Improving Programs/ Departments
The Rendezvous will bring together faculty and administrators from geoscience departments and interdisciplinary programs. Morning workshops will focus on goal setting, design, and assessment within your department, as well as strengthening sustainability learning across your program (morning workshops require pre-registration). In the afternoons, mini workshops and presentations will allow you to sample your specific needs and interests.
Strengthening your Department or Program: Goal setting, design, and assessment
David Matty, Weber State University
Monday, July 13 - Wednesday, July 15 | 8:30am-11:30am | Location: CHEM 133
This session will guide participants through a strategy for formulating student learning outcomes for a degree program. We will then use a matrix based approach to map how the outcomes are currently addressed in the program and demonstrate how this map can be used to strengthen the program and address program evaluation. Participants will be prepared to return to their department and engage their colleagues in a planning process.
Strengthening Sustainability Learning in your Program
Dave Gosselin, University of Nebraska at Lincoln and Walt Robinson, North Carolina State University at Raleigh
Thursday, July 16 - Friday, July 17 | 8:30am-11:30am | Location: UMC 247
This session explores program scale ideas for integrating learning about the Earth with the exploration of societal problems of sustainability and the environment. Participants will have an opportunity to learn from successful examples and identify and discuss strategic opportunities for strengthening their own programs whether they are taking the first steps to incorporate sustainability on campus, capitalizing on a campus wide area of focus, or seeking to strengthen a program with a strong existing sustainability component.
Strengthening Career Preparation in your Program
Phyllis Pouyat Thibodeau, Chesapeake Career Consulting
Monday, July 13 | 1:30pm-4:15pm | Location: CIRES Fellows Room
Education Programs are increasingly evaluated by multiple stakeholders including Employers who seek specific Career Competencies as well as technical skills to meet the needs of the emerging Global "Green" Economy. Students must be prepared to perform complex problem solving, collaborative leadership with interdisciplinary teams, and adaptive communications skills to translate science within business, policy, NGO's and education sectors. Paradigms for classrooms are shifting to involve multiple mentors and modes that intersect with local, national and global experiential learning projects that can enhance learning outcomes, build networks and open up job opportunities beyond graduation, while also engaging new "research" partners for universities. Through a presentation and interactive exercises, this workshop will demonstrate proven ways to integrate career learning within academic classrooms and programs to synergistically motivate and maximize achievement outcomes on the transcript and ultimately during the job interview!
What Does it Mean to be a Geoscientist? Is There a Core Curriculum?
Cathryn Manduca, SERC, Carleton College & Sharon Mosher, The University of Texas at Austin
Tuesday, July 14 | 1:30pm-4:15pm | Location: CIRES Fellows Room
Geoscientists work in a very wide range of jobs from exploration geologist, to consulting hydrologist, to environmental regulator, to Earth science teacher and beyond. This workshop will explore what we mean when we say we are preparing geoscientists in our programs. What expertise is core to being a geoscientist? What are the learning outcomes that are common across geoscience programs? Is there a core curriculum that underpins geology and geoscience majors?
The Role of Societal Issues in your Course or Program
Sarah Fortner, Wittenberg University
Wednesday, July 15 | 1:30pm-4:15pm | Location: CIRES Fellows Room
Building courses and programs around societal issues equips students to face earth resource challenges into the future. Linkages around societal issues can unify departments, stakeholders, and institutions, and support a shared vision and growth. Participants will identify and share ways to link courses and programs around societal issues and high impact practices (e.g. InTeGrate Modules) to support deep learning and growth through program development, articulation, and stakeholder opportunities.
Creating the Graduates You Want
Dave Mogk, Montana State University-Bozeman
Thursday, July 16 | 1:30pm-4:15pm | Location: CIRES Fellows Room
This course is intended for department heads/chairs and faculty interested in curriculum development at the department level. This interactive workshop will use the "matrix method of curriculum design" to help you define student learning outcomes related to mastery of geologic concepts and content, technical skills used in the geosciences, geoscience "habits of mind," higher-order thinking skills, and other professional skills (e.g., communication, quantitative, interpersonal, information). This workshop will help you explore the student learning outcomes that are most important to your degree program(s) as they apply to your students, institutional type, geographic setting, breadth of disciplines covered in your department, departmental resources, and faculty.
Increasing the Diversity of your Graduates
Ashanti Johnson, University of Texas at Arlington
Friday, July 17 | 1:30pm-4:15pm| Location: CIRES Fellows Room
This interactive workshop draws on broadening participation research and literature to introduce the many positive factors that reduce barriers to participation and support success in STEM pathways, enabling diverse students and early career professionals to succeed and persist in STEM fields. The goal is to provide participants the information they need to begin formulating personal action plans for cultivating, implementing, and facilitating positive factors of change in their own graduate level programs. Participants will be assessed on their ability to articulate an understanding of the positive factors presented, identify those factors that most supported them on their own STEM pathways, and explain how the positive factors may be most effectively leveraged for students in their environments through the implementation of practices that cultivate those positive factors in the student experience.