From Confusion to Confidence: Teaching students to read geoscience
Students often struggle to engage with primary scientific literature, especially in introductory geology and other natural science courses. Vocabulary barriers, math anxiety, and limited prior experience with research methods can make journal articles feel inaccessible. Our interdisciplinary team of a librarian and several community college science instructors developed a practical instrument to guide students through the structure and purpose of scholarly articles. The tool prompts learners to work with abstracts, introductions, methods, results, and discussions in a scaffolded way that builds confidence and encourages critical thinking. This session models the design principles of Cutting Edge workshops by emphasizing active participation, collaboration, and immediate applicability. Participants will experience portions of the instrument from a student perspective, work with other participants, consider strategies for adapting it to their own teaching contexts, and reflect on the role of librarian-instructor partnerships in supporting student success. By the end of the session, participants will have a ready-to-use tool that can be customized for geology or other disciplines, along with insights into how interdisciplinary collaboration can enhance student comprehension of primary literature. This approach not only supports information literacy but also helps students enter the ongoing scientific conversation with greater confidence and without reliance on artificial intelligence.
Intended Audience
Novice instructors from middle school through university level. Geoscience instructors know the value of engaging students with authentic scientific literature, but novice readers, such as community college students and non-science majors, often find primary articles confusing and overwhelming.
Goals
- Participants will be able to adapt a guided reading instrument that helps students analyze primary scientific articles.
- Participants will understand strategies for reducing common student barriers such as vocabulary gaps, math anxiety, and unfamiliarity with scientific methods.
- Participants will experience collaborative librarian-instructor approaches that can strengthen student engagement and information literacy in geology and related sciences.
- Participants will leave with practical ideas for integrating active-learning techniques into geoscience courses without sacrificing core content.
Workshop Format
- Welcome & Entrance Ticket (15 minutes): Overview of the instrument and short introduction.
- Experiencing the Struggle (30 minutes): Break-out groups will work with the instrument from the student's perspective by marking text and working through a think-pair-share activity.
- Introducing the Instrument (30 minutes): Sharing the history of the instrument, revisions, and current pedagogy. Group discussion on guided readings and ways to reduce a student's cognitive load.
- Figure Lab (15 minutes): Group discussion focusing on how "math anxiety" is often "reading anxiety".
- Break (15 minutes):
- Adaptation & Implementation (20 minutes): Participants will adapt the instrument to their own teaching context considering course level, discipline, and timing.
- From Barriers to Solutions (25 minutes): Revisit common barriers identified earlier from entrance tickets and complete workshop feedback.