INDIVIDUALISED AND DIFFERENTIATED TASK USE IN THE GEOGRAPHY LESSON: A FEW TASK APPLICATION METHODOLOGY ASPECTS

Abstract

In Lithuanian general education schools, the main attention has to be drawn to a student in the students’ teaching/learning process, to his personality development. The student himself has to be an active teaching/learning process participant but not a passive listener in the lesson. Not only subject or general competencies, positive emotions are acquired when students actively take part in the lesson, do a particular task but also students are made to involve critical thinking into their activity. Not so few other general education subjects taught at school are integrated into geography subject teaching/learning programme. Learning geography, students very often have to use their history, biology, chemistry, physics, natural science and other subject knowledge. Every student’s individual abilities are also of quite a big importance learning geography. Seeking for the students to easier acquire the provided knowledge, learn to learn independently during geography lessons, be able to apply this knowledge in practice, it is important to concentrate students’ attention and activity, to encourage their creativity. It is very important for the students to learn to work individually and in a group. The most important thing is not only to acquire knowledge and general competencies but also learn to learn! Geography subject teaching is inseparable from information and communication technologies (ICT), which diversify geography teaching a lot. Using them, one can assign for the students to do practical tasks, their knowledge from geography subject can be checked. Also, it is very important that the use of ICT in the lesson allows students to acquire more self-confidence, because very often students carry out such tasks independently. Independent work task assignment in the lesson is very useful for those, who have less abilities. They need more time for carrying out the tasks. The tasks carried out independently during geography lessons, allow students to acquire geography knowledge and general competencies under favourable conditions, at a favourable pace of learning. Considering that not equal ability students take part in the lesson, it is important to model the lesson so, that all students successfully realise themselves in it, acquire the maximum knowledge and abilities. For that, it is necessary to individualise and differentiate the tasks for the students. The tasks have to be selected both for higher and lower ability students. Teaching geography, a few student individualisation and differentiation application methods are possible. It depends on whether a new teaching topic is given in the lesson, whether it is a revision, knowledge generalisation lesson. Individualised and differentiated tasks can be applied during the whole geography lesson. Students can be given individualised and differentiated tasks, doing concrete tasks, for example, during students’ independent work task. It is important to share the experience about the application of individualised and differentiated independent students’ work methods and tasks in the geography lesson, to reveal the importance of this method, seeking students’ geography subject and general competencies, taking into account students’ individual possibilities. In the article, geography lesson of this kind is given in the 6th form on the topic “Weather description”. Keywords: subject (geographic) and general competencies, teaching individualisation and differentiation.