A Study On The Directional Requirements With Regional Thought Toward Geography Teaching

Regional study is a very important research tradition in geography,which also includes“special tradition” “the man-land relationship tradition” and “earth science tradition”.The four major research traditions made the formation and development of geography.Regional study has a long history,and many geographers think that geography is derived from regional cognition.At all times and in all countries,geography is rooted in regional geography deeply.As a result,studies on region are too numerous to be counted.The famous <Shangshu Yukon><Shanhaiching> <The Odyssey>,they all are regional study works.Correspondingly,“region” is one of the core geography concepts,and plays a central role in the whole geography.From the region,geography developed many general principles,rules and conclusions,such as the Theory about Central Place,and the Theory on Location;a lot of geography knowledge is extended around the region;furthermore,many geography problems are solved by putting them into a specific region.In geography teaching in middle school,regional knowledge is the main teaching content.The main learning contents about geography in compulsory education and Geography Compulsory III in high school are regional geographic knowledge;and some systematic geographic knowledge also depend on the region.Regions are the main objects of middle school geography teaching.According to the several aspects above,it is an important,basic problem in geography teaching research that how middle school geography education can teach students to learn a specific region in geographic thinking,to develop regional cognition.Until now,research about this aspect is quite little.To solve this problem,it still has to be back to geography itself to seek breakthrough.The regional thought is a specific way of thinking in which geographers analyze regional problems;and when human think regional problems,it restricts the direction and “technical route” of human's thinking.The basic performance of regional thought is to learn the surface of earth by regionalization,which is dividing the world into regions.From the teaching perspective,the regional thought plays an important,control role toward geography teaching;and it contains rich leading value.Analyzing the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teaching can solve the problem that how geography education can teach students to develop regional cognition effectively,reflect the unique value of regional geographic knowledge to the development of students,and also provide teachers with superior,systematic methodological basis which is helpful to control regional geography teaching.Consequently,analyzing the directional requirements toward geography teaching withregional thought systematically,which is the logic starting point,is an important,basic research subject.This paper focuses on four main topics.They are reorganizing the contents of regional thought which can be viewed as methodological basis toward geography teaching,analyzing the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teaching,consulting experts about the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teaching,and exploring teaching points about how to carry out the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teaching.1.Reorganization about the contents of regional thought which can be viewed as methodological basis toward geography teachingThere is very little literature that summarizes the regional thought systematically.As a result,the contents of regional thought are mixed with other contents in the vast geographic literature usually.Extracting the regional thought which can be viewed as methodological basis toward geography teaching from the complicated geographic literature has to grasp one fundamental direction particularly,which is “can be the methodological basis toward geography teaching”.The paper follows this train of thought:(1)determining the direction of reorganizing the contents of regional thought;(2)collecting the elements of regional thought;(3)organizing the elements of regional thought.Through a series of analysis,the paper summarized the contents of regional thought which can be viewed as methodological basis toward geography teaching.The summarization is: the regional thought includes two aspects,“dividing region” and “learning region”;“dividing region” also includes two aspects,“the nature of regionalism” and “the basic way to divide region”;“learning region” includes three aspects,“learning region from the perspective of scale” “learning region from the perspective of nature” and “learning region from the perspective of theme”.2.Analysis of the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teachingAccording to the two main aspects of regional thought —“dividing region” and “learning region”,this paper summarized 17 directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teaching.(1)The directional requirements with “dividing region” toward geography teachingThe directional requirements with “dividing region” toward geography teaching include two main aspects: the first,“regionalism” should be treated as one important teaching goal on progress and method in geography teaching;the second,geography teachers should guide students to pay attention to a region's scale and nature,teach students to learn a region from the perspective of scale and nature.(2)The directional requirements with “learning region” toward geography teachingThe paper holds that the methodological implications with “learning region” are mainly reflected in a series of “technical routes”,which are followed by geographers when they learn the four themes of region,regional location,regional geographical features,regional differences and inter regional links.This paper summarized 5 concrete directional requirements toward regional location teaching from three aspects,which are description of regional location,influence of regional location and evaluation of regional location;3concrete directional requirements toward regional geographical features teaching,with“distinguishing the significant signs and marks in a region” as a clue;3 concrete directional requirements toward regional differences teaching from two main aspects,which are the performances of regional differences and the reasons of regional differences;3 concrete directional requirements toward inter regional links teaching from three main aspects,which are the performances of inter regional links,the foundations of inter regional links and the functions of inter regional links.3.Expert consultations about the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teachingIn this study,we draw up a questionnaire,which is with “dividing region” and “learning region” as clues,to consult experts about the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teaching in Delphi method.Most of these directional requirements are confirmed highly by experts.Experts' disagreement focus on three aspects,which are“learning region from the perspective of shape” “explaining regional differences from the perspective of thermal differences” and “learning regional geographical features”.4.Exploration of teaching points about how to carry out the directional requirements with regional thought toward geography teachingAccording to the 17 directional requirements,the paper summarizes a series of teaching points with “dividing region” and “learning region” as clues.And it applies case analysis method.(1)Teaching points about how to carry out the directional requirements with “dividing region” toward geography teachingAccording to the 3 directional requirements with “dividing region” toward geography teaching,this paper summarize a series of teaching points,which include grasping the features of teaching situation suitable to teach students regionalizing,teaching students the structure of teaching materials,and so on.The paper also provides many relevant cases.(2)Teaching points about how to carry out the directional requirements with “learning region” toward geography teachingAccording to the 14 directional requirements with “dividing region” toward geography teaching,the paper provides 16 relevant concrete cases.These teaching points include: when teachers teach knowledge about description of regional location,they should choose picturesthat are complex,real,with some interference information;when teachers teach knowledge about influences of regional location,they should guide students to distinguish the directional point and responding domain of the question;when teachers teach knowledge about regional geographical features,they should choose some classic landscape pictures.