Cognitive Instructional Design in Geographical Education

Foreword Teaching is always changing, according to the evolution of society and the complexity of learning situations. It is changing especially for Geography because of a globalised world. “Modern education has to face the challenge that classical instructional approaches will have increasing difficulty fitting into today classrooms, or satisfying the growing demand for lifelong learning” (Diehl, p. 113). “Cognitive processes based on the use of visual raw materials are encouraged, promoting new forms of visual reasoning (e.g., mental modeling of processes, reasoning with visual metaphors)….Visual materials, metaphors and languages enable people to use alternative channels (beside the text-only and formal-analytical-only, characteristic of the print technology) for learning and working” (Mioduser, Nachmias, p. 40). Introduction Learning involves new technologies in a dynamic interaction with media, therefore teachers become facilitators instead of transmitters. “This changes the focus of the teacher’s role from an information provider to a facilitator pointing to many sources of information, helping learner selecting and processing information, proposing interesting tasks, problems or projects, coaching the learners to achieve meaningful productions and knowledge building (Paquette, 2002, p. 254). There is a need of strong co-operation because innovators constitute a small minority of the population. Few are willing to take risks and to invest time and energy to learn and adapt to the demand for a new technology, especially because technology continues to evolve, as users face new needs, challenges and opportunities. “This process, called reinvention by Rogers (1995) (cited in Wilson et al. 2002, p. 301-302) is particularly relevant to the constantly changing use of technology in school and universities. Even if there are new fields of interest and new technologies, the innovators remain few and also students remain tied to a handful of software according to their field of specialization. Many know and consequently use word processors, but don’t know the most complicated packages involving mathematic, statistic or engineering. This is a pity due to the fact that different sources could enhance the interdisciplinarity of geography, especially its ability to find connections among facts and things in one single place through maybe one single image. In fact “images and drawings can convey knowledge in a succinct way” (Marshall, 2002, p. 430).