Learning Through Maps and
Mapping Our Learning:
Fostering geo-literacy through the use of online,
interactive PuzzleMaps
Entry Task: Please Create a Name Tent
– Middle area: First name
– Upper left corner: Your
school/district & teaching
position
– Upper right corner: A place
you’ve traveled recently
– Lower left corner: A place you
want to go you haven’t been
before…
– Lower right corner: One of
your favorite places in the
world…
WSU, Literacy Ed. Prof. Japan
Sarah
Spain At home with my cats!
WSU, Science Ed. Prof. Japan
Jonah
Alaska Disneyland
(Feel free to add visuals!)
1. Ice breaker & introductions
2. About the geo-literacy research project
3. Pre-survey
4. What is geo-literacy and why is it
important?
5. Introduce PuzzleMap
6. Time to explore & write in travel
journals
7. Geo-literacy in your teaching
8. Closure
Agenda for Today’s Workshop
Ice Breaker & Partner Introductions:
How is Your Mental Map?
Be sure to find out the
following about your
fellow travelers:
• Name
• Teaching
Position/School/
District
• Grade(s)/Subject(s)
• Where your partner
wants to travel and
why…
You will introduce your
partner to the group.
Debrief
• How did this activity go for
you?
• How did you navigate our
collective mental world
map?
• Once you spoke to your
partner, did you find
yourself where you wanted
to be/thought you were?
Did you need to adjust?
• What did you learn through
this opening activity?
About us & the project…
Study Purpose
• Investigate how the use of
PuzzleMap may foster student
engagement with geography,
develop students’ geo-literacy, and
improve other related literacy and
STEM skills.
• Elucidate how working with online,
interactive tools such as PuzzleMap
and engaging in other related
learning activities can help foster
teacher and student interest in
geography, develop geo-literacy, and
potentially improve their language
arts and STEM skills.
Research Questions
• RQ1: How does the use of PuzzleMap foster
teacher and student engagement with
geography?
• RQ2: How does the use of PuzzleMap
improve the development of teachers’ and
students’ geo-literacy skills (i.e., locating
places on a map, looking for geographical
patterns, explaining the implications of
fluctuating temperatures on agriculture,
etc.)?
• RQ3: In what ways, if any, does the use of
PuzzleMap support the development of
other content skills, such as language arts
and/or STEM-related concepts (i.e., climate,
geology, measurement of distance,
understanding of coordinates, etc.)?
Invitation to Participate
•Invitation to participate
•Why I am
videotaping/taking photos
•Your participation is always
optional!
•Study Consent/Media
release forms will be
available
•We will not take your photo
or include you in any video
without consent
What Participation Entails
• Being willing to be a research participant and
signing a consent form
• Meeting with me and the other participating
teachers once a month, on the WSUTC campus,
for a 2-hour workshop
• Using PuzzleMap (PM) and trying out some of
the curricular activities we plan together with
your students between each of the workshops.
• Reporting back to the group on how things are
going with PM in your classroom
• Allowing me to observe your class using
PM several times over the course of the 6-
session fall/spring workshop series, and
possibly do some photographing or
videotaping of students (with their
parents’ permission, of course).
• $100 for each session attended, along with the
aforementioned understanding
• Payment in two lump sums, fall and spring, for
each workshop attended. Paperwork (WA State
Invoice and W-9 forms) will be completed during
the Dec. and March/April workshops
• Payments will be mailed to your home after that
• Possible clock hours…!
Compensation
Vision for this Project…
• Collaborative, Creative, Flexible!
• Think about and create learning activities
that connect to geo-literacy and using PM
• Time for you to learn, work, plan, & play
• By the end of the workshop series:
– More info about geo-literacy & what the
research says
– A variety of learning activities to draw from
– One new, collaboratively created PM to utilize in
your classroom
• 3-year plan
– Next year in-depth classroom study focusing
more on students
– Year 3, larger-scale study
Workshop Series Schedule
General Workshop Format
Tentative* General Structure
•Sharing/Reporting Out on Classroom
Activity
•Introduce a new curricular activity
•Planning/Work time
•Working groups –
• Each group plans curricular
connections/how they will use PM in
their teaching
• Each group creates the content for a new
PM that meets your curricular needs
*Opportunity for plans to evolve and
change
Goal Setting
• What are your goals for
participating in these
workshops?
• What are you hoping to
learn?
• What curricular content
are you hoping to connect
the use of PuzzleMap and
related activities to?
• Anything else you want to
share with me?
Outcomes for Today
1. Begin to develop an understanding of
geo-literacy
Explain to a colleague what geo-literacy is and
why it is important
2. Introduction of PuzzleMap as a tool for
teaching geo-literacy
Time to explore with PuzzleMap
3. Learn 3+ new ideas/concepts about the
region/map that you choose to work with
today
Add info to your pre-assessment map
4. Gain ideas for teaching geo-literacy
Leave with at least one idea for teaching with
Puzzlemap in your classroom
Pre-Survey
• Please use the following link (I will
also email it to you) to complete a
pre-survey that will serve as a
starting point for this study. The
survey asks about demographic info,
your background with
maps/geography/puzzles, learning
preferences, and about your
teaching.
• Link:
https://wsu.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/
SV_7W1ZQ64OsRvoB6Z
The 3 “I’s” of Geo-literacy
Interactions, Interconnections, Implications
Geo-literacy is more than pinpointing locations on a
globe. It is the ability to connect them with wider
issues…
• How can we gauge global climate change without a
mental map of normal temperatures?
• Or assess human encroachment on animal habitats
without knowing their environmental range?
• How can we understand the plight of immigrants or
refugees without understanding the places from which
they came?
Children (and adults) need geo-literacy skills more than
ever to critically analyze the news and the world around
them
EdSurge Article
Why geoliteracy?
8th grade geography scores from the 2014
National Assessment of Educational Progress
(NAEP):
– 48% - Basic - partial mastery of prerequisite
knowledge and fundamental skills
– 24% - Proficient - fundamental geographic
vocabulary and conceptual understanding
– 3% - Advanced - command of extensive
geographic knowledge, concepts and vocabulary
– Jay Leno Video
Curricular Connections
What is PuzzleMap?
An interactive, multimodal geo-literacy resource, full of
geospatial information that students can explore. It can serve as
a launching point for further investigation, reading, writing,
STEM, and social studies.
WSU Geo-literacy Study
“I like the challenging
feeling!”
~4
th
grader
https://tricities.wsu.edu/wsu-tri-cities-professor-partners-with-father-to-
develop-geography-classroom-technology/
“I can place all of the states on the
map in 1 minute and 40 seconds,”
said Divine Salazar, a fifth-grade
student at Marcus Whitman. “I even
got an app on my phone to study it
at home, too.”
Pre- and Post-Assessment
• 36 questions related to the climate,
landscape, economy, and people of America.
• 3 learning categories: conceptual, topological,
and spatial
• Questions ranged in difficulty:
–"Which U.S. state is the smallest in area?"
–"In which two states does the Mississippi
River begin and end?" which involves
assimilating knowledge in all three
categories.
Control Classroom
PuzzleMap Only
PuzzleMap + Social
Studies Curriculum
Student Perspectives
Teacher Perspectives
What is your mental map of…(you choose)
right now?
Identify and label as many geographical
features as you can in 10 minutes. This
can include countries, capitals, cities,
rivers, mountains, landmarks, points of
interest, info about people, plants, and
animals, and any other relevant
information. On the back, write down
anything you want to know or learn…
Share Your Mental Maps with others
Share your ideas with others who worked
on the same map… How did this activity
go?
Let’s get ready to explore!
After exploring,
you will write
down at least 3
new discoveries
that you made
today in your
travel journal
and teach others
about those
discoveries!
Time to…
Time to write in travel journals
Please write
down at least
3 new
discoveries
that you made
today in your
travel journal
and teach
others about
those
discoveries!
Give One, Get One Activity
Revisit your mental map of…(you choose)
What can you add after exploring today?
Identify and label as many geographical
features as you can. This can include
countries, capitals, cities, rivers,
mountains, landmarks, points of interest,
info about people, plants, and animals,
and any other relevant information. On
the back, write down any answers you
may have found to your questions!
Debrief
•I discovered…
•Yo descubrí…
•I wonder…
•Yo me pregunto…
•Now I want to
explore…
•Ahora quiero
investigar…
How will you use PuzzleMap in your
class this month?
Try it out and prepare to share your classroom
experiences next month!
How did we do with our outcomes?
1. Begin to develop an understanding of
geo-literacy
Explain to a colleague what geo-literacy is and
why it is important
2. Introduction of PuzzleMap as a tool for
teaching geo-literacy
Time to explore with PuzzleMap
3. Learn 3+ new ideas/concepts about the
region/map that you choose to work with
today
Add info to your pre-assessment map
4. Gain ideas for teaching geo-literacy
Leave with at least one idea for teaching with
Puzzlemap in your classroom
Workshop #2:: Teaching with PuzzleMap:
Curricular Connections (Nov. 12)
Please read/preview (in your binder):
Hinde (2005) – Revisiting Curriculum
Integration: A Fresh Look at an Old Idea
Please bring the following:
Laptop/Device (or you can use our
Chromebooks)
Your Social Studies, STEM, or LA
curriculum/Teacher’s Guidebook
related to the area you want to focus
on with PuzzleMap
Any other teaching materials you
want to think about in connection to
teaching geo-literacy and/or teaching
with PuzzleMap
sarah.newcomer@wsu.edu
