Students of pedagogical universities should be prepared for the activity of forming a scientific picture of the world. Such picture is built within the help of possession of interdisciplinary concepts and on the formed ability to find and reveal cause-and-effect relations in the surrounding reality. One of the elements in the system of preparing future teachers to fulfill the requirements regulated by the state and society is their involvement in educational discussions. Participation in discussions requires mastery of the conceptual apparatus and the complex of cause-and-effect relationships of the subject under discussion. The geographical disciplines in the institutions of general education are given importance, because on their material schoolchildren get spatial ideas about the surrounding reality. The aim of the paper is to present the possibilities of using educational discussions in the system of geography teacher training at a pedagogical university. Research methods: generalization of teaching experience and pedagogical design. Scientific novelty consists in the development of the topics of educational discussions on the basis of the standard methodology of their organization in the system of training future teachers of geography in the pedagogical university. The authors show acceptability ofthe application of educational discussions in introducing students to the problematic issues of the origin and history of the development of natural phenomena. These issues are included in the working programs of regional physical-geographical disciplines. The dynamics of tasks and topics of discussions from junior to senior courses is demonstrated. It is substantiated that the use of educational discussions in the process of preparing students of Pedagogical Education for their future professional activity is quite justified.

Keywords: scientificworldview, regional physical and geographical disciplines,discussion issues of geography and methodology of geography teaching, dynamics of assignments in discussion, competence forming.