Using 'How People Learn' as a Blueprint for Developing Teaching Strategies in an Introductory Geology Course
Abstract
A new curriculum for an introductory geology course, Geology and Everyday Thinking (GET), incorporates the key research findings of How People Learn (NAS, 1999), and is based on the pedagogical approach of Physics and Everyday Thinking (PET; http://petproject.sdsu.edu/). These key findings have profound implications for developing teaching strategies that promote student learning. They suggest that for learning to occur: 1) students' preconceptions must be engaged, 2) students must be able to build their own conceptual framework, and 3) students must be given an opportunity to reflect on their learning (metacognition). Our curriculum has been carefully constructed into cycles that apply these key findings while exploring a key geologic concept. Each cycle engages students' 'Initial Ideas' about these concepts (and continuously revisits those Initial Ideas), sequentially builds upon concepts in a logical framework, and requires reflective writing. The curriculum employs questioning, small group work, and small and large class discussions. Students construct concepts by doing inquiry lab activities, but embedded group discussions that promote discourse and questioning among students is a crucial tool in the sense-making and solidification of those concepts. The questioning and discourse occur throughout each module so that students' preconceptions about a particular concept are brought out early on, and are revisited and challenged again as students construct their new understanding. Whiteboarding, or the process of sharing small-group ideas to a larger group, is the primary method of generating discussion. The instructor's role as facilitator and questioner is the cornerstone in this process. The primary audience for this course is future elementary teachers, who are required take a year-long science sequence. The year-long sequence includes physics (PET), geology (GET), and a correlative new curriculum in biology (BET). Class size is limited to 24 students, and the sequence is taught at a 4-year university as well as at four regional feeder community colleges. These courses model an inquiry-based teaching methodology that our pre-service teachers will use to teach science to their future students. Both quantitative and qualitative assessment data collected from our students show impressive gains both in attitudes about science and science content, especially compared to larger lecture-based introductory courses.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFMED41B..06D
- Keywords:
-
- 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design;
- 0825 Teaching methods;
- 0840 Evaluation and assessment;
- 0845 Instructional tools;
- 0850 Geoscience education research