Principles and Applications of Geoscience Education

Megan Plenge, Earth, Marine and Environmental Science

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Summary

Professional geoscientists often need to communicate complex science ideas to non-experts such as stakeholders, students, and policymakers. Foundational knowledge of learning theories and practical strategies for effective instruction will benefit geoscience students regardless of future career path. This course will introduce students to student-centered theories that provide a framework for how people learn science and outline strategies for development and assessment of geoscience lessons. Emphasis will be placed on aligning instruction with defined standards or objectives and practical applications of educational frameworks.

Course URL: []
Course Size:

31-70

Course Format:

Lecture only

Institution Type:

default

Course Context:

This course was designed as a 200-level majors elective. Enrolled students are still early in their geoscience careers and it is rare for students to have prior training in pedagogy or teaching experience.
This course was designed for a Ghanaian university with limited resources for purchasing texts; thus, wherever possible open-access or older texts that are readily available are utilized.
It is designed to meet for 2 hours per week over a 12-week semester.

Course Content:

This course provides an overview of student-centered learning practices and theoretical foundations, with the goal of students producing instructional materials such as rubrics and assessments. Major concepts include backward design, the cognitive and affective domain, formative assessment, and metacognition. Skills include evaluation of learning objectives and the alignment between assessments and instructional materials, the creation of assessment materials and the justification of pedagogy.

Course Goals:

1. Apply learning theories to inform our understanding of student learning in the context of geoscience
2. Evaluate existing geoscience educational resources using criteria grounded in learning theory, accessibility principles and alignment with educational standards
3. Justify instructional design decisions in terms of content and pedagogy by synthesizing learning theory and practical constraints
4. Create assessments that measure understanding of content at multiple cognitive levels and provide feedback

Course Features:

The instructor models the instructional practices students learn about, as described in the day-by-day learning plans provided in the syllabus.

As a culminating assignment in the course, students are asked to generate an outcome, aligned assessment and rubric intended to help resolve a common Earth Science misconception. Then, they work in groups to outline an instructional sequence that uses active learning and incorporates at least 2 twenty-first century skills, and present their sequence to the class with a brief justification of the strategies they used.

Additionally, no powerpoint slides are used, although they could be added if desired by instructors. This allows for classrooms who do not have access to projectors to successfully execute the curriculum.

Course Philosophy:

Ghanaian geoscience departments are currently trying to build capacity in geoscience education to promote recruitment and retention of undergraduate students. Earth Science does not feature prominently in secondary level schools, so that most students have little prior knowledge or awareness of geoscience concepts before the undergraduate level.

One of the goals in creating this course is to help students who graduate with geoscience degrees have a better understanding of best practices for teaching others. The hope is that whether students end up in higher education or secondary instructional roles or in mining, energy, or other geoscience industries, having more awareness about evidence-based, student-centered teaching practices will be beneficial for outreach and instruction.

Many faculty in geoscience departments are not comfortable teaching pedagogy as it is not within their area of expertise. This course outline, including day-by-day outlines of in-class activities, is intended to help faculty with limited expertise in geoscience education successfully run the course.

Assessment:

Formative assessments take place during each class meeting and are scaffolded over time towards a final project in which students generate a learning outcome, aligned assessment, model answer, and rubric to go with a common geoscience misconception. They work in groups to outline an instructional sequence that uses active learning and models at least two twenty-first century skills and present their instructional sequences to the course with a brief justification for why and how they used evidence-based instructional practices.