» Geography Teachers' Association of SA Inc.

Link to the 2007 AGM minutes

                   GTASA Annual General Meeting Friday 30th May 2008

President’s Report

 

As an association that is designed to serve its members, I believe that GTASA has been most successful in supporting the teaching of Geography during 2007-2008. It continues to be an active and vibrant collegiate support group thanks to a small but dedicated Executive Committee.

 

The Executive

 

There has been some turn over in the Executive and at the end of 2007 Andrew Lang left to venture overseas and John Holgate our Conference Convenor retired after organising  three conferences. We were also sad to lose our creative and very skilled Journal Manager, Ian Moyle. I would like to acknowledge the significant contribution these people have made and thank them for the great deal they have achieved.

 

 Fortunately for our association we have been very lucky with the two people who have taken up these key positions- Karen Patterson as Journal Manager and Chris Senior as Conference Convenor. The 2008 Executive members are Malcolm Mc Inerney (Immediate Past-President), Rita Shepherd (President), Alexandra Piggott (Vice-President), Peter Melnyk (Treasurer), Briar Newland (Secretary), Simon Miller (Minutes Secretary), Mellony Tassell, Andrew Penny, Clive West, Julian Cousins, Deb Lasscock, Fran Slater, Ross Johnson and Paul Whillas (country liaison). This relatively small committee is a vibrant and talented group who have given many hours of their personal time, outside of the formal committee meetings to work on sub-committee projects. Their contribution has been enormous to organising professional development activities, developing resources, managing our competitions and awards, interviewing for scholarships, organising meetings, managing the finances, representing our association on bodies such as CEASA and AGTA and promoting our association and its work. We are most grateful for their dedication and untiring work. One would find it hard to find a nicer group of people with which to work. They are fantastic. Special thanks goes to our retiring Secretary Briar Newland who has worked tirelessly in this role for over five years and her great organizational skills ensure that GTASA runs smoothly.

 

Professional Development Activities

 

Looking back over the last year since our conference in June, it is evident that much has continued to happen in the professional development arena. Spatial technology workshops have been held at Findon High and AdelaideUniversity while country members who have traditionally found it difficult to participate in PD are being assisted by a number of new initiatives. Hub-group one day workshops focussing on spatial technology have been held in regional areas. Thanks go to Deb Lasscock, Briar Newland, Malcolm McInerney and Ross Johnson who have been instrumental in providing in a variety of GIS training activities. Another ‘first’ for GTASA is the GIS training that that has been offered via the Centra technology system. Teachers scatted across the state have been taught via a virtual real time classroom. So great has been the success of this initiative that the pilot program from  term  3 was extended to offer further training in Term 4. More GIS training via Centra will be made available this year. The Centra based training has been a joint venture between the ABS, DECS and GTASA. We are please to be strengthening our links with other organisations to support Geography teachers. To this end,  FlindersUniversity and GTASA worked together to provide a free PD evening on September 5th  2007 that focussed on water issues. This topic was directly related to the Year 12 Course and proved to be popular with 47 teachers attending. Participants were provided with a DVD of resources and as the presentations were podcast, a DVD with sound track was made available to country teachers, including our colleagues in Darwin.  

 

In August another successful Year 12 student night was held at AdelaideUniversity with a record of 430 students listening to presentations on Population Issues, Water Resources and New approaches to Natural Resources Management. For a number of years now, AdelaideUniversity has worked with us to offer this free revision seminar to students. We are always appreciative of feedback from teachers and have tried to ensure that this year all the presentations are at the right level for year 12.

 

Unlike many other associations the PD opportunities we provide are in the main free to members. This is a significant value added benefit of membership.

 

Awards and scholarships.

 

In 2007 the Wilkins Prize was initiated  to acknowledge the practical contribution of students to environmental projects in the community. The winners were: Wyatt Green – WoodsidePrimary School( Junior Section), The Youth Environment Team from Waikerie Primary (Middle Years) and Mark Cawdron-White from ModburyHigh School (Senior Section). This competition is running again this year and we ask teachers to nominate their students so their efforts can be recognised.

 

 The DD Harris Teaching Scholarships for 2007 were awarded to Mark Rainbird and Tanya Hura from AdelaideUniversity. We congratulate the two recipients and look forward to their  contribution to geography teaching in South Australia. I would like thank Mellony Tassell, Andrew Penny and Simon Miller for coordinating the scholarships.

 

The association  is also offering a bursary to an individual member of GTASA who has been teaching for five years or less, to attend the AGTA Conference on the SunshineCoast during the October holidays.

 

We are immensely proud that our immediate Past-President, Malcolm McInerney,  was awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship to study Spatial Technology  Teaching. Malcolm travelled to Asia, Europe and North America to visit schools and other teaching facilities over a six week period.  His  ‘Spatial Worlds’ website is an essential one to consult for anyone wanting information and websites relating to GIS.

 

 Website

 The GTASA website is an important conduit of communication with members. Thanks to Malcolm McInerney, information is updated regularly. Those who join the email list receive information on useful teaching resources, websites and upcoming events. I encourage those of you who have not yet done so, to  register at the website for this service.

 

Products

 

As a key aim of GTASA is to support the teaching of geography, a number of products have been produced including the Tourism DVD set, Surfing Geographical and just released at the Conference, the Goolwa Map kit and Year 12 Study Guide. We thank Alexandra Piggott, Andrew Penny and Malcolm McInerney who have donated their intellectual property and time to the association to develop these teaching resources. The websites on the Surfing Geographical CD were provided  free to GTASA by Paul Pledger and are grateful for his generosity as well as the support we received from Mapland which provided the topographic map for the Goolwa kit at no cost to us.

 

The Status of Geography

 

GTASA is affiliated with The Australian Geography Teachers Association which is the peak body for geography teaching in Australia. We have been well represented on this body as Malcolm McInerney is the elected Vice-President, and Alexandra Piggott and I have regularly attended Board Meetings. AGTA in association with the Royal Geographical Society of Queensland and The Australian Institute of Geographers has

been lobbying politically to ensure that the worth of Geography as a discrete subject is acknowledged and that it is given its rightful place in the evolving National Curriculum. This has been very successful as the previous Liberal Education Minister, Julie Bishop commissioned a report into the Teaching of Geography in Years 3-10 in all schools Australia wide late in 2007.

 

GTASA prepared a response to the Erebus Enquiry on behalf of our members and we were pleased to see that substantial sections of our submission were included in the final report that was released earlier this year. What is most encouraging is that the value of Geography to all students has been acknowledged as the Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, announced in April that Geography would be included as a compulsory subject in the National Curriculum. Without this united lobbying we were likely to see the continuation of many disturbing trends of the past including geography being taught poorly by teachers with little or no specialist knowledge and skills and a decline in students studying our subject at senior levels.

 

As geography teachers we are all committed to ensuring that our students are taught in stimulating ways that encourage critical thinking, sound knowledge and heightened awareness of many current global, national and local issues that are unquestionably geographical in nature. As an association, I believe that GTASA in 2007-2008 has successfully supported teachers in this mission.

 

Rita Shepherd

May 29th 2008