Lab using Volcano Scenarios: Hazard Maps and Communicating Risk
LeeAnn Srogi, West Chester University of Pennsylvania
This is a lab activity in which small groups of students work with maps, rocks, photographs of volcanic deposits, and textual data to construct a hazard map and a risk communication plan for a specific volcano. Each group is assigned a "volcano scenario," which is based on real volcanoes.

Geoscience education research project
Karen Kortz, Community College of Rhode Island
Students complete a scientific research project including asking a question, developing methods, collecting data, analyzing and interpreting data, and communicating results. The research question begins "What ...

Syllabus Quiz
Karin Kirk, Freelance Science Writer and Geoscientist
This quiz helps students make sure they understand the important policies of the course before they embark into the course. Because students in online courses need to digest all of the course rules by reading ...

Learning About Thinking and Thinking About Learning
Karl Wirth, Macalester College
A document about learning provides background information for classroom activities to help students be more intentional about their thinking and learning

Teaching geologic time and rates of landscape evolution with dice
Kate Ruhl, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Landscape evolution provides a convenient framework for understanding geologic time and rates because students can observe how processes like erosion and deposition shape their surroundings. In this example, students build 3-D sandbox models based on topographic maps and design and stage a "virtual adventure race." Sandbox landscapes are used to illustrate erosional processes,while local examples are used to discuss landscapes as transient or steady over different time- and length scales. Dice experiments illustrate radioactive decay and the shape of the age equation curve, and 14C dating, geochronology and thermochronology are introduced as "stopwatches" that start when a plant dies, a crystal forms, or a rock nears the surface and cools to a certain temperature. The sandbox model and thermochronometer "stopwatches" are combined to measure erosion rates and rates of landscape change. Ultimately, model rates (cm/hour) calculated from stopwatch times on the order of seconds can be related to geologic rates (km/My) calculated from real million-year-old samples.

ConcepTests
David McConnell, North Carolina State University
ConcepTests are conceptual multiple-choice questions that focus on one key concept of an instructor's learning goals for a lesson. When coupled with student interaction through peer instruction, ConcepTests represent a rapid method of formative assessment of student understanding.

Guided Discovery and Scoring Rubric for Petrographic Analysis of a Thin Section
Dave Mogk, Montana State University-Bozeman
A guided discovery approach is used to "unpack" the methods and observations used by "master" petrographers in the petrographic analysis of a thin section. A series of spread sheets are used to ...

Peer Instruction
Developed by Perry J. Samson Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences University of Michigan
Peer instruction may offer some of the richest opportunities for metacognitive teaching. Reciprocal (peer) teaching forces the instructor to use a whole series of metacognitive processes such as determining what ...

What Do You Know Now?
Developed by Perry J. Samson Department of Atmospheric, Oceanic and Space Sciences, University of Michigan
An opportunity to offer metacognitive teaching arises from the simple question "what do you know now that you didn't before (whatever)"? This simple question can be asked after a reading, a lecture, a lab or other unit of student activity. The thrust is to force the student to consider what they've been exposed to and reflect on what they've learned. Did the activity change their opinion? Did this activity help them identify an analogy?

Challenging Pre-Conceptions
Perry Samson, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
Students carry into class pre-conceptions based on stories they've heard, articles they've read and experiences they've had. One of the best opportunities to teach metacognition is at a 'gotcha' moment when they come to realize their pre-conception is amiss.