Teaching Geoscience Online

Colleges and universities are increasing their online offerings as a means of reaching a wider audience, offering a convenient course format for part-time students, connecting students with faculty who may not share the same campus, concentrating students in specialized courses with traditionally low enrollment, and controlling costs. Regardless of the format, topic or setting, many types of online classrooms share successful strategies and common challenges. The use of technology can attract some students while alienating others. The independent nature of online courses can challenge students' time management skills and reward self-motivated learners. And for faculty, translating years of classroom teaching into a new and virtual environment may present daunting challenges.

Do you teach online? Or are you looking to make the leap to online teaching?

The materials below are designed to help geoscience faculty improve their online teaching, or to provide guidance to those who are considering venturing into the online classroom. These materials are authored by participants in the 2010 workshop, Teaching Geoscience Online.

Pedagogy, Course Design and Course Delivery

Tips for Designing Online Courses - Tailor your course layout, pacing, content delivery and assignments for online delivery.
Quick Transition to Online Teaching - Tips for communicating content, accessibility, virtual teaching activities, virtual assessments and other resources.
Website Design for Online Courses - Create lively, engaging, and effective course pages.
Student Motivation and Engagement in Online Courses - Strategies for engaging students who you may never meet
Interactive Activities in Online and Hybrid Courses - Facilitating interactivity in the online environment can be difficult, but here we explore various activities to promote active learning online
Incorporating Lab Activities in Online Geology Courses - Methods to teach traditional geology labs such as rock identification or simple experiments
Using Data to Teach Geology in College-Level Online Classes - The online environment contains plentiful data sets - learn how to incorporate them into your course
Course Platforms for Teaching Online - None of them are perfect, but additional tools can help you make the most of the virtual classroom
Recommended Resources - Best practices for online teachers, data and research about online learning, and selected examples from the literature

Online Activities and Courses

Online Activity Collection - Case studies, data-rich activities, discussion strategies and assessments contributed by faculty to the On the Cutting Edge web collection
Online Course Collection - Includes online courses in oceanography, evolution, natural hazards, National Parks and more. Contributed by faculty to the On the Cutting Edge web collection
Finding Lab Activities Online - Lab activities found online that address a wide variety of geoscience topics.
Do you have successful examples from your own online teaching? Tell us about your activities or courses.

Past virtual workshop, Teaching Geoscience Online

This workshop took place in June 2010 and was attended by 18 participants drawn from across the country and representing a full spectrum of institutional types. Workshop outcomes can be viewed on the program page and in the workshop report. The workshop produced most of the content provided on this website. We hope that these pages will help faculty who are engaged in teaching online as well as providing a starting point for those who are designing their first online courses.