Publicada por Lab. Territorio

Learning geospatial technologies in interdisciplinary environments: a rehearsal of innovative pedagogical approaches

During the years 2020 to 2023, a working group formed by researchers from several European universities carried out the project CROSSLAND - A new cross-disciplinary framework for studying the landscape over the long term (Erasmus+ KA2). The aim of the project was to test new pedagogical approaches related to the learning of geospatial technologies, particularly for a diverse audience from the point of view of the academic and multidisciplinary level. The central element of the project was the realization of a summer school in Santiago de Compostela, in July 2022, in which master's and doctoral students with different training profiles (archaeology, forestry engineering, geography...) faced an intensive week of cross-disciplinary collective work.
 
The pedagogical framework used was based on the scaffolding of epistemic discomfort, through the manipulation of four didactic elements that forced students to make autonomous decisions and share different conceptualizations of space and spatial analysis: group and cross-disciplinary work; the field visit as a way of getting familiar with the space; the use of theoretical seminars directed by the students themselves; the use of lab sessions focused on a portfolio of available methods and explained through solved examples, from which students can choose those that best suit their objectives. The results showed that an approach of this type allowed students to better understand the complexity facing spatial analysis and how the same reality can be focused and investigated through different combinations of perspectives and methods.
 
Vincenza Ferrara, Flor Álvarez-Taboada, Gert-Jan Burgers, Eduardo Corbelle-Rico, Miguel Cordero, Eduardo Dias, Anneli Ekblom, Stefanos Georganos, Jeff Howarth, Maurice de Kleijn, Tommaso La Mantia, Niels van Manen, Giovanna Sala, Rafael da Silveira Bueno, Philip Verhagen & Anders Wästfelt (22 Mar 2024): Scaffolding geospatial epistemic discomfort: a pedagogical framework for cross-disciplinary landscape research, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/03098265.2024.2333291 (https://doi.org/10.1080/03098265.2024.2333291 )