Problem-Based Learning, Debates, and Role-Play as Active Collaborative Pedagogies in Geography Education

In a rapidly changing information society, real geography learning experiences become increasingly important. In this regard, the quality of geography education is being linked more and more to the active involvement of geography learners in the learning process. Therefore, during the last two decades, the focus in geography education literature has been on the implementation of learner-centered, active pedagogies to help foster learners’ twenty-first-century learning skills such as problem-solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, creativity and self-directed learning. The adoption of active, learner-centered pedagogies embedded in constructivist approaches to learning will challenge geography learners to apply the acquired geography knowledge through pedagogical-didactic scenarios that include collaborative, experiential and situational learning. In these pedagogies, the geography teacher and learners must fulfill new roles. In this chapter, the focus will be on learner-centered pedagogies such as problem-based learning, debates and role-play that can help promote interaction between learners in geography education.