presented in this way, because it has many advantages, creating conditions for teachers to be proactive in the teaching process, students can easily find essential signs through definitions or characteristics. At this time, teachers only need to guide students to prove those signs with specific examples.
However, the formation of geographical and socio-economic geography concepts for students in general schools does not only follow an inductive or deductive method. To achieve optimal results, depending on each concept and each lesson, teachers must apply a combination of both methods in the most appropriate way.
In the process of forming the concept of geography and socio-economic geography for students, scientists agree that it can be divided into several stages. In the book " Methods of teaching geography in high schools " [Source: Nguyen Giang Tien - 21, pp. 89-93], the group of authors edited by LMPanchecnikova in 1983 divided it into 3 stages as follows:
- Stage 1 : State a new concept, determine the essential signs of the concept. This stage is carried out when studying a new topic or chapter in which the concept appears for the first time. To determine a concept, it is necessary to detect the essential signs of the concept, determine what type of concept it belongs to. In some cases, the concept formed at some stages is only elementary, because the generalization is only carried out on the basis of some symbols, so the acquired signs may not help distinguish the essential and non-essential of the concept.
- Phase 2 : Expand the capacity of that concept, find more related events and new objects, to deepen the concept. In this phase, students can state the characteristics of the object by deductive or inductive methods.
- Phase 3 : Put the learned concepts into a certain group, discover the relationships between the concepts in the same group and the concepts of other groups to which they are related.
To effectively form geographical concepts for students, in the process of teaching and learning Geography, teachers need to pay attention to the following issues:
- Must pay attention to students' self-study methods, students know how to work actively, independently, and develop scientific thinking.
- Must have accurate symbols and detect essential signs of the concept. Avoid overemphasizing individual signs, the generalization process must correct one-sided symbols.
- When consolidating and deepening concepts, knowledge about essential signs must be repeated accurately and generalized several times.
- Attention should be paid to students' existing knowledge, skills, experience and interdisciplinary knowledge.
- The teacher plays the role of organizing, directing, and guiding students to actively participate in activities to acquire knowledge.
Finally, it should be noted that defining the content of a concept is not entirely a definition. There are concepts that can be defined, and there are concepts that can only be characterized or can be generalized with a diagram. Students can not only define the concept and characterize it, but also see the relationship in the essential signs of the concept.
1.1.4. Approaching active teaching methods
1.1.4.1. Concept of active teaching methods
Active teaching methods (PPDHTC) are used to mean active activities, as opposed to inactive and passive. PPDHTC aims to activate students' cognitive activities, meaning to promote the positivity and initiative of the learner, not just to promote the positivity of the teacher.
1.1.4.2. Basic characteristics of active teaching methods
- Teaching enhances self-confidence, positivity, initiative and creativity through organizing and implementing learning activities of students . Learners - the main
The body of the "learning" activity is attracted to learning activities organized and directed by the teacher, through which they can independently discover things they do not understand, instead of passively receiving knowledge arranged by the teacher. Placed in real-life situations, learners directly observe, discuss, conduct experiments, and solve problems according to their own thinking, thereby both grasping new knowledge and skills and grasping methods to "create" that knowledge and skills, not following existing patterns, revealing and promoting creative potential. Teaching in this way, teachers not only simply impart knowledge but also guide actions.
- Teaching and learning focus on training and promoting students' self-study ability . PPDHTC considers training students' learning methods not only as a measure to improve teaching effectiveness but also as a teaching goal. In learning methods, the core is self-study method. If learners are trained with methods, skills, habits, and will to self-study, it will create in them a love of learning, awaken their inherent inner strength, and learning results will be improved. Therefore, today people emphasize the learning activity aspect in the teaching and learning process, trying to create a shift from passive learning to active self-study .
- Differentiated teaching combined with cooperative learning . In a class where students' knowledge and thinking levels are not equal, when applying the cooperative learning method, it is necessary to accept the differentiation in intensity and progress of completing learning tasks, especially when the lesson is designed as a series of independent tasks. The higher the level of the cooperative learning method, the greater the differentiation.
However, in learning, not all knowledge, skills, and attitudes are formed through individual independent activities. The classroom is an environment for teacher-student and student-student communication, creating cooperative relationships between individuals on the path to mastering learning content. Through discussion and debate in the group, each individual's opinion is revealed, affirmed or rejected, thereby raising the learner to a new level.
- Combine teacher assessment with peer assessment and self-assessment . Diverse assessment activities: formal and informal assessment; qualitative and quantitative assessment; assessment by results and by expression of attitudes and feelings; assessment through introduced products and orientation for developing social relationships.
Previously, teachers had the exclusive right to evaluate students. In the independent learning method, teachers must guide students to develop self-assessment skills to adjust their learning methods. Related to this, teachers need to create favorable conditions for students to participate in evaluating each other, self-assess correctly and adjust activities promptly. Testing and evaluation should not only require students to reproduce knowledge and repeat learned skills, but also encourage intelligence and creativity in solving real-life situations.
- Enhance the ability and skills to apply in practice , suitable for
thing
actual conditions of facilities, teaching staff, students' abilities and existing conditions. Use modern teaching aids and equipment when possible.
- Bring joy, create interest in learning for students to achieve high efficiency ; increase positivity, initiative, creativity; increase self-study ability; increase confidence; increase ability to cooperate in learning and working; increase opportunities to be evaluated; high quality, effective teaching.
In short, from passive teaching and learning to active teaching and learning, teachers no longer play the role of simply imparting knowledge, teachers become designers , organizers, and guides of independent or small group activities so that students can independently master the learning content, proactively achieve knowledge, skills, and attitude goals according to the program's requirements. In class, students are the main actors, teachers seem to be more leisurely, but before that, when preparing lesson plans, teachers had to invest effort.
It takes a lot of effort and time compared to the passive teaching and learning style to be able to carry out the lesson in the role of a promoter , catalyst, motivator, advisor, guide, and referee in the exciting exploration and debate activities of students. Teachers must have deep and broad professional qualifications and skilled pedagogy to be able to organize and guide students' activities, which often develop beyond the teacher's expectations.
1.2. PRACTICAL BASIS
1.2.1. Overview of natural, socio-economic and cultural characteristics affecting education in Bac Kan province
Bac Kan is a province re-established in 1997, including 1 town and 07 districts. The natural area of the province is 4,857.2 km 2 . The location of the province is deep in the Northeast region, bordering Thai Nguyen, Cao Bang, Lang Son, Tuyen Quang provinces. Located between the Gam River arc and the Ngan Son arc, the terrain is mainly high mountains, higher than the surrounding provinces.
The population of Bac Kan province is 298,900 people, with a low population density of 62 people/km2 . The population is more concentrated in towns, near roads, and in sparsely populated mountainous areas. The population mainly lives in rural areas in villages, and the urban population accounts for only 15.06% of the province's population (in 2005).
Thus, in the highlands and remote areas of the province, the terrain is rugged, transportation is difficult, the population is sparse, while the number of high schools is small, many districts only have one high school, making it difficult for students to go to school.
Bac Kan has many ethnic minorities: Tay, Nung, Dao, San chay, H.Mong, ... The largest of which is the Tay (60.4% of the population - 1999). Each ethnic group has its own identity, but there are still some common characteristics such as strict division of labor in the family, children also help with work.
family, thus limiting the study time of students. Some ethnic minorities have low educational level, many bad customs exist, many school-age children get married early, which has affected the number of students at high school level.
The province’s economy has had many positive changes since its re-establishment towards industrialization. However, the economic restructuring is still slow, industry and services are small, the economy mainly relies on agriculture, forestry and is self-sufficient. Technical facilities and infrastructure are underdeveloped, the lives of ethnic minorities in the province face many difficulties.
According to the Bac Kan Provincial Statistics Office, although the province's per capita income increased, in 2005 it only reached 215 USD/person.
The differentiation in quality of life by territory in Bac Kan is quite clear. The living standards of ethnic minorities in the highlands and remote areas are still low and quite far behind those in the lowlands and urban areas.
Besides the above difficulties, Bac Kan also has certain advantages, that is, the State has paid attention to investing in Bac Kan in many aspects, especially investing in the cause of education and training. There is a preferential treatment regime for cadres and teachers working in mountainous areas, area 135, ... supporting ethnic minority students with books, notebooks, school supplies, supporting funding for literacy classes, universal classes, opening vocational training classes, contributing to improving the quality of education and training in the province.
1.2.2. Psychological and cognitive characteristics of 10th grade high school students in Bac Kan province
1.2.2.1. Psychological characteristics
From the practical life and teaching at high schools in Bac Kan province and through direct investigation and interviewing of Geography teachers and 10th grade high school students in the province, we have drawn some psychological manifestations of high school students in Bac Kan province as follows:
High school students in the province also have common characteristics of adolescence. This is the period when they develop strongly physically, mentally, and intellectually. The appearance of new elements of adulthood is due to changes.
of the body, self-awareness of relationships with adults, with friends, with learning activities, so it also affects the learning process of children.
In addition, the psychology of high school students in Bac Kan province also has its own characteristics. In terms of learning psychology, they are not well prepared, many students have not determined the right motivation for learning, the change in learning is still slow, manifested by laziness, not really trying to study, so the results are not high.
The prominent psychological characteristics of many high school students in the province are inferiority complex, high self-esteem, and easily offended. They often live a closed life, are afraid to communicate, afraid to express themselves, especially among some ethnic minority students whose Vietnamese language is still limited.
The above psychological characteristics have affected learning in general and Geography in particular, affecting the communication of scientific language of Geography between teachers and students, between students and society. Therefore, in the process of teaching Geography, teachers need to find measures to improve the quality of teaching and learning.
1.2.2.2. Cognitive characteristics
For high school students in Bac Kan province, many students have not yet determined their motivation and purpose for studying, leading to neglect and coping in their studies. Especially for Geography, which is considered a secondary subject, they have not yet seen that learning geographical knowledge has important meaning in their practical life.
Regarding thinking : most of the students in the province are weak in abstract thinking, especially analytical and synthetic thinking, which limits their cognitive ability. The highlight is that they are afraid to think, or think not deeply when learning the lesson. Many students do not even understand the lesson, but do not know what they do not understand, often think one-sidedly, are not quick and flexible, and often mechanically follow what the teacher has done. The students' concrete thinking ability is better than abstract, logical thinking. Therefore, in the teaching process, teachers should take advantage of concrete thinking to guide students to understand abstract thinking.
Use visual aids in teaching and learning such as maps, pictures, specimens, or take examples close to students' lives.
Regarding the level of attention : at this level of education, intentional and sustainable attention is gradually formed. On the other hand, attention is easily distracted and unstable when communicating, especially in formal classes. Some students have the phenomenon of "fake attention", which is formal attention to follow discipline but in fact students do not concentrate on the lesson. Therefore, in the teaching process, teachers need to pay attention that the lecture should not be long-winded and monotonous and must know how to combine with teaching aids to attract students' attention, and apply teaching methods so that students are actively involved in class. On the other hand, teachers can organize extracurricular learning activities to explore the locality to develop purposeful attention for students.
Regarding memory : Most high school students in Bac Kan have unstable memory, learn first and forget later or remember vaguely and inaccurately, leading to confusion in the process of applying knowledge. To increase knowledge retention in a sustainable way for students, teachers need to teach students logical memory skills, know how to find support for memory, create outlines, create systematized tables to train students in skills and habits of presenting learned content.
Thus, the psychological and cognitive characteristics of high school students in Bac Kan have many limitations that greatly affect the acquisition of geographical knowledge and socio-economic geography concepts. Therefore, the application of teaching methods to promote the initiative and positivity of students and overcome the limitations and necessary tasks for geography teachers to improve the quality of teaching and learning geography and socio-economic geography concepts in high schools in Bac Kan province.
1.2.3. Current status of teaching and learning Geography and socio-economic geography concepts in grade 10 high school in Bac Kan province
1.2.3.1. Teaching situation of Geography teachers
In recent years, along with the Education and Training sector of the whole country, the Education and Training sector of Bac Kan province has made many efforts to
Implementing innovation in teaching methods, especially from the 2006-2007 school year, the first year of changing the 10th grade high school textbooks. The new textbooks have many changes in both content and form, the books are presented in an "open" format, creating favorable conditions for teachers and students in the teaching and learning process.
Through the results of direct observation, discussion, using interview forms for Geography teachers in high schools and through the results of Geography teacher inspection by the Department of Education and Training, we draw some comments on the actual teaching situation of Geography teachers in high schools in Bac Kan province as follows:
+ Regarding the teaching staff: the majority of Geography teachers in high schools in the province were trained at Thai Nguyen University of Education. In general, teachers are dedicated to their profession, enthusiastic about teaching, and are aware of participating in training courses to improve their professional qualifications. However, due to the lack of facilities in many schools, the lives of many Geography teachers are still difficult, and the opportunities to access new teaching methods and information media, books, and newspapers are limited. Therefore, many teachers have not regularly innovated teaching methods in line with the development trends of society. Through investigation and survey, the majority of teachers today still mainly use traditional teaching methods in teaching and learning Geography. The methods that teachers often use are the method of explaining, presenting, and using the map method. The use of traditional methods is essentially the teacher lecturing - students listening, the teacher writing on the board - students copying into notebooks, the teacher pointing at the map - students looking, the teacher asking - students answering; Teachers actively convey prepared lesson content, students passively receive and memorize the content that teachers convey and combine it with answering the questions raised by teachers. The use of visual aids has little effect on promoting students' positivity. Many geography teachers use maps only as an illustration tool, not paying due attention to guiding students on measures and operations when exploiting geographical knowledge from maps. Therefore, many students do not know how to read maps, cannot determine the location of geographical objects on maps and have not exploited geographical knowledge from maps.
Currently, some Geography teachers have tried to use some active teaching methods such as group discussion, but the organization for students to implement is still confusing and formal, leading to the ineffectiveness of this method. Methods using modern technology such as electronic lesson plans are almost not implemented, because the school's facilities (projectors, subject classrooms) do not exist, or if they do exist, teachers are reluctant to use them. Methods of field surveys and ways to guide students in collecting and processing information are still limited.
On the other hand, many teachers lack reference materials when preparing lesson plans, have not invested much, some lesson plans are just coping, the following year they copy the old lesson plans of the previous year without any changes or additions. According to the results of the assessment of Geography teachers in the 2007-2008 school year by the Department of Education and Training, most lesson plans are sketchy and some teachers have up to 30% of low quality lesson plans, not clearly demonstrating teaching methods.
Regarding the situation of teaching socio-economic geography concepts: most teachers still use traditional methods when teaching concepts, which are the presentation and explanation methods, and students passively absorb concepts. Most teachers teach socio-economic geography concepts in the direction of informing basic knowledge without clearly and fully defining the essential signs of the concept. Teachers have not yet deeply understood the essential signs of the concept and have not guided students to apply knowledge to expand the concept. Students are rarely active. It can be said that teachers have not properly applied the concept formation process in the teaching process, so students have not really been active and proactive in mastering the concept, and thus students have not fully understood the concept.
The results of the classification of teaching hours of Geography teachers through inspections by the Department of Education and Training of Bac Kan in the 2007 - 2008 school year are as follows:
- Total inspection periods: 14 periods. Classification:
+ Good: 1 period
+ Good: 9 periods
+ Average: 4 periods
+ Not qualified: 0 hours
There are many reasons leading to the above situation. We conducted an investigation and survey of 30 Geography teachers in 13 high schools (out of a total of 34 teachers in 15 schools, 2 schools have not been interviewed, Quang Khe High School and Yen Han High School) in Bac Kan province. The results are as follows (Table 1.1):
Table 1.1. Number of Geography teachers interviewed at high schools in Bac Kan province
TT
High School Name | Total GV | Ethnicity (DT) | ||||
Terrible | Tay | Nung | Other DT | |||
1 | Bac Kan Town | 4 | 2 | 2 | ||
2 | Ba Be | 4 | 4 | |||
3 | Binh Trung | 1 | 1 | |||
4 | Bo Bo | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
5 | Don Market | 3 | 3 | |||
6 | New Market | 4 | 1 | 2 | 1 | |
7 | Specialized in Bac Kan | 2 | 2 | |||
8 | Na Ri | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
9 | Na Phac | 1 | 1 | |||
10 | Boarding | 1 | 1 | |||
11 | Ngan Son | 2 | 2 | |||
12 | Cover | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||
13 | Yen Han | 1 | 1 | |||
Total: | 30 | 6 | 18 | 5 | 1 | |
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The table above shows that the number of Geography teachers in high schools in the province is very small, some schools have only one Geography teacher. This is also a cause affecting
affecting the quality of teaching Geography, because teachers do not have the opportunity to exchange expertise with colleagues to gain experience to improve their professional qualifications. On the other hand, a teacher has to teach many classes in all three grades 10, 11, 12, so he has to prepare many lesson plans, leading to not much time invested in preparing each lesson plan and teachers do not have the conditions to invest in teaching aids, which has affected the quality of teaching and learning Geography.
Through investigation and interviewing Geography teachers about the factors that have affected the quality of teaching and learning Geography and the formation of socio-economic geography concepts for 10th grade students of Bac Kan high school, we have summarized the following results:
Table 1.2. Results of interviews with Geography teachers at high schools in Bac Kan province
TT
Interview content | Result comment (%) | |
1 | Students are still weak in abstract thinking ability. | 90.0 |
2 | Vietnamese language is still limited in many ethnic minority students. minority | 60.0 |
3 | Students do not have appropriate learning methods. | 83.3 |
4 | Students' learning motivation is unclear | 63.3 |
5 | Students lack school supplies | 80.0 |
6 | The student's family's economic situation is difficult. | 66.7 |
7 | Teachers do not have appropriate teaching methods | 20.0 |
8 | Teachers are not really passionate about their profession. | 6.7 |
9 | Teachers lack reference materials and teaching theory materials. | 86.7 |
10 | Teachers lack teaching aids and equipment. | 83.3 |
11 | Secondary school students' geographical knowledge foundation is still weak. | 83.3 |