Carol Ormand Ph.D.

Understanding Polyhedral Diagrams part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students identify individual polyhedra in a variety of diagrams and answer questions about shared oxygens in diagrams of common silicate structures.

Slices Through 3D Objects part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students identify and draw slices through an ice cream cone, a pyramid, and a beverage six-pack.

Primary Structures and Rotation part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students gesture the orientations of cross-bedded sandstones, and in particular the relationship between a single cross bed and the bed sets. They do this for photos of undeformed and deformed cross-bedding.

Gestures for Miller Indices part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use one hand to gesture crystallographic axes and the other hand to represent planes designated by Miller Indices.

Guided Reading of Scientific Journal Articles part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Activities
This is a sequence of assignments for my Structural Geology course that guides students through the process of critically reading and analyzing scientific journal articles. For each article, I outline the general ...

Flood Frequency and Risk Assessment part of Quantitative Skills:Activity Collection
Students calculate recurrence intervals for various degrees of flooding based on historical data. Students then do a risk assessment for the surrounding community.

Interpreting the surficial deposits of Glacier National Park, Montana part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students interpret a GIS map of surficial deposits in Glacier National Park to unravel a bit of the glacial history of the park.

Erosion of the Grand Canyon part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students estimate the volume of the Grand Canyon to calculate the average rate of erosion of the canyon, assuming the canyon began to form approximately 6 million years ago. They then find out how much sediment the ...

Geology of the Grand Canyon part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students analyze topographic and geologic maps, through a set of guiding questions, to decipher the geologic history recorded in the rocks of the Grand Canyon.

Geology of Mammoth Cave National Park part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students analyze topographic and geologic maps, through a set of guiding questions, to figure out why western Kentucky is home to the world-famous cave system at Mammoth Cave National Park.

Geology of Yellowstone National Park part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students examine and interpret the geologic map of Yellowstone National Park, focusing on its volcanic history.

Geology of Hawaii part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students examine a geologic map of Hawaii and begin to decipher it.

Topographic comparison, volcanic terrains part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students construct a topographic profile through a stratovolcano, then compare it to topo profiles from several other volcanic landscapes.

Olympus Mons and Hawaii part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students estimate the volume of Olympus Mons and the volume of lava that has erupted from the Hawaiian hotspot and compare them.

Fault Separation part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use gestures to explore the relationship between fault slip direction and fault separation by varying the geometry of faulted layers and the slip direction.

Comparing Phyllosilicate Structures part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students compare the chemistry and structures of biotite, muscovite, and chlorite.

Sketching Block Diagrams part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students watch a video of the instructor sketching two geologic block diagrams (of flat stratigraphy and of an upright anticline), then practice sketching additional geologic block diagrams.

Gestures for Silicate Structures part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use gestures to show the structures of single and double chain silicate minerals, paying attention to where silica tetrahedra share oxygen ions and the relative positions of the tetrahedra.

Understanding Crystal Symmetry via Gestures part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use a small mirror to explore the meaning of mirror symmetry, and then use their hands to gesture mirror planes for a group of familiar objects. They also explore the rotational symmetry of a group of familiar objects, and then use their hands to gesture the rotational axes and rotation. Finally, they use gestures to show mirror and rotational symmetry of wooden crystal models.

Understanding Mineral Cleavage via Gestures part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use gesture to convey information about mineral cleavage and the relationship between crystal structures and cleavage planes.

Comparing Quartz Polymorphs part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students compare the structures of low-temperature and high-temperature polymorphs of quartz, relating their differences to symmetry and crystal systems.

Deciphering Mineral Structure Diagrams part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students compare mineral structures shown in ball-and-stick, space filling, and polyhedral diagrams.

Deformation Mechanisms and Microstructures part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students match microstructures to the deformation mechanisms by which they form; compare pairs of photomicrographs chosen to highlight key differences between some common microstructures; and complete a self-quiz in which they identify microstructures and infer deformation mechanisms from photomicrographs.

Folds and Cleavage part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students explore the geometric relationship between bedding/cleavage intersections and fold axes for axial planar, fanning, and transecting cleavage.

Restraining Bends and Releasing Bends part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use gestures to re-create the motion of fault blocks adjacent to restraining bends and releasing bends. They then answer a few questions about a map view of the San Andreas Fault and two of its bends.

Contractional Strain part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students use gesture to describe the bulk deformation and local deformation apparent in images of a contractional analog experiment. Students then calculate bulk shortening and bulk thickening for the experiment and describe the structures accommodating that strain.

Linear and Planar Features part of Spatial Thinking Workbook:Teaching Activities
Students gesture the orientations of linear and planar features. In the first part of the exercise, students can only see one surface of a wooden block, and are asked to speculate about how planar features penetrate through the interior. Later, they uncover the other faces of the block and gesture the actual orientations.

Using play-doh to understand 3D Flinn Plots part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:Activities
In this activity, students are introduced to the 3D Flinn Plot. They have previous experience with 1+e2 vs. 1+e1 plots of plane strain, but this is their first exposure to 3D strain. Students deform play-doh, then ...

Investigating Vegetation Patterns in an Urban Wetland Using Electrical Resistivity part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Teaching Demos:Friday Teaching Demo Session A
This module, consisting of 5 units, introduces students to the fundamental principles and uses of electrical resistivity, with a focus on an environmental application. Students explore the characteristics and ...

Bedrock Geology of Glacier National Park part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students use the bedrock geologic map of Glacier National Park, and its cross-sections, to decipher the geologic story recorded in the rocks.

Chemistry of Cave Formation part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students investigate what happens to calcium carbonate in an aqueous solution when the pH of the water changes.

Geology of Crater Lake part of Introductory Courses:Activities
Students examine and interpret geologic and topographic maps of Crater Lake.

SAGE Musings: The Power of Affirming Your Values part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Values affirmation is an evidence-based classroom intervention that produces remarkable results for minimal effort. When students write for just a few minutes about their most important values, those who belong to ...

SAGE Musings: How Will Cohort 3 Be Different? part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
We're getting ready to launch the 3rd iteration of the SAGE 2YC project! The November 1st (2019) deadline for applications to be part of the 3rd cohort of faculty Change Agents is fast approaching. How will ...

SAGE Musings: Impostor Syndrome part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
The Impostor Syndrome: that persistent, pernicious feeling that you aren't really qualified for the position you find yourself in -- that sooner or later, someone is going to find out that you are a ...

SAGE Musings: Addressing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the Department Level part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
At the 2019 meeting of the Geological Society of America, one of my colleagues from graduate school asked me for a list of actions that her department could take to address diversity, equity, and inclusion. This ...

SAGE Musings: 2019 Summer Reading Recommendations part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I take a break in publishing the SAGE Musings blog over the summer. I also like to make more time for reading over the summer. I asked the SAGE 2YC project leaders and participants for summer reading ...

SAGE Musings: Teaching Students Metacognitive Strategies part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Over the past week, I've been reviewing the sets of pages written by each of the Change Agent teams, and I've been struck by just how many of you say that teaching your students about metacognition and ...

SAGE Musings: Shifting from Deficit Thinking to Asset Thinking part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Students arrive on our campuses and in our classrooms from a rich array of backgrounds, with an almost unimaginable diversity of prior experiences. This includes a wide range of what we think of as academic ...

SAGE Musings: The Dunning-Kruger Effect and Metacognition part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
The importance, and power, of teaching our students metacognitive skills is not a new idea for anyone involved in the SAGE 2YC project. Cohort 1 faculty Change Agents heard Saundra Macguire talk about this at our ...

SAGE Musings: Supporting First Generation College Students part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
× In the early years of the 21st century, 45% of the students in public two-year colleges were first-generation college students (Nomi, 2005), and their numbers were increasing (Ishitani, 2003). ...

SAGE Musings: 2018 Report on the Status of the Geoscience Workforce part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
About a decade ago, the American Geosciences Institute began publishing reports on the status of the geoscience workforce. This year's report, authored by Carolyn Wilson, is a detailed summary of trends in ...

SAGE Musings: Strategies for Supporting 2YC-4YCU Transfer part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Facilitating geoscience students' professional pathways is one of the key goals of the SAGE 2YC project, and one means to that end is supporting 2YC - 4YCU transfer. The National Science Foundation's ...

SAGE Musings: Geoscience Career Resources on the SAGE 2YC Website part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
When I was a faculty member, I gave very little thought to teaching my students about geoscience careers. I suppose I thought -- to the extent that I thought about it at all -- that if they enjoyed my course ...

SAGE Musings: Selected NSF Programs of Interest to 2YC Faculty part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
As the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project comes to a close, many of the faculty members involved in the project have expressed an interest in obtaining funding the support the continuation of their work. ...

SAGE Musings: Why Student Engagement is Not Enough part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Despite several decades of effort to broaden participation in the STEM disciplines, the STEM workforce remains unrepresentative of the diversity of our broader population (e.g., NSF, 2017; Sidder, 2017). In the ...

SAGE Musings: Implementing a Values Affirmation Intervention part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
As I've written before (SAGE Musings: the Power of Affirming Your Values), values affirmation interventions produce extraordinary results for extremely modest investments of classroom time (e.g. Cohen et al., ...

SAGE Musings: Moving Toward a Student-Centered Classroom part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Students learn more in student-centered classrooms (e.g., Lawson et al., 2002; MacIsaac and Falconer, 2002). Furthermore, student-centered teaching reduces achievement gaps across student sub-populations (Teasdale ...

SAGE Musings: Addressing Implicit Bias in STEM part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Implicit biases are unconscious, negative associations or stereotypes. As I described in my last SAGE Musing, implicit bias is pervasive in STEM, profoundly impacting the experiences of anyone who belongs to ...

SAGE Musings: Implicit Bias in STEM part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Unconscious, negative associations or stereotypes are called implicit biases. Extensive research has documented that implicit bias is pervasive in STEM, that it negatively impacts the participation and success of ...

SAGE Musings: NO-vember and the NO-lympics part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I've written before about the fact that "time management" is really task management, and task management is really about knowing when to say "no." Today I want to explore that idea a bit ...

SAGE Musings: Who Has the Capacity to Succeed in STEM? part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I had an epiphany many years ago. It was in a workshop for geoscience faculty members in their first few years of teaching. One of the workshop leaders told us about a study conducted by Uri Treisman at the ...

SAGE Musings: Making the Most of Office Hours part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Do you ever wish that your students would take better advantage of your office hours? Do they apologize to you for "interrupting" on those rare occasions when they do come to your office, even during ...

SAGE Musings: 2018 Summer Reading part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
As many of you know, I take a break in publishing the SAGE Musings blog over the summer. I also like to make more time for reading over the summer. I asked the project leaders and participants for summer reading ...

SAGE Musings: How Social-Psychological Interventions Change Academic Trajectories part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I've recently begun dipping my toes into the research literature on sense of belonging and its effect on student academic success, and it is FASCINATING. Any student can wonder whether they belong in college; ...

SAGE Musings: Geoscience Career Skills part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
One of the three "strands" of the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project is facilitating students' professional pathways. Obviously, not every student will become a geoscientist, but we want to ...

SAGE Musings: Supporting Women in STEM part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Even as more women are attending college than men, we earn far fewer degrees in science than men (NSF, 2017) and are underemployed in sciences and engineering relative to men (e.g., Sidder, 2017). What can we do ...

SAGE Musings: Student Perceptions of Geoscience Careers part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Whether students choose to pursue a degree or career in geoscience - or even take classes in geoscience - is often influenced by their perceptions of geoscience careers. A recent study (Sherman-Morris and McNeal, ...

SAGE Musings: Cultivating Students' Voices part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Several articles related to inclusive teaching have popped into my inbox recently. One of the themes of these articles that I find interesting is the importance of hearing from all of the students in our ...

SAGE Musings: Backwards Workshop Design part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
One of the sessions I attended at GSA this year was about On the Cutting Edge: Fifteen Years of Impacts on Geoscience Education. On the Cutting Edge is the professional development program for geoscience faculty ...

Errors in Spatial Thinking: When students go wrong, what are they thinking and how can we help them? part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
Over the years, we've each observed students make a wide variety of interesting mistakes in spatial thinking. In some cases, it's easy to understand how they arrive at their misunderstanding. In other ...

SAGE Musings: Summer Reading Recommendations part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I like to take a break from many routines during the summer, and that includes taking a break from writing SAGE Musings blog posts. I also like to make more time for reading over the summer. I asked the project ...

SAGE Musings: Geoscientist Biographical Sketches part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
When I was in college, the only career I imagined for myself was following in my parents' footsteps. I suspect I'm not the only one. How can we help our students - especially those whose parents ...

SAGE Musings: Adjuncts part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Nearly half of the people who teach undergraduate courses are part-time/adjunct faculty members, sometimes called "contingent faculty," and that number approaches 70% at two-year colleges (AFT Higher ...

SAGE Musings: Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
There's a lot of talk these days about the importance of broadening participation in the STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering and mathematics). But how much of a problem is there, and how do the ...

SAGE Musings: Communities of Practice part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
"Communities of Practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do, and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly" (Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015, ...

SAGE Musings: Resources from InTeGrate part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
The InTeGrate project, funded by the National Science Foundation, "supports the teaching of geoscience in the context of societal issues both within geoscience courses and across the undergraduate ...

SAGE Musings: Evidence-Based Strategies for Mitigating Stereotype Threat part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I've written about stereotype threat before (see http://serc.carleton.edu/sage2yc/musings/stereotype_threat.html), but today I want to share some fascinating things I learned from reading Claude Steele's ...

SAGE Musings: Minimizing and Dealing with Academic Dishonesty part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
If it seems to you that academic dishonesty is rampant, and has gotten worse over time, you're not imagining it. "Research in high schools shows that two thirds of students cheat on tests, and 90 percent ...

SAGE Musings: Teaching Geoscience Online part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
An abundance of research shows that students learn more and retain what they learn longer when instructors use active learning pedagogies. As more and more classes are offered in online or hybrid formats, how can ...

SAGE Musings: Blogs part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I never thought I'd be a blogger. But a while ago, it occurred to me that these "SAGE Musings" are essentially a set of private blog posts. In consultation with the SAGE 2YC project PIs, I've ...

SAGE Musings: Preparing Students for the Geoscience Workforce part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Today's topic is preparing students for the geoscience workforce. But what does that actually mean? Preparing students for the workforce in Texas is different from preparing students for the workforce in ...

SAGE Musings: Student Motivation part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
One of the most popular set of pages on the SERC website is about the Affective Domain -- student attitudes and motivation: http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/affective/index.html. I think we all realize that ...

SAGE Musings: Involving Students in Authentic Research part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
As you know, there are three strands to our project: supporting the academic success of all students, facilitating students' professional pathways in the geosciences, and broadening participation in STEM. One ...

SAGE Musings: Microvalidation part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
One of the most interesting talks I heard this year was by Becky Packard, of Mt. Holyoke College, at the Earth Educators' Rendezvous. If you weren't there, you can see her slides and reference list: ...

What would a Geoscience Education Research toolbox look like? part of GET Spatial Learning:Blog
This essay draws from our experience with the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, an NSF funded Science of Learning Center that aimed to understand and support the role of spatial thinking in STEM education. ...

SAGE Musings: Recruiting Students into the Geosciences part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Facilitating student pathways into geoscience careers begins with enrollment in geoscience courses, and continues with recruiting those students into geoscience programs. What recruitment strategies work? The ...

SAGE Musings: Assessing Student Understanding through ConcepTests part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
I know many of you are planning to increase the amount of active learning in your courses. That's great -- it's one of the fundamental ways to improve student engagement and learning. Many of you are ...

SAGE Musings: Time-Task Management part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
It sometimes feels as though there just aren't enough hours in the day. There are plenty of books about time management, and they all have good advice. But who has time to read them? Okay, just kidding. ...

SAGE Musings: Metacognition and Mindset part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Summer is here, and that makes me think of summer reading. I know some of you are looking forward to reading Saundra McGuire's book on metacognition (Teach Students How to Learn). I also recommend Mindset: ...

SAGE Musings: Backwards Course Design part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Summer is a great time to think about designing or revising courses, and I know that right now many of you are thinking about how to incorporate new ideas or activities into your teaching. This therefore seems ...

SAGE Musings: Stereotype Threat part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Today's SAGE musings is about stereotype threat. When I first heard about this phenomenon, I found it rather shocking... and yet, I saw it in my classes. It's a very simple phenomenon: when students are ...

SAGE Musings: Last Day of Class part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
As the summer approaches, I'm wondering about what you do on the last day of classes. Is it business as usual? Preparation for the final exam, if you have one? Do you use it as an opportunity for students to ...

SAGE Musings: Geoscience Careers part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Today's message is about presenting students with information about geoscience careers. Although most of our students won't pursue careers in the geosciences, I think we do them a disservice if we ...

SAGE Musings: Think-Pair-Share part of SAGE 2YC:SAGE Musings
Today we begin a series of bi-weekly emails on topics related to our project: supporting the academic success of all students, facilitating professional pathways in the geosciences, broadening participation in the ...

IGUaNA: Introducing Geophysics for Urban and Near-surface Applications part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2022:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday Oral Session B
Recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce begins with attracting a diverse student population into the geosciences. One key step in this process is transforming our curricula, looking beyond traditional topics ...

Report on Unlearning Racism in Geoscience from the 2YC URGE Pod part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2021:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday:Poster Session III
The five-month long virtual Unlearning Racism in Geoscience (URGE) program was developed to empower groups, or pods, of geoscience faculty to implement anti-racist strategies and policies within their departments ...

Engaging your faculty colleagues in evidence-based practices using SAGE 2YC resources: Book clubs, journal clubs, and implementation groups part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2020:Program:Oral Sessions:Oral Session II
SAGE 2YC is a national network of 2YC geoscience faculty who use evidence-based strategies to improve students' academic success, broaden participation in STEM, and facilitate students' professional ...

Synthesizing lessons for creating change in faculty, programs, institutions, and regional networks: SAGE 2YC Faculty as Change Agents part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2019:Program:Oral Sessions:Monday A
The 17 teams of 2YC faculty participating in the SAGE 2YC Faculty as Change Agents project have spent between two and four years working together to transform their teaching, their geoscience programs and ...

SAGE 2YC Materials for Faculty Professional Development Workshops part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2019:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday
Over the course of the SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents project, the 2YC faculty change agent teams have run annual professional development workshops and events for other faculty in their regional networks. In ...

Using MATLAB to Teach Computational and Quantitative Thinking Skills in STEM Courses part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday
Teaching computational skills and science content in a single course is challenging. Adding to the challenge, many STEM courses incorporate advanced mathematics, unfamiliar hardware, and complex instrumentation. ...

SAGE 2YC: Sustaining Faculty Learning part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Poster Sessions:Wednesday
In a continuing effort to provide two-year college (2YC) geoscience faculty with the resources they need to be agents of change at their institutions and in their regions, the Supporting and Advancing Geoscience ...

Supporting and Advancing Geoscience Education in Two-Year Colleges (SAGE 2YC): Building a Foundation for Change through a Network of Regional Communities of Practice part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2017:Program:Poster Sessions:Friday
One goal of SAGE 2YC: Faculty as Change Agents is to develop regional communities that can promote a cycle of change through activities that allow members to share experiences, synthesize expertise, and document ...

CogSketch worksheet: Promoting sketching in the geosciences with interactive technology part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Poster Sessions:Tuesday
Sketching is a valuable activity to help students develop spatial skills and understand difficult geoscience concepts. Yet, sketching is rarely implemented at the introductory level due to the time needed to grade ...

Using Mixed Methods to Explore Field Sketching: An Example from the Hat Creek Fault Zone part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
Sketching is a common yet powerful means of communication and visualization in the geosciences. Particularly in field settings, geoscientists sketch in order to record data, explore interpretations, and communicate ...

Teaching Spatial Thinking in Mineralogy, Structural Geology, and Sedimentology & Stratigraphy: Tools and Strategies from Cognitive Science Research part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
Spatial visualization is an essential skill in the STEM disciplines, including the geological sciences. Undergraduate students, including geoscience majors in upper-level courses, bring a wide range of spatial ...

Differences in Spatial Reasoning Skills in Undergraduate Geology Students and the Effect of Weekly Spatial Skill Trainings part of Rendezvous 2015:Program:Abstracts
Spatial reasoning is a key skill for student success in STEM disciplines in general and for students in geosciences in particular. However, spatial reasoning is neither explicitly trained, nor evenly distributed, ...

Supporting Spatial Thinking part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2018:Program:Afternoon Workshops
This session is for anyone who is interested in translating research on spatial thinking into practice. After a brief overview of key findings from research on spatial cognition, participants will have a chance to ...

What would a GER toolbox look like? part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Morning Workshops:GER:Idea Papers
Thomas F. Shipley (Temple University) and Carol Ormand (Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College) This essay draws from our experience with the Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center, an NSF funded ...

Applying Cognitive Science Research to Improve Geoscience Teaching and Learning part of Structural Geology and Tectonics:2014 Structure and Tectonics Forum Abstracts
Carol Ormand, SERC, Carleton College Thomas F. Shipley, Psychology, Temple University Basil Tikoff, University of Wisconsin - Madison The Spatial Intelligence and Learning Center conducts research on spatial ...

Plate Boundaries and Volcanoes part of Starting Point-Teaching Entry Level Geoscience:First Day of Class:Activities
Carol Ormand, Wittenberg University Course: Geology of the National Parks 28 students Students remember what they have seen and done much better than they remember what you have told them. Working with real, ...

Spatial Reasoning in the Geosciences part of Earth Educators Rendezvous:Previous Rendezvous:Rendezvous 2016:Program:Morning Workshops:Spatial Reasoning
How can we improve students' spatial reasoning? This workshop will present an overview of research on spatial skills and how those research results can be applied to student learning in the classroom, lab, and ...