Assessment of Learning in Geography
© Beverley Paine, August 2007
[this article forms part of a series on Geography you can buy as a Practical Homeschooling booklet from Always Learning Books]
How do we know our children are learning? This is a huge question for many homeschooling parents and can often cause a great deal of anxiety. Often it isn't until we've been home educating for some time that we begin to relax and feel confident, impressed by our children's ability to learn even without explicit teaching or structured lessons. The home education environment is one that fosters and encourages a great deal of informal learning.
Until we reach that level of confidence however, there are things that we can do to help us know that are children are learning. I'm a fan of recording, especially in the early years of homeschooling. I liked to develop learning plans that covered what I thought essential in each subject area and developed a set of checklists that I could use as a reminder. With checklists I would place a tick and date for 'first covered', 'revision', and 'mastered'. It might be months, or even years, between the first and last dates!
In general terms, progress in geography is characterised by:
- an increasing interest in how location affects how people live and how people adapt and change their environment; this may be shown by
- making comparisons between life at home situations and those of friends or others,
- independently following up an activity with another related activity,
- talking or asking questions about environmental issues
- commenting on news and current affairs items
- creating a model of something they've experienced, read about or seen in a movie
- role playing using props characters from history
- starting a KESAB project
- sustained study of areas of interest
- gradual increase in use of geographic terminology in every day contexts
- movement from focus on local issues and situations, to community, regional, national, continental, and global focus
- an increased depth of study; the gradual development of general ideas and concepts, such as the causes of erosion, or patterns of migration
- a deeper understanding of complex processes, patterns and relationships; this may be shown by
- comparison between the trails that wild animals make, ants make and patterns of human transportation
- asking about how milk gets from the cow to the factory that makes cheese
- the link between whirlies and tornadoes and what causes them
- make hypothesis and test them to create generalisations; this may be shown by
- suggest that water erodes, test by pouring water on a sand castle and other methods
- suggest halos around the sun mean a weather change is coming, using a chart to record halos and subsequent weather effects
- an increasing understanding and use of scale appropriate to the task at hand
- demonstrating an increasing understanding of how to use and create increasingly complex maps
- understanding and ability to use and create diagrams, charts, tables, graphs, etc to present and interpret information
- development of research and inquiry based skills pertinent to geography studies
- increase in ability to make inferences and create links from information to build relationships and concepts; this may be shown by
- a hot sunny day means a hat and sunscreen must be worn
- warm sea temperatures in the Pacific Ocean may create an El Nino effect which might result in drought in Australia and floods in Chile
- if cows get milked later because of daylight saving
- the ability to take into consideration other points of view, empathy and respect for diversity of opinion, culture, religion and how these and other factors affect the daily lives of people and their interaction with the environment
- a growing interest in applying geography skills to every day life tasks to help achieve personal and group goals.
Was this article helpful? Was it worth $1.00 to you?
Your gift of $1 or more helps to keep this site operating
offering encouragement
and reassurance to families
wanting
better outcomes for their children.
Beverley Paine with her children, and their home educated children, relaxing at home.
Together with the support of my family, my aim is to help parents educate their children in stress-free, nurturing environments. In addition to building and maintaing this website, I continue to create and manage local and national home educating networks, help to organise conferences and camps, as well as write for, edit and produce newsletters, resource directories and magazines. I am an active supporter of national, state, regional and local home education groups.
"You've been an inspiration to me, I love the way
you really listen to people." Vanessa
"Whenever I read your writing I always come away
with increased confidence in my ability to provide and
share a wonderful learning journey with my family!" Davina
"Your guidance, understanding, support and words of
wisdom changed our lives. We now offer support and
organise many homeschooling events for others." Lesley
"Thank you once again for your prompt and friendly service.
I am convinced that your books are going to add
quality and peace of mind to my journey of teaching my kids
at home! Just from studying your website, until almost
2am
in the morning, I 've been encouraged!" Louisa
"Thank you for all your many,many reassuring words
over many, many years. You probably don't know exactly how
valuable you are to the Australian Home Education community.
I've been reading your stuff for maybe 8 years or more now.
And I'm very grateful." Gythaa
CLICK HERE
if you want to learn
how to write your own education plans
to suit
your unique children's
individual learning needs?
Or you are looking for quality curriculum and teaching tips...
|
|
Welcome to the World of Home Education
and Learning without School!
We began educating our children in 1985, when our eldest was five. In truth, we had helped them learn what they need to learn since they were born. I am a passionate advocate of allowing children to learn unhindered by unnecessary stress and competition, meeting developmental needs in ways that suit their individual learning styles and preferences. Ours was a homeschooling, unschooling and natural learning family! There are hundreds of articles on this site to help you build confidence as a home educating family. We hope that your home educating adventure is as satisfying as ours was! Beverley Paine
3 ESSENTIAL STEP BY STEP GUIDES
Let experienced home educators Beverley, Tamara and April walk you through HOW to create a learning plan that builds on solid foundations that works for YOUR family AND ticks all the boxes for home educaton registration!
|
Tap into Beverley's
experience
through her books
"Your books, your blogs helped me beyond words... they helped me to find comfort in knowing it is ok to choose exactly what is best for my family." Nisha
"Your books and information are mind blowing and already I am feeling good about this new experience." Diane
"Your guidance, understanding, support & words of wisdom changed our lives." Leslie
"I feel specially inspired by Beverley's words and, the more I read her comments, the more inspired I feel, since my need for support, respect for different parenting styles, and information are fully met." Marijo
|
|
|
The information on this website is of a general nature only and is not intended as personal or professional advice. This site merges and incorporates 'Homeschool Australia' and 'Unschool Australia'.
The Educating Parent acknowledges the Traditional Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Owners, the Custodians of Australia, and pay our respects to Elders past and present and extend that respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people viewing this website.
Advertise on this site.
Australia's premier online annual conferences, lifetime access to video and audio recordings, freebies, notes and associated resource guides.
EVERY SUMMIT IS UNIQUE!
$29 each 2023 2022 2021
$25 each 2020 2019 2017
"Biggest and best Aussie homeschool event of the year!"
Home education is a legal alternative
to school education in Australia.
State and Territory governments are responsible
for regulating home education and have different
requirements, however home educating families
are able to develop curriculum and learning programs
to suit the individual needs of their children.
Without revenue from advertising
by educational suppliers and Google Ads
we could not continue to provide information
to home educators. Please support us by letting
our advertisers know that you found them on
The Educating Parent. Thanks!
|