GEOGRAPHY TUTORIALS
 
9. Show and Tell

This works well as an icebreaker and also works as a summing up exercise towards the end of a year or semester.

Gives students an early but easy opportunity to "speak in public", opens the way for discussions about how "Geography" can be found in all sorts of different things, and is good for opening up some non-academic common ground between members of the group.

 

This is a nice simple tutorial. In the preceding tutorial you ask students to come along "next time" with two things to show the rest of the group: one must be something related simply to one of their hobbies or interests and one must be something "Geographical". They will ask "What do you mean by 'Geographical?'" You can say it's up to them to decide, but that they'll need to explain the Geography when they show us whatever it is they bring.

You can help out (in the previous tutorial when you set the task) by doing an example show and tell of your own, but keep it short and be careful not to set to firm a template: part of the idea here is to get students to come back with a variety of ideas an approaches that will open up discussion, and to make them realise that speaking to the group about a topic is actually quite easy.

In the actual show and tell tutorial it usually works best to hurry them up through the first item (their hobbies) as a warmer-upper, and to leave more time after you've been around the room once on hobbies to go around more slowly and with more discussion on the "Geographical" items.

The opportunity then arises for the tutor (or the students, if it's later in the semester) to identify in each item something that relates to whatever are the key themes of your tutorial series.