About the Geoprisims Mini-Lesson Project
The GeoPRISMS Office and several members of the GeoPRISMS Education Advisory Committee (GEAC) have been funded by the NSF TUES Program (Division of Undergraduate Education) to prepare the next generation of MARGINS mini-lessons, specifically to integrate a decade of successful MARGINS research into upper level undergraduate geoscience curriculum. This project brings together present and former members of GEAC (and its MARGINS predecessor, MEAC), other prominent scientists from the MARGINS community, as well as curriculum experts from On the Cutting Edge, a community of geoscience faculty dedicated to improving teaching and student learning. This integration of leading scientists and curriculum experts will produce high quality science curricula informed by current educational research and practices.
The project will be carried out in three phases, as follows:
- Phase I - summarizing the relevant highlights of the decade of MARGINS science, identifying gaps in the existing MARGINS mini-lesson collection, and designing additional mini-lessons to provide a more coherent and complete collection. This effort will take place via a series of webinars, a virtual workshop, and additional electronic interaction.
- Phase 2 - designing and implementing an assessment plan for the mini-lessons, as well as placing the mini-lessons into multiple course frameworks to form coherent course segments. An assessment consultant will lead the assessment effort during a face-to-face workshop. Participants will then test the curriculum at their home institutions during that academic year.
- Phase 3 - summarizing and evaluating results, compiling and distributing products, and publishing results. The results of the assessments will be reviewed at a face-to-face workshop, and plans made for dissemination.
The products will consist of organized resources for upper level undergraduate courses that have undergone a rigorous testing and assessment process, as well as broad distribution and publication in geoscience and education journals and meeting presentations. This multi-institutional effort to disseminate interdisciplinary MARGINS science results will offer scientists a powerful means for increasing the impact of you research, while creating a portable curricular resource to educate and engage geoscience students across a range of courses and institutional types. By disseminating the highlights of MARGINS science through high-impact teaching resources, we will help transform the education of a broad and diverse audience of undergraduate geoscience students.
MARGINS TUES Project Leads
Julia Morgan, GeoPRISMS Chair (Rice University)
Andrew Goodliffe (University of Alabama)
Jeff Marshall (Cal Poly Pomona)
Ellen Iverson and Cathy Manduca (SERC, Carleton College)
Jenn Beck (EvalArts Consulting)
MARGINS TUES Science Team Leads
Robert Stern, SubFac Initiative (U Texas, Dallas)
Casey Moore, SEIZE Initiative (U California, Santa Cruz)
Rebecca Dorsey, RCL Initiative (University of Oregon)
Steve Kuehl, S2S Initiative (Virginia Institute of Marine Science)
