Tell us about your Mineralogy course

Please share information about how you teach your mineralogy course. Use the form below to tell us about your course structure, goals and assessment methods. Near the bottom of the page there is a place to upload your course syllabus.

View the syllabus collection for all earth science courses. Once there are enough mineralogy syllabi to fill a page, we will list them separately.

About You and Your InstitutionInstructor Name:
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Instructor Email Address:
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Institution:
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Type of Institution:

About the CourseCourse Title:
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Course URL (if not restricted access):
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Course TypeEntry Level

or Other Entry Level Subject:
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Upper Level

or Other Upper Level Subject:
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Brief description of the course.
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Course Size:

Course Context:

Please briefly describe the context of this course. For example:

"This is an upper-division required petrology course with prerequisites of introductory geology, mineralogy, and introductory chemistry. The course has a required four-hour laboratory and a required two-day field trip."

"This is an introductory course with no pre-requisites and does not serve as a prerequisite for other courses. Typically, 50% of the students take the course as pre-service elementary teachers, and 50% of the students take the course to satisfy a general education requirement. The course has an optional lab. Students who decide to major in geology must take a subsequent course in physical geology."

"This is a seminar-style, topical introductory course with no prerequisites. The course satisfies the pre-requisite for all intermediate level courses for a geology major. 25-30% of students who take the course go on to major in geology. The course is writing intensive and has a two-hour lab and required field trip."

Goals

In the months and years after having finished a course, a student should be able to DO things in the discipline that he/she couldn't do before taking the course. Careful thought should go into what you want to enable your students to do, what value the course will add to their lives, and how the course will develop their skills and abilities. In this portion of the goals/syllabus submission form, you will have the opportunity to share goals of various types that you have for your students.

Please start by completing the entry for discipline-related goals. The entries for skills and attitudinal goals are optional.

Discipline-related goals

In the box following the instructions below, please describe the discipline-related goals that you want your students to achieve. Please read the guidelines and examples carefully before proceeding.

Please DO:

enter the goals as a list
use the format "Students should be able to..."
focus on the main goals of the course
emphasize higher order thinking skills (analyze, predict, synthesize, interpret, evaluate, formulate), rather than lower order thinking skills (recognize, describe, define, identify, list, explain). A well-constructed goal involving higher order thinking skills has lower order skills embedded in it.

Examples

Students should be able to interpret unfamiliar geologic maps and construct cross sections.
Students should be able to analyze and assess geologic hazards in unfamiliar areas (which is different than recalling those done in class).
Students should be able to formulate new research questions in X.
Students should be able to design computer or analog models of X.
Students should be able to predict the weather given appropriate meteorological data.

Please DO NOT enter a list of content items.

Please DO NOT use vague and difficult-to-assess goals involving phrases such as "appreciate", "understand", "be exposed to", "see the value in", "know about", "learn about". Here are two examples of what we don't want you to do:

"Students will be exposed to X." Such a goal does not focus on enabling students to do something.
"Students will be able to see the value of the scientific method" or "appreciate the complexity of Earth systems". While these are laudable aims, it is difficult to evaluate whether students have achieved such goals.

Following the guidelines above, please enter the discipline-related goals for your course in the box below, in list format.
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Statement about achieving goals

Please enter a short statement about how course activities and course structure help students achieve the discipline-related goals that you listed above and how you assess whether students have met the goals.
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Skills Goals

You may also have goals related to general skills in the context of your course. These might include goals involving improving skills such as

student writing
quantitative abilities
critical analysis of web sites
peer-teaching
oral communication
accessing and critically reading the geologic literature
working in groups

If your course has a significant focus on improving one or two general skills, please enter those goals in list format in the box below.
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Statement about achieving skills goals

Please enter a short statement about how course activities and course structure help students achieve the skills goals that you listed above and how you assess whether students have met the goals.
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Attitudinal Goals

You may also have goals related to student attitude. These might include goals such as

building students' confidence in course- or discipline-related abilities
developing students' sense of stewardship of the Earth
improving students' sense of healthy skepticism
increasing student excitement/personal wonder about learning about the Earth
improving students' awareness of the issues of ethics in doing science
changing student attitudes toward science

If your course has a significant focus on changing student attitudes, please enter those goals in list format in the box below.
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Statement about achieving attitudinal goals

Please enter a short statement about how course activities and course structure help students achieve the attitudinal goals that you listed above and how you assess whether students have met the goals.
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Assessment

Describe how you assess student learning.
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Optional MaterialURL for instructor home page:
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Course Syllabus
Select a File
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Select File Type

Additional course materials. Please combine any relevant materials into a single PDF file. Be sure to include a "cover sheet" describing how the assignment/activity illustrates how the course helps students meet the stated goals.
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