Seminar Two

I initially encountered difficulties in my senior year, when the school I attended was unable to offer Geography as a Year 12 SACE subject due to limited numbers. I was devastated. Geography was my passion, and I looked forward to studying it at university and therefore found an alternative option. I studied Geography externally at another school after hours.

The Geography teacher who ran the course was perceptive, experienced and prided himself on motivating his students to achieve their desired goals. More importantly, he guided each of us in times of high stress and difficulty. I often remember the difficulty I faced understanding geographic information systems (commonly referred to as GIS). GIS is a system or tool for displaying and analysing data related to positions on the Earth's surface. We were asked to identify symbols on the virtual map to represent real-world concepts. For example, I was adding books from around an ample room to represent elevation or gathering various symbols more closely to represent a high-density population. I had never heard of GIS as a software program, geographic tool or resource. I found it severely challenging to grasp. As a result, I was unable to participate in the lesson activities and small group tasks. Chandler and Sweller's (1991) cognitive load theory reflect on the importance of prior existing knowledge in learning. In line with this theory, the absence of GIS from previous years lacked the critical process and place in my cognitive architecture. Two critical learning mechanisms associated with CLT, schema and acquisition failed to transfer the learning procedures from controlled to automatic processing. Therefore, the GIS material was confusing and overwhelming for me to understand.

Despite the difficulty I endured, my teacher ensured that I was not discouraged and could recompense my schema deficient in performing well in the subject. Carol Dweck's research explores the theory of a growth mindset in time of difficulty. Dweck believes a shift from a 'fixed mindset' to a 'growth mindset' will generate greater comfort with taking a personal risk and striving for more stretching goals, higher motivation, enhancing brain development across a wider range of tasks, lower stress and anxiety with completing work and higher performance levels (Dweck 2006). Each one of these concepts mentioned was implemented by my teacher to ensure while scaffolding my activities; I would be able to understand GIS in preparation for my final examination.

Further, Vygotsky's Theory of Zone of Proximal development can also be used in this circumstance to identify my relation between learning and development in the GIS topic. The ZPD is the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under teacher guidance. My teacher understood my ZPD and could scaffold my learning in a way that would allow me to assimilate the meaning of GIS systems and integrate the information into new knowledge and learning. The cognitive load theory and ZPD both effectively support the next lesson in a learning journey. I am grateful for my teacher that supported me throughout Year 12 Geography to master the skill of GIS as an essential tool and resource that undoubtedly helped me combat the concept during my time at university studying Geography based courses.