Integrating story maps into case-based geography teaching

ABSTRACTThe use of story maps in high school regional geography is an emerging area of research. For this study Esri’s ArcGIS StoryMaps (EASM) was selected, and this article explores three aspects of the approach of integrating EASM in regional geography teaching: ‘selecting materials’, ‘organising content’ and ‘preparing chapters’. The article reports on both the feasibility of using EASM in this way, and how it was tested then evaluated through a survey and interviews with 147 students and 15 geography teachers in a Chinese high school. From this, it is concluded that EASM can serve as valuable teaching resources: they are easy to organise and set up through ‘chapters’ that enable storytelling about the case. Further, they allow for problem-based teaching, which can help promote a teacher-centred to student-centred shift. The approach proposed here may be useful to educators who are interested in teaching with story maps. AcknowledgementsI would like to thank the anonymous reviewers as well as the editors for their insightful and constructive comments.