Designing the heuristic lesson «Nature – man – society: neo-determinism in geography» for geographical specialties of general higher education

Abstract

 The article presents a methodological development of a cognitive-type heuristic lesson «Nature – man – society: neo-determinism in geography» for the final generalisation of courses in physical geography of continents (the world). The relevance of the work is due to the need for students to develop critical thinking and interdisciplinary synthesis skills within the framework of the dialogic model of education. The class is based on the pedagogical technology of heuristic learning and focuses on the evolution of the theory of geographical determinism to neo-determinism. The key idea of the lesson is to model the activities of a «geographical detective» when students create a literary essay analysing an object of cultural heritage in search of a «geographical footprint» which is the influence of environmental factors on the formation of an object. The stages of the lesson, the methods used (hermeneutic analysis, reverse modelling, and others), evaluation criteria, and heuristic potential are described. A conclusion was drawn that this form of a lesson serves as an effective didactic «bridge» between physical and socio-economic geography, contributing to the development of a holistic scientific worldview and meta-subject competencies.