Research on Instructional Strategies to Improve Geoscience Learning in Different Settings and with Different Technologies (e.g., place-based instruction, teaching large lectures, online instruction)

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Authors: Steven Semken, Arizona State University at Tempe; Juk Bhattacharyya, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater; Don Haas, Paleontological Research Institution; Amy Pallant, The Concord Consortium; and Jennifer Wiggen, North Carolina State University

Jump Down To: Grand Challenge 1 | Grand Challenge 2 | Grand Challenge 3 | Grand Challenge 4 | Grand Challenge 5 |

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Montage of geoscience instructional practices and settings.

Introduction

As is true in all areas of science, technology, mathematics, and engineering, it is understood that research on learning and teaching informs good instructional practice. Two seminal reports: Shaping the Future of Undergraduate Earth Science Education (Ireton et al., 1996) and Bringing Research on Learning to the Geosciences (Manduca et al., 2003), laid out agendas for research toward more effective, accessible, inclusive, and relevant geoscience teaching practice. Over the subsequent years, as evidenced in the literature (e.g., Journal of Geoscience Education and In the Trenches) and in the wide dissemination of community-driven professional-development programs and resources such as On the Cutting Edge (all under the aegis of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers), we have seen unprecedented expansion in innovative curriculum and instruction (i.e., practice), in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), and in geoscience education research (GER), funded by the National Science Foundation and other agencies. Yet all three of these realms have thrived in relative isolation from one another. Our Working Group has identified six Grand Challenges to meaningful collaboration and consilience among these three realms.

Grand Challenge 1: How can research and evaluation keep pace with, and effectively inform, innovations in strategies for teaching geoscience knowledge, skills, and dispositions?

Rationale:

Technological advances in science education, including geoscience education, tend to outpace research on their effects, as well as the evaluation of their effectiveness (Means et al., 2014; Bull et al., 2017). Geoscience curriculum and instruction are not always responsive to workforce requirements (Mosher, 2015; 2016) for knowledge, skills, and dispositions (which are the attitudes and behaviors that foster effective use of knowledge and skills). Many innovations in geoscience curriculum and instruction have encountered challenges to making significant, lasting, and economical outcomes at scale (Dillenbourg, 2017; Poulin & Straut, 2017).

Strategies:

• Validate methods for true comparative studies of geoscience learning in virtual or online versus in-person or face-to-face settings, and at different scales.
• Study faculty instructional design processes (e.g., Reigeluth et al., 2017; Kastens & Krumhansl, 2017; Ertmer et al., 2018), to determine the forms of research designs that will best inform teaching practice.
   

Grand Challenge 2: How can undergraduate geoscience instruction benefit from effective research-based practices in other domains?

Rationale:

Many research-based instructional and assessment practices in other disciplines (e.g., other natural sciences, social sciences, arts and humanities) and in different settings (e.g., K-12 education, informal or free-choice education, and internships) are shown to be effective. For example, Freeman et al. (2014) point out that irrespective of class size and course content, students in traditional lecture-based STEM classrooms are 1.5 times more likely to fail than those in classrooms using active learning strategies. Similarly, reflective assessment techniques like two-stage exams (Wieman et al., 2014) and application of growth mindset (e.g., Dweck, 2006; Yeager et al., 2016) are shown to increase student engagement and learning. However, those strategies may be little-known and little-used by geoscience educators (McConnell et al., 2017). Meta-analyses of effective research-based practices in other domains (e.g., Kober, 2015; Lund et al., 2015; Cleveland et al., 2017) would benefit undergraduate geoscience instruction.

Strategies:

• Conduct more collaborative, cross-disciplinary research with practitioners, especially with researchers in cognitive psychology (e.g., Jaeger et al., 2017; Shipley & Tikoff, 2017), on effective strategies from other disciplines.
   
• Study the relative effectiveness of specific strategies at different scales (e.g., McConnell et al., 2017).
   

Grand Challenge 3: What instructional practices and settings are most effective for the greatest range of geoscience learners?

Rationale:

The greater geoscience community (encompassing practicing geoscientists, geoscience educators, and geoscience students) does not yet reflect the demographic diversity of the nation as a whole, although it is progressing in that direction (e.g., Wilson, 2014a; 2014b; 2017). To facilitate such progress, teaching practices and learning settings that promote accessibility, equity, and diversity in geoscience education merit expanded study that is driven jointly by researchers and by reflective practitioners: research informs good practice while practitioners define meaningful research themes. Undergraduate geoscience education may also benefit from collaboration with researchers and practitioners in the realm of informal or free-choice science education, which already serves a larger and more diverse population of learners (Bell et al., 2009).

Strategies:

• Apply new evidence-driven approaches (St. John & McNeal, 2017) to conduct meta-analyses of effective instructional strategies, teaching tools, and assessments for a broad range of learners and settings.
   
• Identify and address factors that foster or limit participation of underrepresented students in the geosciences (e.g., National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine, 2011; Callahan et al., 2017; McDaris et al., 2017; Wolfe & Riggs, 2017).
   
• Test effectiveness of instructional methods focused on engaging underrepresented students, such as place-based and culturally informed geoscience teaching, with larger populations and over longer time periods (e.g., Ward et al., 2014; Semken et al., 2017).
   
• Expand research on and research-informed practice of geoscience instruction for students with disabilities (e.g., Carabajal et al., 2017).
   
• Promote collaborations among researchers and practitioners in formal and informal (free-choice) science education.
   

Grand Challenge 4: How do we overcome structural barriers that impede effective teaching and learning of geoscience?

Rationale:

Undergraduate teaching and learning in the geosciences today remain largely bound by the established lecture-lab format characteristic of most STEM courses, with the additional aspect of field trips and field camps of longer duration. However, as student demographics change and bring changes in student needs and dispositions, geoscience educators must overcome habit and institutional inertia in order to render geoscience instruction flexible enough to accommodate and engage future generations of geoscience students. Further, structural barriers are not limited to fixed systems of courses, classrooms, and schedules; inaccessible or poorly accessible geoscience education in the field or indoors (e.g., Carabajal et al., 2017) and hostile environments (e.g., St. John et al., 2016) impede learning.

Strategies:

• Expand and apply research on institutional and faculty-level barriers to effective research-based pedagogy (e.g., Kezar, 2001; Henderson et al., 2011; Brownell & Tanner, 2012).
   
• Promote research-based and current professional development programs for geoscience faculty (e.g., Markley et al., 2009).
   
• Identify and mitigate factors that impede learning by female students, underrepresented minority students, and students with disabilities.
   
• Expand research on accessible geoscience education in classrooms, labs, in the field and community, and online (e.g., Carabajal et al., 2017).
   
• Conduct regionally extensive gap analyses of current educational systems.
   
• Draw on Lewin's (1947) theory of change to analyze established customs or habits of geoscience faculty that are hindering change, and determine research-based strategies to mitigate them.
   
• Draw on research into cultural cognition (e.g., Kahan et al., 2011) , and how it may shape faculty views and influence conflict and consensus within institutions.
   

Grand Challenge 5: How can we better engage learners as co-creators and colleagues in teaching geoscience?

Rationale:

Research shows that active and student-centered learning methods that involve direct participation by students, such as peer instruction (e.g., Mazur, 2013), service learning, research experiences, and internships, are effective pedagogical strategies. Benefits of faculty-student collaborative research in STEM disciplines have been well documented (e.g., Russell et al., 2007; Bangera & Brownell, 2014; Carpi et al., 2017; National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, 2017a). Recent efforts to replace standard laboratory-base science courses with discovery-based research activities in the curriculum (e.g., National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, 2015) highlight the growing awareness of this factor. Similarly, the importance of service-learning as a way to infuse deep learning in the geosciences is also receiving attention (e.g., National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine, 2017b). Students may possess greater technological literacy than instructors in some cases; therefore, engaging them as co-creators of knowledge can help us take fuller advantage of technological advances in classrooms. Greater and more active participation by students can also enhance the validity of formative and summative learning assessment tools. However, as Teasdale et al. (2017) pointed out, much more work needs to be done in geoscience classrooms to make them truly student-centered with learners becoming co-creator of knowledge instead of merely being passive consumers.

Strategies:

• Expand research on cognitive and affective outcomes of student participation in course-based undergraduate geoscience research.
   
• Review and assess different models of service-learning projects used in geoscience instruction.
   
• Review and apply behavioral research on why faculty use or do not use evidence-based methods (e.g., Brownell & Tanner, 2012).
   

Grand Challenge 6: How do we most effectively disseminate and promote relevant research findings and best practices in geoscience education?

Rationale:

Better tested, more effective dissemination techniques are necessary to share findings from GER and Geo-SoTL with, and encourage adoption of best practices by, the greater community of geoscience educators. Research can help the community of geoscience educators make more effective use of in-person (e.g., conferences, colloquia, field trips) and virtual (e.g., social media, webinars, blogs, list serves, websites, virtual reality) methods of dissemination.

Strategies:

• Apply research on effective mass marketing techniques including advertising and social media (e.g., Newsome, 2006; Goske et al., 2008; Bohon et al., 2013) to reach the broader geoscience community.
   
• Include science communication training with professional development opportunities online and at professional conferences such as the GSA and AGU annual meetings.
   
• Publish in journals that accept geoscience-education papers and also reach into the broader geoscience community, such as Geosphere and Geological Society of America Bulletin.
   

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