Geography and Cartography with a view to Education

The study programme is a part of a double-subject programme and constitutes the first level of the university studies leading to a teaching qualification for secondary schools. The goal of the study is to provide general knowledge and give a good orientation in both study branches together with the basics of pedagogy and psychology. It should prepare graduates for the follow-up Master's study programme of Upper Secondary School Teacher Training in Geography and Cartography.

After successfully completing his/her studies the graduate is able to:

• understand basic terms from pedagogy and didactics
• understand actual trends in teaching
• to manage a classroom with help of the teacher
• to manage a classroom with help of the teacher
• understand basics of recent school politics and understand actual trends in education
• apply theoretical and methodological knowledge from the geographical fields of study: physical, social, regional.
• apply the knowledge and skills from geography and geoinformatics
• apply the basic methods of geographical research and statistic methods
• apply the critical thinking to deal with scientific geographical and cartographical issues

Graduates can use their skills in various positions in basic and applied research. Although they are not fully qualified for teaching, they can prepare special activities and seminars at primary and secondary schools (e.g. seminars for gifted students, preparation for the Olympiads and different competitions, or for entrance exams to higher education institutions). They can also get involved in the popularization of geography. Graduates can pursue their studies in the follow-up Master's study programme – to become fully qualified teachers of geography at secondary schools.

XS090 Initial teacher training

During the course student stays at the secondary school where, in both subjects of his study, he/she takes at least 7 lessons of sitting in the classes and 3x10-15 minutes of his own teaching (at least in three different lessons). Students stays at school a half day weekly for a period at least 6 weeks.

During the course students gets to know working at the secondary school, pedagogical documentation, he/she assists the teacher with preparing experiments, correcting homework and tests, etc., in the total range of 7 hours in both of the subjects of his study.

Main objectives can be summarized as follows: to get information on the practical teaching of the subject (sitting in the classes); to get basic acquirements with practical teaching; to get information on working at the secondary school.

Bachelor's thesis is processed from one of the study fields, by which the student demonstrates the ability to solve the problem of medium difficulty, including work with already published texts, processing, and interpretation of results and their presentation. The data used for the bachelor's thesis can be taken from another source (e.g. published reports) or obtained by own fieldwork or investigation. The thesis theme can be geographic or cartographic, targeted for the secondary school education, or from the second field of study programme. The topics of the bachelor's thesis are freely chosen by the student from the current topic list. The student asks the teacher who proposed the topic to assign a bachelor's thesis on the selected topic. The student can apply after obtaining 90 credits and successful completion of the course JA001 Examination in English for Specific Purposes - Science at the earliest. The Department of Geography registers and archives the assignment of bachelor's theses. The student can suggest the topic of his/her bachelor's thesis to any teacher of the Department of Geography or agree on this topic. In this case, the teacher proposes the topic of the bachelor's thesis for a specific student.

After the successful completion of the Bachelor's study programme, students can pursue their studies in any Master's study programme (after satisfying the admission requirements). At the Faculty of Science of MU – to become fully qualified teachers of geography at the secondary schools, students can apply for admission to an Upper-secondary teacher-training follow-up Master's degree programme.