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Initial Publication Date: November 30, 2017

Callan Bentley - Action Plan

Individual Action Plan

Stuff outside the classroom, coordinated with the team ("Step" numbers correspond to Team Plan):

  • Step 1: get quantitative data about demographics of our classes relative to AN in general. (CB can do this: contact George Gabriel of NOVA OIR). Establish baselines and targets.
  • Step 5: Geology Club event to share the love. Students reach out to outsiders and bring them in, maybe starting with sorta-kinda related topics: soils, archaeology, environmental, etc.
  • Step 6: Offer speaker services to other clubs - Caribbean student club, etc. Action item: ask Student Activities (CB) who we should reach out to. (All)
  • Step 7: Field trip coordination - w/ GMU, w/ Montgomery College, w/ Anne Arundel CC, w/ Lord Fairfax CC. Send a buncha email :) Non-course related field trips. Expand field trip network; offer to train adjunct instructors. Maybe make this our workshop. (CB)
  • Step 8: Emphasize real-world controversial topics in geology: Fracking, climate change, urban development / land-use planning, energy sources, (All) Plan a field trip to Mount Storm WV for windmills + coal-fired power plant. (CB) Training workshop location?

Stuff inside the classroom:

  • Change "office hours" to "open discussion time". Meet in lab, not office? I've had some good success w/ this, this very week!
  • Build frequent quizzing into the routine for next semester's courses.
  • Emphasize controversial topics. (Already today I wove fracking into my resources lesson, whereas previously I had elided it.)

Timeline

All spring semester - Some in prep over the break (Club, syllabus), others to be in process over the spring semester. See details above.




Callan Bentley -- Discussion  

Callan--nice work! Comments on inside the classroom:
1) Have you thought how, specifically, you will build frequent quizzing into your courses next semester? I really like this idea because it gives students opportunity to practice in (hopefully) a low stakes environment. I've had success with weekly reading quizzes--students read a chapter, fill out a reading guide that helps them focus on key concepts in terms, and then take a quiz in class and they can use completed reading guides. It's kind of an "old school" version of flipping the classroom (doing reading before covering material), and helps students learn to read a science text.
2) I really like the idea of changing office hours to open discussion. I am planning on requiring an office hour visit during the first two weeks in response to low office hour turn out. I think your idea is great and really emphasizes the implicit nature of office hours; ie not all students probably know what office hours are for, we just assume they do.
3) What data are you collecting and why?
4) Controversial topics is a theme in your group and individual plans, and a great way to engage students that may be more interested in societial issues rather than the straight up science. One concern I always have when teaching climate change is that it is not a controversial issue among the scientific community, but it certainly is among other members of society. How will you deal with this?

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Great ideas for outreach to others.
Does the geology club take a trip to the 4YC transfer schools to meet with faculty/undergrads and see something interesting that they work on?

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I like your change from office hours to open discussion time, and great that you've had good success with that. I like that phrase and plan to make that change myself. Frequent quizzes also seems to be a good way to promote learning (thinking of a discussion post by Andrea earlier in the fall).

The work with the geology club sounds great! Great that you have such a club and a nice way to expand involvement. And the outreach part seems good as well. Building connections with other people and other groups on campus. And beyond, given the field trip plan. The involvement of adjunct faculty in that is good.

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Originally Posted by Deron Carter



4) Controversial topics is a theme in your group and individual plans, and a great way to engage students that may be more interested in societial issues rather than the straight up science. One concern I always have when teaching climate change is that it is not a controversial issue among the scientific community, but it certainly is among other members of society. How will you deal with this?


Deron,
You make a very good point here - the more we can decouple climate change and controversial the better. I try to think of ways to weave that topic throughout my marine courses to make it as "normal" as say the evolution topics I mention regularly.

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Hi Callan, great plans and I like that you are thinking both about what you can do inside your classroom as well as outside to reach the widest audience possible for the changes you want to make.

As was mentioned during the meeting discussion on Friday, we'll be working with all Change Agent teams to help you all gather quantitative data on your students so "stay tuned" as they say!

While reading about your plans for your geology club and outreach activities, I thought about some of the GeoPaths projects that we have on our SAGE webpages that have geology club and joint (2yc-4yc) field trip activities. You might want to read about some of those projects at: https://serc.carleton.edu/sage2yc/transfer/geopaths.html. The joint 2YC/4YC picnics/field trips/club meetings are a great way to help support students who are transferring to nearby 4YC's.

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Hi Callan,
These are great ideas. I like that you have focused on a range of places to have impact: in the classroom, with the student club, and campus-wide with other student clubs.
I also like the idea of using more low-stake quizzes, and I think that Deron's description of reading guides gives me a good idea of one way to help students learn to read a textbook effectively.
What do you envision the field trip coordination to look like? Making your field trips open to their students? Joint leading trips? Love this idea and would like to do that as well. Do you open the field trips to the geology club members, too, or other student groups on campus? I have done that as a way to bring in more students to earth science classes.

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I also really like the idea of expanding field trips. It offers so many opportunities and at so many different levels. I have brainstormed about running joint field trips with the art department. The art instructor could talk about how to sketch (or photograph) observations in the field. The geologists can talk about the geology of an outcrop.
I've had great success with joint trips with 4YC colleagues. Students are so eager to talk to the faculty from potential transfer schools.

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