Getting the most out of your

introductory courses

Workshop at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union

December 16, 2014

Conveners: Anne Egger and Dave Dempsey

One of a series of workshops on

Teaching Introductory Geoscience in the 21st Century

Why Anne is here

• San Juan College

– Science Gen Ed that wasn’t biology or

chemistry

– Very low basic skills

• Stanford University

– Desperately trying to recruit into the major

– Serve needs of engineering programs

• Central Washington University

– Gen Ed and recruitment

– Pre-service teachers a large part of the

audience

Why Dave is here

• No good deed goes unpunished

• He has been on the front lines of revising and updating introductory courses at SFSU

• He brought the clickers…

Why are you here?(Choose one answer)

I would like to…

a. …improve my own introductory course

b. …improve my department’s introductory

course offerings

c. …learn more about teaching in general

d. …do something other than go to talks and

posters

Why you’re here: Themes from SWOT analyses

• You strive for relevance

• You want to engage your students

• You want to incorporate active learning strategies

• You want to recruit students into your department

Goals for this workshop I:

On the Cutting Edge and NAGT

• Help you get the most out of your introductory course(s) by making them better

• Learn more about what resources you need to be successful in improving your courses

Goals for this workshop II:

What we hope to accomplish

• Analyze your introductory

course(s) in its context of

your own institution;

• Share and discuss

effective strategies for

introductory courses;

• Explore recently developed web resources and

successful strategies for introductory courses;

• Develop an action plan for making change

beyond the workshop.

What’s in your 21st century toolbox for

you as a scientist?

• Google Earth: easy access to imagery

and maps of the entire world. From my

desk.

• Lidar: High-resolution topography for

incredibly detailed mapping and

analysis.

• Skype, Google Hangout: Free tools that

facilitate collaboration.

• Data, data, data, data

What’s in your 21st century toolbox for

you as a teacher?

• Lots of research on learning to inform what I do in the classroom

• Easy access to web and data to engage students

• Easy access to web to share resources with other faculty and instructors

• Learning technologies

• Critical issues facing society: lots of teachable moments

Plan for the day

• Discuss some background, guiding

documents, and the research on learning

• Revisit the SWOT analysis: big group,

individuals, small groups

• A parable of progress

• Work time to develop an action plan

Guiding documents: The literacies

Background and guiding documents

Background and guiding documents

Background and guiding documents

Guiding documents: The standards

Background and guiding documents

Key themes

• Emphasis on human interactions with Earth

– How Earth affects us (hazards, climate)

– How we affect Earth (sustainability, climate)

• Emphasis on engaging in the process of science

– Science and engineering practices and learning by doing

– Techniques and tools that Earth scientists use

Why does this matter for us in post-secondary

education?

Background and guiding documents

Some statistics

• In 2011, 103,992 students obtained Bachelor’s

degrees in education in the US (compared to

4671 in geosciences)

• About 60% of those degrees were in elementary

education

• As of 2002, 83% of practicing elementary

teachers had at least 1 semester course in

Earth science

– Better than chemistry (53%) and physics (62%)…

– …but not as good as life science (92%)

• But perhaps even more important…

Background and guiding documents

54% had ONE course

It could have been yours!

Background and guiding documents

Our introductory and general

education courses better be really

good:

They may be the only opportunity that

future teachers and citizens have to

learn about Earth.

Background and guiding documents

How do we make them really good?

• Approach teaching with the same rigor

as scientific research.

• Use “active learning strategies that to

engage students in the process of

science and teaching methods that

have been systematically tested and

shown to reach diverse students.”

Research on learning

Handelsman et al., 2004, Science

Active learning is…

a. …homework.

b. …what takes place when students

listen to a lecture.

c. …any method that engages students in

the learning process.

d. …a hands-on laboratory or field

exercise.

e. …also called kinesthetic learning.

Research on learning

Handelsman et al., 2004, Science

Active learning is…

a. …homework.

b. …what takes place when students

listen to a lecture.

c. …any method that engages students in

the learning process.

d. …a hands-on laboratory or field

exercise.

e. …also called kinesthetic learning.

Research on learning

Handelsman et al., 2004, Science

Uh oh.

Research on learning

How do I learn these tested teaching

methods that engage students in the

learning process?

Collected research on learning

Research on learning

All freely downloadable from the National Academies Press:

http://nap.edu

Key findings• Students come in to our classes with

preconceptions, not blank slates

• Students must have the opportunity to develop a conceptual framework that facilitates retrieval and builds on deep knowledge

• A metacognitive approach helps students monitor their own learning and become better learners

• Promising practices:

– Developing (and using) learning outcomes

– Engaging students in activities during class, in groups

– Organizing content in scenarios, with context

– Get and give feedback with formative assessment

Research on learning

How many active learning strategies

have we already used today?

a. 0

b. 1

c. 2

d. 3

e. 4

At least two:

• Classroom response systems (aka clickers)

• Think-pair-share

Kind of a third:

• Just-in-time-teaching (JITT)

More to come:

• Gallery walk

(Does everybody else know

about these but me?)

No.

And many resources are already

developed to help you.

Research on learning

Efforts underway

Key findings about research on learning

+

Key themes in geoscience literacy

+

Resources for reaching diverse students

=

Opportunities for engaging all students

HOW CAN YOU TAKE ADVANTAGE OF

THESE OPPORTUNITIES?

Start by analyzing your course

Example objectives• To increase student understanding of the scientific process

and current challenges in geoscience (e.g. future energy

needs, climate change, natural hazard awareness)

• To increase awareness in applicability of science to students'

lives, regardless of their chosen field of study.

• To use learning assistants in a lab/lecture introductory

geology course to help general education students rarely take

advantage of learning resources the college provides (i.e.

tutoring, science help desk).

• To easily share course materials, teaching methods, and

course management structures from semester to semester

among an ever-changing team of instructors.

• To improve our large-lecture introductory geology class by

increasingly replacing lecture with active learning exercises.

• To increase recruitment of majors and minors.

To reach that objective…

Next steps

• As an individual, spend 15 minutes adding

to or creating your SWOT analysis

• We will create small groups by shared

objectives and class sizes

– Discuss SWOTs: sharing ideas for converting,

matching, etc.

– Post a question that you want feedback on

– Look at other groups’ questions, discuss and

offer answers/solutions

– Report out