Development of an integrated GIS and land use planning course: impacts of hybrid instructional methods

Abstract

This study reports an action research undertaken at Queensland University of Technology. It evaluates the effectiveness of the integration of geographic information systems (GIS) within the substantive domains of an existing land use planning course in 2011. Using student performance, learning experience survey, and questionnaire survey data, it also evaluates the impacts of incorporating hybrid instructional methods (e.g., in-class and online instructional videos) in 2012 and 2013. Results show that students (re)iterated the importance of GIS in the course justifying the integration; the hybrid methods significantly increased student performance; and unlike replacement, the videos are more suitable as a complement to in-class activity.

GIS&T pedagogies and instructional challenges in higher education: A survey of educators

“…Importantly, PBL approaches can emphasize both soft skills (e.g., group work, planning) and principal course themes (e.g., map reading, GNSS data collection and GIS integration, GIS analyses; Scheyvens, Griffin, Jocoy, Liu, & Bradford, 2008). Other research has highlighted the usefulness of writing assignments in teaching GIS&T concepts (Erlien, 2011), hybrid methods for teaching GIS&T principles that utilize selfpaced multimedia modules (Zerger, Bishop, Escobar, & Hunter, 2002;Kamruzzamen, 2014), and the effectiveness of massive open online courses (MOOC) in GIS&T instruction (Belgiu, Strobl, & Wallentin, 2015). Despite the success of PBL and related methods, questions remain about the most effective way of teaching GIS&T (Baker et al, 2012) and developing effective GIS&T curricula (Baker et al, 2015).…”

The Viability of a Bimodal Application of an Interactive-GIS-Tutor within Low-Resourced South African Schools

“…Therefore, within this learnercentred and teacher-centred learning tension, eISSN: 2788-9114 an interactive-GIS-tutorial might overcome the initial GIS implementation barriers and ease GIS adoption within developing countries (Fleischmann, van der Westhuizen, Cilliers 2015). In addition, the use of a hybrid of instructional methods, such as video clips and tutorials with interactive exercises was found to significantly increase student performance within Higher Education (Kamruzzman 2014).…”