learn (more than “what” and “how much” they learn) - - encouraged through: active participation, involvement, self-managed knowledge.  
In other words, the teachers have to collaborate, monitor, organise, inspire and design hands-on activities. They are pedagogic leaders, with the overall aim to engage students in knowledge making. Therefore, our students are initiated into a learning process that encourages them to:
set goals and carefully identify questions and problems to be tackled,
work in teams and tackle problems from different angles,
organize their time effectively, take initiatives.
Now, the capabilities approach invites us to consider Future 3 curriculum, where teachers are curriculum leaders as well as pedagogic leaders.
GeoCapabilities says that powerful (geographical) knowledge contributies to the intellectual capabilities of students. Future 3 thinking does not only apply to geography. In what ways does any school subject impart powerful knowledge? See the project website for definitions of powerful knowledge.

20. Towards a Future 3 Curriculum - a curriculum of engagement
Future 3 curriculum thinking takes on these characteristics. It is …
a knowledge-led curriculum (not led by ‘skills’ or ‘competence’)
based on ‘powerful (disciplinary) knowledge’ (and what Winch (2013) calls ‘epistemic ascent’)
Progressive – motivated by social justice (ensuring the ‘pedagogic rights’ of all young people)
Distinguishes curriculum from pedagogy (the why and what shall we teach, is distinguished from the how)
Pedagogic selections need to be fit for purpose (the how is dependent on what we are trying to teach, and why)
Source: Future 3 thinking is developed fully in Young and Lambert (2014)

21. What are the challenges of developing a Future 3 Curriculum?
Who ‘owns’ the curriculum?
Can we move towards a curriculum of engagement?
Can we engage trainees, mentors and geography curriculum developers in conservations about who they teach, what they teach and why they teach it?
We think the GeoCapabilities approach (and project) provides a route to conversations about the F3 curriculum.

22. The GeoCapabilities Project
See GA website
WEBSITEwww.geocapabilities.org
TWITTER twitter.com/geocapabilities
FACEBOOK
tinyurl.com/geocap-fb