Designing Effective and Innovative Courses in Mineralogy, Petrology, and Geochemistry

1. Designing Effective and Innovative Courses in Mineralogy, Petrology, and Geochemistry Audio access: Call in 1-800-704-9804 Access code: 6316214 Please mute your phone by pressing *6 Alternate number: 1-404-920-6604 (not toll-free) Technical problems? Contact John at jmcdaris@carleton.edu Program begins at 3 pm EDT, Thur. May 3 Please bookmark the workshop program at http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign2012/program.html

2. Welcome to Session 3! • Presentation on assessing student learning • Give you some time to work on your own activity with assessment plan • Small group feedback on activity/assessment • Three possible discussion topics • What can we do to increase relevance of MPG courses to students and the curriculum? • What are some ideas for effectively incorporating GIS and remote sensing into MPG courses? • Effective strategies for designing "hybrid" courses – the one required course in min and pet? • Report on discussion topics

3. Assessing Student Learning Practical Strategies

4. Informal vs formal • Informal assessment • Low risk • Generally not graded • Good for engaging students • Good for “on-the-fly” assessment • Formal assessment • Higher risk • Students receive grades and/or formal evaluations

5. Informal assessments • Classroom performance systems (“clickers”) • Low-tech holding up cards or hands • Think-pair-share • Minute papers (in-class or online) • Discussion (in-class or online) • Journals (paper or online)

6. Knowledge surveys • Knowledge surveys (Ed Nuhfer, U. Colorado Denver, and Delores Knipp, US Air Force Academy) • Students do not provide actual answers to questions but indicate level of confidence in their ability to answer questions

7. More on knowledge surveys • Likert scale for responses • Example of a scale • 3 = you feel confident that you can now answer the question sufficiently for graded test purposes • 2 = you can now answer at least 50% of the question and know precisely where you could quickly locate information needed and could return here in 20 minutes and provide a complete answer for graded test purposes • 1 = you are not confident that you could answer the question for graded test purposes at this time

8. More on knowledge surveys • Questions can be complex, open-ended because students are not actually providing answers • Dex Perkins: a couple hundred questions in mineralogy • At start of semester • Just before an exam, then correlates with exam performance • http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/assess/knowledgesurvey.html • http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/assess/knowledgesurvey/index.html

9. Formal assessments • Formal assessment should be “authentic” • What students receive grades on are tasks that allow you to evaluate whether students have met the goals • If students are graded largely on their abilities to recall, define, recognize, and follow cook-book steps, you have not evaluated their progress toward goals involving higher order thinking skills. • Formal assessment should measure what you say that you value • Don’t assess what is easily measured – assess what you value.

10. Aligning assessments and goals • Aligning assessment with goals is a good way to insure authentic assessment • Example: Students will be able to evaluate and predict the influence of climate, hydrology, biology, and geology on the severity of a natural disaster. • Give students an unfamiliar example • Can they do it?? • Don’t just test on their ability to recall the information that would be part of such an analysis

11. Details on two topics • Pyramid exams • Grading rubrics

12. Pyramid exams • Students take exam once solo • Students can collaborate on second try • Solo counts 75-85% • Advantages: • Turns an exam into a learning experience • Can add a few questions for the collaborative part that are harder than you might include for solo exam • Students like it

13. Grading rubrics • Guidelines for evaluating student work • Handed out with the assignment • Provides standards for student to achieve in order to obtain specific scores/grades • Shifts the responsibility for grades onto the student to demonstrate knowledge, skills, abilities, not on the instructor to identify mistakes

14. General rubrics • Indicate the grade-equivalent in the syllabus • Use only the 1-5 scale for assignments • Helps students focus on improvement (fewer knee-jerk reactions and complaints about what would be Cs and Ds in regular scheme)

15. General rubrics • Example for products in GIS course • Sets the general standards – a B or an A is more than just doing a satisfactory job • Can be customized quickly for specific assignments

16. Examples of specific rubrics • Write rubric when you write the assignment, not just before you are going to do the grading • Forces you to clarify what you value • Helps you make sure that the assignment aligned with the goals

17. Examples of specific rubrics • Give students the rubric with the assignment • Helps students understand what they will be graded on • Helps solve problem: did the student leave out X because he/she didn’t understand the assignment or was it a deliberate decision?

18. Examples of specific rubrics • Helps students learn what a complete assignment is

19. Examples of specific rubrics • This rubric specifies components – helps students learn what a complete assignment is • Could be re-cast if students were being graded on their ability to figure out what the components actually are.

20. Examples of specific rubrics • Grading rubric for oral presentation • Give ahead of time; class and instructor evaluate during/after presentation

21. Rubrics for grading writing • Rubric helps students get over the idea that grading writing is “subjective” • Post examples of 3s, 4s, 5s (no names) – students can really see the differences

22. Improving writing • Useful for multiple writing assignments • You don’t have to keep track of what each student was working on • Forces students to focus on addressing previous critiques • Gives you the option of giving a 0 on writing if issues not addressed

23. Grading rubrics • AND…. • Rubrics save you TIME and make grading easier!!

24. Individual work: assignment/assessment design • Leave Elluminate on; hang up phone. • Work on your own assignment/activity and its assessment. • Enter ideas and info on your own activity page, which can be linked to from: • http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/coursedesign2012/activities-wkspc/index.html • Post questions to Elluminate chat, if you like. • Call back in to 1-800-704-9804 at 3:55, using access code 6316214.

25. Small-group discussion: assignment/activity design and assessment • Leave Elluminate on; hang up phone. • Go to the Workshop Program page, and call back in using your group’s code. • Group task: • Assign a time keeper and a recorder. • Each person has 10 minutes to describe what he/she is designing and to receive feedback. The more you talk, the less feedback you’ll get! • Post questions to Elluminate chat, if you like. • The group will decide on the best ideas that have come up, and the recorder will report on them when we call back in to the main access code. • Groups end by 4:50. • Call back in to 1-800-704-9804 at 4:55, using access code 6316214.

26. Reports from groups • Each group has 5 minutes to give us a snapshot of their best ideas!

27. Small-group discussion on several topics • Leave Elluminate on; hang up phone. • Go to the Workshop Program page, and call back in using your group’s code. • Topics • What can we do to increase relevance of MPG courses to students and the curriculum? • What are some ideas for effectively incorporating GIS and remote sensing into MPG courses? • Effective strategies for designing "hybrid" courses – the one required course in min and pet? • Nuts and bolts • Assign a recorder. • Post questions to Elluminate chat, if you like. • Be prepared to tell us about your best ideas. • Groups end by 5:35. • Call back in to 1-800-704-9804 at 5:40, using access code 6316214.

28. Reports from groups • Each group has 5 minutes to give us a snapshot of their best ideas! • What can we do to increase relevance of MPG courses to students and the curriculum? • What are some ideas for effectively incorporating GIS and remote sensing into MPG courses? • Effective strategies for designing "hybrid" courses – the one required course in min and pet?

29. Assignment for session 4 • Complete the road check to let us know how the workshop is going for you. • Work on your course, assignments, and activities over the summer. • Prepare a "poster" for the online poster session to be held on Thursday , October 25. We will send an email to you when a template is ready. • Read and respond to discussion threads; start discussion threads, if you wish. • If you want to have a phone or Skype consultation with Barb, please send an email.

30. Thank you for your hard work so far!