Teaching Critical Minerals and Designing Lessons for Student-Centered Instruction

Wednesday 1:30pm-4:00pm Coker 104
Afternoon Mini Workshop

Leaders

Katherine Ryker, University of South Carolina-Columbia
Doug Czajka, Utah Valley University
Karen Viskupic, Boise State University
Hannah Aird, California State University-Chico
Rachel Teasdale, California State University-Chico

This workshop will integrate new (to many) content and instructional practices. We will share a newly designed lesson on critical minerals (CM; Aird et al.) that has been developed using student-centered instructional practices (as measured by RTOP and COPUS using direct observations at four institutions). The workshop will focus on two important themes: 1) Content: there is currently only 1 Teach the Earth (TTE) lesson on CM, but this important topic has societal relevance and the potential to employ a large number of geoscientists. 2) Pedagogical: student-centered instructional practices support student engagement and learning. Participants will preview the lesson, critique the activity and discuss in small groups the relevance of the content and instructional practices for students in their courses. In small groups, participants will use a general lesson plan template to modify our CM lesson for their contexts (e.g. intro labs, mineralogy/early majors course, economic geology/advanced majors, online lecture course). By the end of the workshop, participants will have created a modified CM lesson plan that incorporates student-centered instruction. Lesson plans will be uploaded to our TTE CM lesson as a "Community Contribution Tool" (CCT), allowing for community-wide usage. After the workshop, participants can use their lesson plans to finalize activities for their own courses and modify their CCT submission accordingly.

Intended Audience

This workshop is geared towards participants with interest in: 1. Exploring and using new lessons in critical minerals in their courses 2. Student-centered instructional design 3. Adapting a student-centered lesson on critical minerals for their own classrooms.

Goals

By the end of this workshop, participants will have:

  • Previewed and critically assessed a new Teach The Earth (TTE) lesson on critical minerals
  • Revised a lesson for their teaching context that incorporates elements of student-centered lesson design

Program

1:30 Introductions, icebreaker, and introduction to student-centered instruction

2:00 Introduction to critical minerals, their importance, and our critical minerals lesson

2:45 Break and a quick survey to determine groups based on participants' teaching interests and contexts (e.g., institution type, class size, etc.)

2:55 Introduction to Lesson Plan Template that will guide groups in modifying the lesson to fit their interests and contexts.

3:05 Work time in groups along with an introduction to the Community Contribution Tool for submitting lesson modifications

3:35 Participants share their lesson modification ideas.

3:50 Wrap-up and end of workshop evaluation

4:00 Adjourn

Resources

Minerals Council of Australia 30 Things: https://minerals.org.au/resources/30-things/

US Department of Energy Critical Minerals Assessment: https://minerals.org.au/resources/30-things/

World Resources Institute - Overcoming Critical Minerals Shortages is Key to Achieving US Climate Goals: https://www.wri.org/insights/critical-minerals-us-climate-goals