Investigation And Research On Senior Middle School Students' Geography Learning Strategy

In the field of modern educational psychology, research on learning strategy holds an important position. However, up to now no generally recognized definitions about it have been established both at home and abroad. By synthesizing various views, in our opinion, leaning strategy refers to learners' cognition of learning tasks, application of learning methods and adjustment in learning process. Geography learning strategy is a process in which learners learn geography by using certain methods.In order to keep the research to the point, the writer of this thesis made an investigation in a large part of Taian city, through which five problems exist in geography learning strategy among the students in senior grades 1, 2 and 3, The problems are: lack of planning strategy; lack of thinking strategy; lack of motivation strategy; lack of self-monitoring strategy; lack of evaluation strategy.In the light of the above problems, this thesis intends to put forward two strategies: constructive strategy of cognitive structure and cognitive strategy in geography.Constructive strategy of cognitive structure is a psychological skill that the learners must grasp in the process of forming structures of geography knowledge. This thesis discussed nine kinds of "binding-bond" combined with geography cases. The nine forms of "binding-bond" are themain strategies in the construction of cognitive structure in geography.Cognitive strategy in geography is a kind of cognitive skill to refine the effects about geography materials and improve the effects of process in learning geography, and also a skill to control the learners' psychological process. Therefore, it is not only a learning method, but also a psychological mechanism to monitor and adjust the individual cognitive process. We divide cognitive strategy into simple strategy and complex strategy. Simple strategy includes repetition strategy, memorizing strategy; complex strategy consists of refining strategy, organizing strategy and monitoring strategy.Repetition strategy is concerned with the strategy with which to maintain the geography information in memory by reading and writing what has been learned repeatedly. Researches show that senior middle school students can utilize the strategy spontaneously, and so improve their repetition. Repetition strategy mainly includes elimination of interference timely revision over learning and so on.Memorizing strategy is the base to develop students' ability in geography learning. According to the features of the subject of geography some main memorizing strategies are brought forward: pattern memorizing strategy, meaning memorizing strategy, induction memorizing strategy, structure memorizing strategy, properly repeated memorizing strategy.Refining strategy can help learners store information in a long-time memory, which is carried out by establishing relations between all the information learned. Refining strategy can rationalize all the newinformation learned. In geography learning exist the following refining strategies: underlining, note-taking, converse processing, divergent thinking strategy. Studies show that Mcwhorter' s note-taking and Connell' s note-taking are the most effective.Organizing strategy is an important device to make the information change form complex simple, form disorderly to orderly. Organizing means arranging, classifying or encoding the materials according to their features or categories. Organizing strategy is an important form for information process. It is not only beneficial for memorizing and extraction materials, but can strengthen and improve the understanding and expressing ability of geography materials. Researches show that information organized in the form of pyramid is easy to memorize and extract the knowledge. Main organizing strategies contain classifying-arranging and summarizing-organizing. According to various ways of expressing, summarizing refers to outlining and mapping. These skills can help learners analyze the internal relations between geographical things,...