Teaching Structural Geology

Designing an Effective Structural Geology Course

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Upright syncline in limestone. marlimillerphoto.com

1. Set goals

Learn to set effective course goals from the Course Design Tutorial. You can also browse course descriptions and syllabi from your colleagues to gauge the range of structural geology courses currently offered.

2. Consider assessment options

Aligning your assessment strategies with the goals of your course is an essential part of the design process. You can learn more about assessment in the section about Assessing Student Learning in the Course Design Tutorial and through our module on Observing and Assessing Student Learning.

3. Select pedagogies and specific teaching activities

The pedagogic techniques highlighted below can provide inspiration as you consider various approaches that will help you achieve your course goals. The resource collections are organized to provide a rich set of materials to draw from in constructing the specific set of learning experiences you want for your students. Finally, explore the more in-depth information and ideas available in special topics.

Selected Pedagogical Approaches

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mapping area in southern Algeria

Provenance: Google Earth

Structural Geology courses help students build a variety of skills and critical thinking abilities. A selection of pedagogies that lend themselves to skill development are:

• Structural Geology in the Field: A number of workshop presenters and participants have shared their expertise in teaching with and through field work. Here, you can benefit from their experiences and learn from their presentations and teaching activities.
  
• Teaching geologic map interpretation using Google Earth: A great resource for any structural geology class. Visit our growing collection of great Google Earth locations for structural geology.

Resource Collections

Once you've identified the core learning goals for your course, you can use them to focus your search for relevant materials in our resource collections. The materials listed below reflect the contributions of faculty members from across the country.

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2001 Carleton Geology departmental field trip to Northern MN. Students working out the metamorphic history of the glacially polished outcrop.

Provenance: Photo by Tim Vick, Carleton College, 2001
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

• Course descriptions and syllabi including learning goals and supporting information. You can also see what textbooks and lab manuals (Excel 10kB Jun15 04) are used in structural geology courses and what topics are taught in structural geology courses (Excel 21kB Jun15 04), according to our 2004 faculty survey.
• Selected resources for teaching structural geology: Jump-start your structural geology course with this topical list of recommended activities and resources.
• Teaching activities, as well as out-of-class activities and projects. Analog materials can also be used for activities to help students understand the behavior of materials and the development of structures.
• Visualizations that can be useful for teaching structural geology.
• Computer applications useful for teaching structural geology or that provide support for teaching structural geology.
• Geologic maps with structural geologic problems.
  
• Selected readings accessible to undergraduate structural geology students.
• Additional resources: Useful websites and resources recommended by faculty who teach about structural geology.

Special Topics

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Black Mountains, Death Valley, CA. Active fault-bounded range. Marli Miller, University of Oregon. www.marlimillerphoto.com

• Enigmas in structural geology: Members of the Teaching Structural Geology email list have offered their thoughts on what the biggest enigmas are currently in structural geology. If you would like to offer one of your own or add a comment to one already posted, please send an e-mail to Barb Tewksbury at btewksbu@hamilton.edu.
• Teaching with GeoPads: From Integrating Research and Education provides practical advice on selecting software and hardware, accessing and formatting data, and designing and implementing a wide variety of instructional activities. Our goal is to minimize the technical, pedagogical, and practical barriers that make it difficult for novice users to efficiently and effectively use this technology in field instruction. So, if you are considering using this new technology in your own field instruction programs this site is for you!
• Analytical Geophysical Instrument Registry provides faculty with a place to share information about geophysical equipment. If you would like to share access to the equipment at your institution, or if you would like to find access to instruments at other institutions, this is a great resource for you.
• Browse our database of analytical equipment
• Add your instrument to our database.

Workshops and Events

• 2012 Teaching Structural Geology, Geophysics, and Tectonics: What are the grand challenges, leading edge ideas, and frontiers in structural geology, geophysics, and tectonics? How can we teach these ideas effectively in undergraduate courses? What innovative strategies can we use to integrate structural geology, geophysics, and tectonics in the courses that we teach for majors? What role can GIS and GPS analysis play in teaching these disciplines? This workshop was an exciting collaborative effort that addressed these and related issues in order to help faculty teach undergraduate structural geology, geophysics and tectonics more effectively. View the workshop program to download presentations and other supporting materials.
• 2004 GSA topical session: Teaching Structural Geology in the 21st Century. Download abstracts, Powerpoint presentations, and posters from the session at the GSA annual national meeting in Denver in November, 2004.
• 2004 Teaching Structural Geology workshop: During the summer of 2004, 70 structural geologists from around the country met for a week-long workshop to explore best practices in teaching structural geology. Download handouts and supporting materials from workshop presentations and discussions or view the workshop program.

Get Involved

• Contribute Materials We encourage faculty to contribute course descriptions, teaching activities, and references to continue to build our collections.
• We established working groups at the summer 2004 workshop in key areas of structural geology. Working groups are tasked with collecting and developing new materials for teaching structural geology. If you would like to join a working group, please contact Barbara Tewksbury at Hamilton College (btewksbu@hamilton.edu)
• Join our Structural Geology email list to take part in discussions with colleagues who teach structural geology and to read past discussions.