Geoscience Education Workshop 4-pack
cosponsored by NAGT and the Geoscience Education Division of GSARegistration Details
To sign up for a workshop, use the GSA meeting registration. You can add a short course to your meeting registration or attend a workshop as a stand-alone event without registering for the whole meeting.
Note that the registration for these workshops is separate from the other short courses on the GSA registration form. Look for it at the bottom of the page, below the other short course listsings.
October 8, 2011 - held at the GSA Annual Meeting
Early Registration Deadline: September 6, 2011
This series brings together four of the hottest areas in undergraduate teaching: research based practices that help students learn, assessment strategies that can measure learning beyond factual recall, teaching about climate change, and using Google Earth.
Each session will be ½ day long. Participants select one of two sessions in the morning and one in the afternoon. Participants, conveners and speakers will share a common lunch to foster discussion across groups. The registration fee is $35, which includes a morning workshop (519A or 519B), lunch, and an afternoon workshop (519C or 519D). Limit of 40 participants per ½ day workshop. CEU: 0.4 per ½ day workshop.
Morning Workshops | Saturday October 8 | 8:00 - 12:00
519A. Teaching Students How to Learn
Dexter Perkins, University of North Dakota; Karl Wirth, Macalester CollegeOne of the key goals of a college education is to help students become better learners, but this goal is often overlooked when planning class curriculum and activities. Many studies have shown that the way we teach, and other interactions we have with students, have a significant and controlling impact on student attitudes and motivations. Additionally, what we do in the classroom can help students develop improved (self-regulated) learning skills. These good attitudes, motivations and learning skills will continue to aid students after they leave our classrooms – as they continue with their academic career and life afterwards. In recent years, a number of energetic and innovative teachers have taken steps to improve the attitudes, motivations and learning skills of their students. Innovations in the classroom have been many and diverse, and a broad range of interventions have been shown to improve students' ability to be self-regulated learners. This session will include general discussion of the importance of helping students develop the attitudes and motivations (and other affective characteristics) necessary to become expert learners. We will discuss the significance of the affective domain, metacognition, and self-regulated learning skills, and also will provide many examples of effective classroom activities that have been shown to promote better learning skills in general (e.g., knowledge surveys, learning portfolios, self-reflective essays, mastery exercises, exam wrappers, and more).
519B. Teaching Climate Science with Active Learning Strategies
Karin Kirk, Science Education Resource Center; Susan Buhr, CIRESClimate science is a hot topic in today's classrooms, but understanding the science can be clouded by misconceptions, affective roadblocks, and political concerns. One important strategy for improving student understanding of controversial or misunderstood topics is to use active learning methods by which students can become immersed in the issue. This half-day workshop will provide opportunities to learn specific techniques for teaching climate science, such as using datasets, Google Earth, case studies, and interactive classroom projects. Participants will have hands-on time using various tactics and will emerge with a set of resources that they can apply to their own classrooms.
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HideAfternoon Workshops | Saturday October 8 | 1:00 - 5:00
519C. Retooling Your Geosciences Class: Strategies to Assess Learning and Improve Student SuccessSee a list of other geoscience education events and activities at the 2011 GSA meeting
David McConnell, North Carolina State University; David Steer, University of AkronThis workshop teaches faculty to develop and use student-centered activities in predominately lecture classes in the geosciences. Many faculty are interested in such methods, but do not know how or where to begin. This half-day workshop will introduce faculty to a schema for developing formative assessment materials. Faculty will work in teams developing and reviewing exercises they can then use in their classes to gauge student levels of learning. Numerous examples will be discussed as will resources available on the Cutting Edge website. Participants will leave the workshop with the pedagogical foundation and in-class formative assessment resources they need to better engage their students and improve their learning.
519D. Teaching with Google Earth
Peter Selkin, University of Washington Tacoma; Declan De Paor, Old Dominion University.
Google Earth, an easy to use tool for presenting data on a three-dimensional model of the Earth, is taking geoscience education by storm. This 1/2 day workshop will provide an introduction to Google Earth and highlight a wide variety of examples of its use in introductory geoscience courses. Discussion will focus on tips and strategies for using Google Earth to engage students with geoscience data.