Essays on Geoscience at Two-Year Colleges

Quality, fieldwork, & blogging: my recipe for success part of Essays
Callan Bentley, Northern Virginia Community College
There are a couple of items I'd like to touch on in this essay. Given the breadth of possible questions, I think it would be fair of me to mix and match a bit. So I intend to cover three things here, from general to specific: (1) quality, (2) field work, and (3) blogging.

Coyote in the classroom part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Supporting Student Success in Geoscience at Two-year Colleges:Essays
Ethan Reese-Whiting, NorthWest Arkansas Community College
My instructional approach has evolved to focus on active and inquiry-based learning as a means of exploring concepts in the general geology classroom. This has grown out of my involvement with the Eight Shields model of the learning journey and art of mentoring as described in "Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature" by Jon Young, Ellen Haas, and Evan McGown. While I am still in the early stages of adapting this model to the traditional classroom setting, I believe its approach has value in the general geology classroom as a means of pulling at students' edges of understanding and inspiring their curiosity rather than pushing them toward specific goalposts via the traditional lecture model. The application of this approach also forces me to discern between the material that is "need to know" versus that which is "nice to know." This helps provide focus in the classroom and reduces the chances to overwhelm students with minutiae they can easily find in the textbook.

Supporting Geoscience Student Success part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Supporting Student Success in Geoscience at Two-year Colleges:Essays
Anita Ho, Flathead Valley Community College
While I look forward to the workshop and learning about additional strategies and resources for effectively teaching the range of students I see, here are a few approaches I use to support student success.

Techniques I Use to Help My Students Think About Their Learning part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Supporting Student Success in Geoscience at Two-year Colleges:Essays
Karen Kortz, Community College of Rhode Island
A lifelong skill is for students to think about their learning, or be metacognitive about it. Although metacognition ties directly to student success, it is often not taught, and it is a skill that many two-year college students lack. One of my goals is to purposefully structure my courses to help students focus on and be more aware of their own learning.

Promoting Student Success using Universal Design to Decrease Barriers in Higher Education part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Supporting Student Success in Geoscience at Two-year Colleges:Essays
Wendi J. W. Williams, South Texas College
I began teaching as a graduate student, and have since continued to grow in my understanding of content as well as educational design and delivery as faculty contributing to both 2-year and 4-year public institutions. Through the years I have become increasingly aware of the many kinds of diversity in my students: learning preferences, amount of college preparation, first generation college-bound, ages represented by concurrent enrollment as high school students through retirees, persons with disabilities, English language learners, and military active duty and/or veteran status. Early in my association with UA-Little Rock, Earth Science faculty joined a pilot program with the Disability Resource Center. "Project PACE" was funded by the U.S. Dept. of Ed and UALR to teach faculty to use Universal Design techniques in order to reduce barriers for the majority of students while increasing access to higher education. NCES (2013) indicates that students with some college courses or who achieve degrees become members of the workforce at higher rates. If redesigning our courses lower barriers, then our 2YC population benefits even more in the long term.

Beginning a Geoscience Program at a Two-Year College part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Supporting Student Success in Geoscience at Two-year Colleges:Essays
Brett Dooley, Patrick & Henry Community College
I teach at Patrick Henry Community College, which resides in a fairly rural and economically depressed part of Virginia. Many of our students are first generation college students and are coming back to school for retraining after having lost a factory job. With the exception of earth science (GOL110), which is not a transferrable science course for general studies students and thus never had any significant enrollment, PHCC has only offered geology classes for four years. Having started the geology program at PHCC, there are three main areas upon which I am focusing to support geoscience students: introduction to the value of geoscience and access, transfer and career option, and training with workforce and transfer skills.

Geoscience Projects That Bring the Community into the Classroom part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Supporting Student Success in Geoscience at Two-year Colleges:Essays
Michael Phillips, Illinois Valley Community College
I began my professional career working full-time as an environmental geologist outside of academia. I began teaching evening classes at a community college because I wanted to show students that geology was not just as an interesting look into how the earth operates but how the study of the earth directly impacts their lives. To that end, I have used my consulting experiences to shape my assignments, my instruction, and my community outreach.

Training the Future Geoscience Workforce at the 2YC part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Geoscience and the 21st Century Workforce:Essays
Shelley Jaye, Northern Virginia Community College
This webpage is an essay detailing a partnership between Northern Virginia Community College and the USGS to develop geoscience workforce training programs, including an Associate of Applied Science in Geoscience Technology, aimed at preparing students for entry-level technician roles and addressing the aging geoscience workforce through community college pathways. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

Pairing 2YCS with research-focused universities part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
John Taber, EarthScope Consortium
Given the value that has been shown for early research experiences for undergraduates, including for students who have yet to decide on a major, IRIS would like to partner with other organizations to develop, or help build on a student research program that integrates research opportunities at two-year and four-year schools. We have experience running a national distributed REU program for upper-level students with math, physics and/or geoscience background, but need to learn more about the needs and interests of first and second year students, as our current program has evolved into one where most participants have completed their junior year...

Texas A&M Geosciences and the increasing role of transfer students part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Eric Riggs, California State Polytechnic University-Humboldt
Texas A&M University at College Station is the flagship university for the Texas A&M System, and as such is a major destination for transfer students, both from inside and outside the A&M system. The College of Geosciences consists of four academic departments and many organized research centers spanning the core geoscience disciplines of Geology & Geophysics, Geography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences...

A "Jobs in Geosciences" Speaker Series: Addressing What Geologists Really Do part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Lynsey LeMay, Virginia Peninsula Community College
The geology department at Thomas Nelson Community College (TNCC) recently initiated a program to bring geologists employed in a variety of fields to campus. Noted both anecdotally and through survey data collected about perceptions and careers in geosciences, students often have misconceptions about what geologists actually do in their various job functions. To address these misconceptions, the "jobs in geosciences" speaker series was started. This was funded by a small grant from the TNCC Educational Foundation.

VoiceThread for On-line Courses part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Bob Ford, Frederick Community College
I wish I could write a concise, but elaborate statement describing all the wonderful things we are doing to prepare our students to be successful in geoscience degree programs and careers, but I cannot. We are a small to moderate sized school. Most of the students taking our science courses are non-science majors satisfying general education requirements or students trying to get into one of our allied health programs...

Engaging Students Through Research at a 2YC part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Joshua Villalobos, El Paso Community College
I can honestly say that for the past six years of teaching full-time I have been excited about going to work every day. The prospect of having the opportunity to introduce something new to a group of students, or explain something that they take for "granite" everyday gives me as much excitement and contentment as my regular morning tall Starbuck House Blend coffee! I like to think that all college professors had that one instructor, professor, or advisor that made them want to go down the path of education and forgo the path of fame or fortune in the geosciences.

Strategies for raising awareness of geoscience related careers at 2-year colleges part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Ben Wolfe, Kansas State University
I am single faculty discipline at my campus, part of a large urban multi-campus district in Kansas City, Missouri with a total of three district full-time geology faculty. The overwhelming majority of students at my institution take geoscience courses (e.g. physical geology or physical geography) to fulfill part of the general education requirements of the Associates in Arts degree or General Education certificate for transfer to a 4-year school...

PRIME - Promoting Research Investigations in the Marine Environment - A program for 2YC students part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Jan Hodder, University of Oregon
I am a marine biologist at the University of Oregon's Institute of Marine Biology (OIMB) and the Director of the Center for Ocean Science Education Excellence -Pacific Partnerships (COSEE-PP). The COSEE-PP project has concentrated on providing 2YC faculty and students with professional opportunities to work with ocean scientists and learn about current ocean science research...

Working Towards a Geoscience Degree part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Erica Barrow, Ivy Tech Community College
Ivy Tech Community College, Indiana's only 2-year college, is still transitioning from a technical college to an all-encompassing fully accredited community college. Within the science department we have 4 full-time faculty members who cover the basic science disciplines (biology, chemistry, physics, and earth science) through introductory laboratory classes...

Geoscience is by its nature interdisciplinary part of Integrate:Workshops and Webinars:Systems, Society, Sustainability and the Geosciences:Essays
David Kobilka, Central Lakes College-Brainerd
This webpage is an educational essay discussing how geoscience, particularly in environmental contexts, is inherently interdisciplinary, integrating chemistry, physics, biology, and social sciences, with a focus on teaching methods, current event integration, and sustainability education in undergraduate courses. auto-generated The author of this page didn't provide a brief description so this one sentence summary was created by an AI tool. It may not be completely accurate.

UT El Paso-El Paso Community College Activities part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Diane Doser, The University of Texas at El Paso
For the past ~3 years the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) has been working with El Paso Community College (EPCC) to help ease the transition of geoscience and environmental science students between our institutions. We have initiated a number of activities to accomplish this including: articulation of degree programs, review of introductory course content, cross-institution research projects with EPCC students and co-sponsored student research symposiums...

Grand Isle Project - Model for 2 YC Research part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Dean Moosavi, Rochester Community and Technical College; Sadredin Moosavi, RCTC
Over the past few years my research agenda has been challenged by the hurdles facing most faculty in non-tenure track appointments; high teaching loads involving mostly lower division non-major students, lack of access to research equipment, job instability and appointment in departments that devalue teaching and those who teach general education populations by favoring research-oriented upper division faculty with policies that restrict permission to submit grant proposals to tenure track faculty...

Early Advising and Successful Transfer to Four-Year Degree Programs part of SAGE 2YC:Workshops:Preparing Students in Two-year Colleges for Careers:Essays
Michael Cummings, Portland State University
The Department of Geology at Portland State University offers B.S./B.A. in Geology and B.S./B.A in Earth Science. The B.S./B.A. in Geology is the program for students intending to practice as professional geologists. The B.S./B.A. in Earth Science is a supporting degree for other professions such as law, K-12 teaching, urban and regional planning...