Introductory Courses: Strategies for Introducing Quantitative Thinking

Introductory geoscience courses are a rich venue for introducing a broad array of students to the Earth sciences. Typically introductory geoscience courses are very popular, drawing a large number of students who are not science majors. So this venue provides an important pathway to enhancing quantitative literacy across the curriculum. Some primary challenges in introducing quantitative thinking into introductory courses are the fear of mathematics and low mathematics confidence that many students bring to the class. There are a number of tactics that can be used to enhance students skills and to foster a more positive attitude and higher confidence levels.

As a part of a special issue of the Journal of Geoscience Education on building quantitative skills in geoscience students, a number of authors contributed papers detailing ways in which they have engaged their intro classes in quantitative thinking. These articles and the others in the issue are available on the JGE website.

• C. Bailey, 2000. A Quantitative Approach to Introductory Geology Courses .
  Bailey describes using a Socratic method of questioning with his introductory students. The goals of the questioning are to engage students in using quantitative thinking to understand commonly held assumptions and to guide them in setting up quantitative approaches to problems.
• T. Furman and E. Merritt, 2000. A Data-Intensive Approach to Studying Climate and Climate Change in Africa .
  Furman and Merrit describe a project based approach at where students engage in quantitative thinking and analysis as a means of understanding climate and climate change in Africa.
• L. Guertin, 2000. Using Logic Problems in Introductory-Level Geoscience Courses to Develop Critical Reasoning and Basic Quantitative Skills .
  Guertin introduces logic skills through GEOLogic problems: puzzles she has created that support students understanding of geoscience concepts while challenging them to develop better logic skills.
Dr. Guertin has also contributed a group of her GEOLogic problems to the activity collection. Check them out here.
• P. Kenyon, 2000. Building Quantitative Skills in Geoscience Courses Using Homework Assignments of Increasing Difficulty .
  Kenyon uses sequenced problems of increasing difficulty and sophistication to help students review their skills and gain confidence in their abilities in her introductory Geophysics course.
• J. Shosa, D. Woodrow and S. Orrell, 2000. Self-Contained Problem Sets as a Means of Incorporating Quantitative-Skill Development in Existing Introductory Geoscience Courses .
  The authors were pressed for time in their well-established and highly successful introductory course. To bolster the quantitative aspects of this class they introduced stand alone homework problem sets.