Redesigning GEO-100 Earth Systems Science Course

1. Redesigning GEO-100 Earth Systems Science Reed A. Schwimmer Geological and Marine Sciences First-Year Experience Faculty Development Day August 21, 2006

2. How are coursescommonly designed? • Make list of content items important to coverage of the field • Develop syllabus by organizing items into topical outline • Flesh out topical items in lectures, discussions, labs • Test knowledge learned in course On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

3. What’s missing? • Articulation of what your students need • Articulation of goals beyond content/ coverage goals • Deliberate consideration of strategies to achieve goals beyond content goals • Plan for evaluation of success On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

4. An alternative goals-based approach • Brings same kind of introspection, intellectual rigor, systematic documentation, and evaluation to teaching that each of us brings to our research • Really shakes the tree and designs the course from the bottom up • Assessment falls out naturally On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

5. Step 1: Context and audience The course design process begins with answering the following: • Who are my students? • What do they need? • Can’t set goals effectively until these questions are answered • What are the constraints and support structure? On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

6. GEO-100 Audience • Freshmen to seniors • Science and non-science majors • Course is a requirement or elective • Not active learners; they haven’t been taught how to learn

7. Step 2: Develop overarching goal(s) • Teaching is commonly viewed as being teacher-centered • Commonly reinforced by how we phrase course goals: “I want to expose my students to….” or “I want to teach my students that…” or “I want to show students that…” On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

8. Instead…goals can be student-centered • “At the end of this course, students will be able to…” • What do you want the students to be able to DO at the end of the semester? • This focuses beyond the semester – what value has the course added to student lives, abilities, and skill sets? On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

9. So you don’t want students to… On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

10. Instead, you want to facilitate higher-order thinking tasks On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

11. GEO-100 Overall goals • Students will be able to derive the relationships between process and product. • Students will be able to synthesize the interactions between different Earth systems (e.g., lithosphere, biosphere, atmosphere).

12. From these goals, course content can then be selected • Choose broad content topics that will help you achieve your goals. • Then for each topic, select content items that you want the student to master. • “How will you give students practice in doing…” • You don’t need to cover “everything.” On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty

13. The problem with textbooks • Chapters are arranged around specific topics, not the connecting processes • Each chapter is treated as a separate entity • Not organized to emphasize these connections

14. Example of table of contents from an Earth science textbook

15. One solution… • Develop the overall goal(s) early and keep focusing on it throughout the course. • Use concept maps to illustrate the interrelationships within this goal. • Have students demonstrate their understanding by creating concept maps.

16. Three levels of concept maps • Connecting concepts and terms within a topic (within a chapter) • Connecting concepts between topics (across chapters) • Connecting concepts to the overarching goal (generally not done in textbooks)

17. TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS ASTRONOMICAL PROCESSES • SHAPE OF ORBIT • TILT ANGLE • AXIS WOBBLE summer winter SEASONS SUNLIGHT ANGLE AND DURATION SURFACE AIR TEMP AIR DENSITY CHANGES RISING OR FALLING AIR MASSES WIND AIR PRESSURE DIFFERENCES warm cool HIGH LOW L H

18. TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS ASTRONOMICAL PROCESSES • SHAPE OF ORBIT • TILT ANGLE • AXIS WOBBLE summer winter SEASONS SUNLIGHT ANGLE AND DURATION SURFACE AIR TEMP AIR DENSITY CHANGES RISING OR FALLING AIR MASSES WIND AIR PRESSURE DIFFERENCES warm cool HIGH LOW L H Option 1 – Students arrange topics into a flowchart.

19. Option 2 – Students describe the connections. SEASONS TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS ASTRONOMICAL PROCESSES summer winter SHAPE OF ORBIT TILT ANGLE AXIS WOBBLE SUNLIGHT ANGLE AND DURATION SURFACE AIR TEMP HEAT ENERGY CONC. AIR DENSITY CHANGES RISING OR FALLING AIR MASSES WIND AIR PRESSURE DIFFERENCES warm HIGH LOW L H EQUILIBRIUM DIFFUSION KINETIC ACTIVITY CONCENTRATION

20. Option 3 – Students create their own flow chart. Concept Connections SUNLIGHT ANGLE AND DURATION TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS SHAPE OF ORBIT TILT ANGLE AXIS WOBBLE SURFACE AIR TEMP ASTRONOMICAL PROCESSES AIR DENSITY CHANGES WIND HEAT ENERGY CONC. RISING OR FALLING AIR MASSES KINETIC ACTIVITY CONCENTRATION AIR PRESSURE DIFFERENCES EQUILIBRIUM DIFFUSION SEASONS

21. Final thoughts… • As you enter a classroom, ask yourself this question: “If there were no students in the classroom, could I do what I am planning to do?” If the answer is yes, don’t do it. General Ruben Cubero, Dean of the Faculty, United States Air Force Academy (Novak et al., 1999, Just-in-Time Teaching) • If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. • Same goes for teaching. If the only tool in your teaching toolbox is lecturing, then…. On the Cutting Edge Professional Development for Geoscience Faculty