Grand Challenges for Future Research on Diverse Instructional Strategies to Improve Geoscience Learning
Abstract
Strategies for teaching geoscience have evolved considerably in recent decades, owing to advances in STEM teaching practices, better correspondence between teachers and researchers, rapid improvements in instructional technologies, and deeper community interest in improving accessibility, equity, and diversity in geoscience. Geoscience instruction today is carried out in a range of settings that encompass the traditional triad of classroom, laboratory, and field; informal or free-choice learning venues; and fully online and immersive virtual environments. Teaching can now be carried out by instructors in-person; remotely over the web; synchronously during a scheduled class session or webinar; or asynchronously according to students' own schedules. Various situated and richly contextualized teaching modalities, such as place-based, case-based, problem-based, multicultural-multilingual, and experiential instruction have been adopted by geoscience educators. But practicing geoscience educators greatly outnumber practicing geoscience education researchers, and the pace and the excitement of technological and methodological advances can outstrip the progress of educational research and assessment. Further, geoscience education receives less attention and support on a national scale than do biology, chemistry, and physics education. It is not surprising that changes in instructional strategies in geoscience have often come on the basis of instructor experience or preference, or anecdotal knowledge, rather than on a foundation of rigorous research and evaluation. In order to address these issues, (a) there must be better coordination among researchers and educators in our own professional community and with those in other STEM disciplines; (b)higher standards of evidence must be applied to research in many cases; & (c) certain barriers at the instructional level to full and effective implementation of best practices must still be overcome. In our chapter of the NSF-funded Community Framework for Geoscience Education Research, we identify five wholly soluble Grand Challenges that, if addressed by geoscience-education researchers in partnership with teachers, will lead to more effective, accessible, inclusive, relevant, and practical geoscience education.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFMED51I0734S
- Keywords:
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- 0810 Post-secondary education;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0845 Instructional tools;
- EDUCATIONDE: 0850 Geoscience education research;
- EDUCATION