Why Teach with GeoClick Questions

Using GeoClick questions engages students in active learning (cognitive & behavioral engagement, LaDue et al., 2021) using Technology-Enhanced Formative Assessment (Beatty and Gerace, 2009).

Spatial reasoning is important for understanding in the Geosciences

Spatial reasoning is the process of mentally manipulating visual information (Newcombe & Shipley, 2015). Spatial reasoning is trainable (Gold et al., 2018; Hannula, 2019) but may be a barrier for some students (Uttal et al., 2013). Several studies have defined the types of spatial reasoning that are valuable in the geosciences (Ault, 1998; Cheek et al., 2017; Kastens & Ishikawa, 2006; Newcombe & Shipley, 2015). Strategies to engage students in spatial reasoning about geoscience phenomena include: gesturing (Atit et al., 2015; Van Boening & Riggs, 2020), sketching (Ormand et al., 2017; Libarkin, 2006), etc. The learning mechanism involved in this process is the cycle of prediction and feedback that comes from externalizing one's mental representation of a concept and receiving feedback about any errors present (James et al., 2021; Resnick et al., 2017a). One study utilizing clickers to engage students in reasoning with the Geologic Time Scale revealed the cycle of prediction and feedback using clickers improved exam score (Resnick et al., 2017a) and accuracy for estimating magnitudes (Resnick et al., 2017b). GeoClick questions are particularly good at engaging students in spatial integration, scalar relationships, and spatial reference frame judgements (LaDue & Shipley, 2018; 2020).

GeoClick questions target conceptual challenges

Relative to other disciplines, conceptual understanding in the geosciences is understudied (National Research Council, 2012). Reviews of geoscience conceptions reveal a bias in the literature toward geology concepts (Cheek, 2010; Francek, 2013) with fewer studies focusing on surface processes (Sexton, 2012) and water in the Earth's system (LaDue et al., 2021). In the design process for GeoClick questions, we begin by considering research-documented conceptual challenges as well as instructor wisdom about barriers to student understanding. For example, students struggle to reason about geologic events due to the large scale of geologic time. Therefore, we created a question to engage students in making predictions about geologic events.

Question Prompt: Click on the line where you expect dinosaurs appeared on Earth.

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Provenance: Nicole LaDue, Northern Illinois University
Reuse: This item is in the public domain and maybe reused freely without restriction.

Student Responses: Before and after instruction, students overestimate how long before present day dinosaurs appeared on Earth.

Pre-instruction:

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Provenance: Nicole LaDue, Northern Illinois University
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Post-instruction:

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Provenance: Nicole LaDue, Northern Illinois University
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Given that temporal reasoning about geologic events is so challenging, we suggest using the GeoClick questions for formative assessment coupled with an activity, such as this one, to engage students in building a conceptual model of geologic time.

References

Atit, K., Gagnier, K., & Shipley, T. F. (2015). Student gestures aid penetrative thinking. Journal of Geoscience Education, 63(1), 66-72.

Ault, C. R. (1998). Criteria of excellence for geological inquiry: the necessity of ambiguity. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 35(2), 189–212.

Beatty, I. D., & Gerace, W. J. (2009). Technology-enhanced formative assessment: a research-based pedagogy for teaching science with classroom response technology. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 18(2), 146–162.

Cheek, K. A. (2010). Commentary: A summary and analysis of twenty seven years of geoscience conceptions research. Journal of Geoscience Education, 58(3), 122–134.

Cheek, K. A., LaDue, N. D., & Shipley, T. F. (2017). Learning about spatial and temporal scale: current research, psychological processes, and classroom implications. Journal of Geoscience Education, 65(4), 455–472.

Francek, M. (2013). A compilation and review of over 500 geoscience misconceptions. International Journal of Science Education, 35(1), 31–64.

Gagnier, K. M., Atit, K., Ormand, C. J., & Shipley, T. F. (2017). Comprehending 3D diagrams: sketching to support spatial reasoning. Topics in Cognitive Science, 9(4), 883–901.

Gold, A. U., Pendergast, P. M., Ormand, C. J., Budd, D. A., & Mueller, K. J. (2018). Improving spatial thinking skills among undergraduate geology students through short online training exercises. International Journal of Science Education, 40(18), 2205-2225.

Hannula, K. A. (2019). Do geology field courses improve penetrative thinking?. Journal of Geoscience Education, 67(2), 143-160.

James, N. M., Kreager, B. Z., & LaDue, N. D. (2021). Predict-observe-explain activities preserve introductory geology students' self-efficacy. Journal of Geoscience Education, 1-12.

Kastens, K. A., & Ishikawa, T. (2006). Spatial thinking in the geosciences and cognitive sciences: A cross-disciplinary look at the intersection of the two fields. Special Papers-Geological Society of America, 413, 53.

LaDue, N. D., Ackerman, J. R., Blaum, D., & Shipley, T. F. (2021). Assessing Water Literacy: Undergraduate Student Conceptions of Groundwater and Surface Water Flow. Water, 13(5), 622.

LaDue, N. D., McNeal, P. M., Ryker, K., St. John, K., & van der Hoeven Kraft, K. J. (2021). Using an engagement lens to model active learning in the geosciences. Journal of Geoscience Education, 1-33.

LaDue, N. D., & Shipley, T. F. (2018). Click-on-diagram questions: A new tool to study conceptions using classroom response systems. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 27(6), 492-507.

LaDue, N. D., & Shipley, T. F. (2020). Click-on-Diagram Questions: Using Clickers to Engage Students in Visual-Spatial Reasoning. In Active Learning in College Science (pp. 159-171). Springer, Cham.

Libarkin, J. C. (2006). College student conceptions of geological phenomena and their importance in classroom instruction. Planet, 17(1), 6–9.

National Research Council. (2012). Discipline-based education research: understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. S. R. Singer, N. R. Nielsen, & H. A. Schweingruber (Eds.), Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.

Newcombe, N. S., & Shipley, T. F. (2015). Thinking about spatial thinking: new typology, new assessments. In Studying visual and spatial reasoning for design creativity (pp. 179–192). Dordrecht: Springer

Ormand, C. J., Shipley, T. F., Tikoff, B., Dutrow, B., Goodwin, L. B., Hickson, T., ... & Resnick, I. (2017). The Spatial Thinking Workbook: A research-validated spatial skills curriculum for geology majors. Journal of Geoscience Education, 65(4), 423-434.

Resnick, I., Davatzes, A., Newcombe, N. S., & Shipley, T. F. (2017a). Using relational reasoning to learn about scientific phenomena at unfamiliar scales. Educational Psychology Review, 29(1), 11–25.

Resnick, I., Newcombe, N. S., & Shipley, T. F. (2017b). Dealing with big numbers: Representation and understanding of magnitudes outside of human experience. Cognitive science, 41(4), 1020-1041.

Sexton, J. M. (2012). College students' conceptions of the role of rivers in canyon formation. Journal of Geoscience Education, 60(2), 168-178.

Uttal, D. H., Meadow, N. G., Tipton, E., Hand, L. L., Alden, A. R., Warren, C., & Newcombe, N. S. (2013). The malleability of spatial skills: a meta-analysis of training studies. Psychological Bulletin, 139(2), 352–402.

Van Boening, A. M., & Riggs, E. M. (2020). Geologic gestures: A new classification for embodied cognition in geology. Journal of Geoscience Education, 68(1), 49-64.