Creating an Academic Community to Foster Curiosity and Discovery in Introductory Geoscience Classes

San Francisco State University, San Francisco CA

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract This project creates a Teaching and Learning Community (TLC) composed of faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates who are combining their professional and curricular development efforts to improve instruction in geology, meteorology and oceanography lab courses. The TLC is also working to improve student learning in associated lecture courses via the transfer of skills developed by students enrolled in the labs. The project develops, adapts, and refines lab materials that not only incorporate a consistent inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach, real-world data, and problems relevant to students, but also explicitly address the process of science. The project work is being facilitated by a computer-equipped Geoscience Exploration Laboratory (GEL), developed in part via this project, which is providing students with opportunities to collect their own data, use computer tools to analyze, visualize, interpret, synthesize and present their results and interpretations. This is helping students to develop valuable thinking and communication skills at an early stage in their university careers. The evaluation plan consists of both formative and summative components that track student learning and attitudes as well as the professional development of faculty and graduate students who are involved in teaching the laboratory courses. The outcomes of the project include a widely disseminated lab manual, a national workshop that actively disseminates the project results, and the dissemination of evaluation results that are of interest to the larger STEM community.