Today we begin a series of bi-weekly emails on topics related to our project: supporting the academic success of all students, facilitating professional pathways in the geosciences, broadening participation in the geosciences, and developing a national network of leaders (starting with you!) changing geoscience education at two-year colleges. Today's focus is supporting the academic success of all students via interactive lectures, and especially think-pair-share.

Making your lectures interactive is a relatively easy way to improve student learning. Research shows -- see the references on this page: [http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/why.html] -- that students in classes where lectures include interactive segments learn significantly more and retain significantly more of what they've learned than students in traditional, non-interactive lectures. Interactive segments of just 2-3 minutes can make a big difference.

Watch Greg Hancock, from the College of William and Mary, demonstrate the use of think-pair-share to have students dig into data about ozone levels over Antarctica: [http://serc.carleton.edu/details/files/19471.html]

Read more about how to use think-pair-share here: [http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/tpshare.html]

See some examples of think-pair-share activities here: [http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/interactive/tpshareexm.html]

Do you use think-pair-share activities in your classes? What's one of your favorite ways to use it? Tell us about it!