Topics and Themes

Teaching Methods

• Campus-Based Learning uses the campus environment itself as a teaching tool.
• ConcepTests are conceptual multiple-choice questions that focus on one key concept of an instructor's learning goals for a lesson.
  
• Cooperative Learning involves students working in groups to accomplish learning goals.
• Experience-Based Environmental Projects get students personally involved and invested, moving the learning experience from the classroom to their own lives.
• Gallery Walk activities get students up out of their chairs and actively working together.
• Game-Based Learning was written to assist geoscience faculty who want to start using games to help them teach.
• Interactive Lectures provide short activities that can break up a lecture.
• Jigsaws each student develops some expertise with one data set, then teaches a few classmates about it (and learns about related data sets from those classmates).
  
• Investigative Case-Based Learning involves students in addressing real world problems.
• Just-in-Time teaching gets students to read assigned material outside of class, respond to short questions online, then participate in discussion and collaborative exercises in the following class period.
• Lecture Tutorials are short worksheets that students complete in class to make lecture more interactive.
• Peer Review uses interaction around writing to refine students understanding.
• Role-Playing immerses students in debate around Earth science issues.
• Service Learning offers the opportunity to link academic learning with community service.
• Socratic Questioning turns a lecture into a guided discussion.
• Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum is a project which promotes student construction of spreadsheets and use of elementary mathematics to solve problems in context.
• Structured Academic Controversy is a type of cooperative learning strategy in which small teams of students learn about a controversial issue from multiple perspectives.
• Student Research engages student interest and provides opportunities for them to participate in active learning.
• Studio Teaching is done in under circumstances that maximize students working together in groups and being responsible for their own learning.
• Teaching with Data helps faculty find and integrate real data sets into their classes.
• Teaching with GIS in the Geosciences shows how this powerful new tool can be used to help teach geoscience.
• Teaching with Google Earth provides detailed instructions for bringing rich imagery and interactive information into the classroom.
• Teaching with Interactive Demonstrations helps faculty use effective these hands-on, inquiry-based learning opportunities in class or lab. (Includes what was previously Physical Analog Models.)
• Teaching with Models helps students understand the relationships between data and Earth processes.
• Conceptual Models are qualitative models that help highlight important connections in real world systems and processes.
• Mathematical and Statistical Models involve solving relevant equation(s) of a system or characterizing a system based upon its statisical parameters.
• Teaching with Visualizations helps students see how systems work. (Includes what was previously Visualization Models.)

Designing a Course

• Browse Course Descriptions - a searchable collection.
• Assessment helps faculty find ways to understand what their students are learning.
• Designing an Earth System Course provides help creating a course with a systems emphasis.
• Field Labs provides tips and help for getting students outside.
• Indoor Labs are structured investigations and experiments of materials, models, and other equipment.
• Using an Earth History Approach provides faculty with resources and insights on teaching from this perspective.
• The First Day of Class describes several different ways to focus on student learning, starting on the first day of class, and includes a collection of example activities.
• Teaching Urban Students provides information about how to effectively teach in an urban environment. Urban students bring a rich set of experiences to the classroom that may be significantly different than those of students in small-town settings. Effective teaching of urban students requires instructors to tap into these rich experiences, cultural customs, and practical skills sets.

Teaching about the Earth System

• Designing an Earth System Course looks at Earth Systems from the point of course creation.
• Earth System Science in a Nutshell provides an introduction and references describing the Earth system and its subsystems.
• Using an Earth System Approach describes ways to incorporate an integrated view of the Earth system into entry level geoscience courses.