THE EVALUATION OF MAPPING AND ITS EFFECTS ON LEARNING IN GEOGRAPHY LESSONS ACCORDING TO SOCIAL STUDIES STUDENTS

Abdullah Balciogullari

Abstract: The aim of social studies course is teach students especially their social and individual roles and responsibilities. It helps students to become productive and effective citizens by developing effective thinking skills. It also teaches students to look at global and social events under the light of information and technology. Geography is one of the leading disciplines in social studies undergraduate programs. In the Department of Social Studies Teaching, there are various geography lessons in undergraduate program as a compulsory course for the first three years. In order to be able to save geography lessons from recollection and to use available information, geographical skills should be applied and activities related to these should be done in the lessons. Practice in geography is more successful than in the theoretical direction. Consequently geography should be taught as a practical course. Geographical skills are very important in teaching geography. Various skills should be given to students in geography teaching. Map studies are the first of geographical skills. Geographical skills include activities related to maps and fieldwork. Within this context the main skills are; plans, maps, globes, atlases, coordinates, use of symbols and direction findings and in instruction of geography using mappings and globes, are necessity. Maps are crucial in geographical skills. Students should learn with a map, instead of learning about the map and learning the map. Maps are symbolic representations that facilitate configurationally understanding of the represented space. Maps enhance our geographic knowledge about the physical and social worlds, promote spatial thinking and spatial skills, facilitate abstract and logical reasoning, and support a wide range of thinking and problem-solving tasks. Once we can see a spatial structure on a map, we can start reasoning spatially by asking “how” and “why” questions. Mapping is traditionally a comprehensive representation scheme that provides the best motivation for systematic data collection, management and mapping. Making, using and reading maps is very important and compulsory and it requires an experience that includes many sub-skills. The use of maps embodies the events and rescues the student from memorization. Moreover the maps are remarkable and it embodies abstract situations by saving time. Even today, is observed that in Turkey still maps, tables and charts reading or interpretation is insufficient. One of the most important reasons for this is not to have enough time in schools to read and interpret maps. This study assesses the potential of this line of research to improve geography education

Keywords: social studies, geography, mapping, instruction

DOI: https://doi.org/10.15623/ijret.2017.0616001