Topics and Themes
- Campus-Based Learning uses the campus environment itself as a teaching tool.
- ConcepTests are conceptual multiple-choice questions that focus on one key concept of an instructor's learning goals for a lesson.
- Cooperative Learning involves students working in groups to accomplish learning goals.
- Experience-Based Environmental Projects get students personally involved and invested, moving the learning experience from the classroom to their own lives.
- Gallery Walk activities get students up out of their chairs and actively working together.
- Game-Based Learning was written to assist geoscience faculty who want to start using games to help them teach.
- Interactive Lectures provide short activities that can break up a lecture.
- Jigsaws each student develops some expertise with one data set, then teaches a few classmates about it (and learns about related data sets from those classmates).
- Investigative Case-Based Learning involves students in addressing real world problems.
- Just-in-Time teaching gets students to read assigned material outside of class, respond to short questions online, then participate in discussion and collaborative exercises in the following class period.
- Lecture Tutorials are short worksheets that students complete in class to make lecture more interactive.
- Peer Review uses interaction around writing to refine students understanding.
- Role-Playing immerses students in debate around Earth science issues.
- Service Learning offers the opportunity to link academic learning with community service.
- Socratic Questioning turns a lecture into a guided discussion.
- Spreadsheets Across the Curriculum is a project which promotes student construction of spreadsheets and use of elementary mathematics to solve problems in context.
- Structured Academic Controversy is a type of cooperative learning strategy in which small teams of students learn about a controversial issue from multiple perspectives.
- Student Research engages student interest and provides opportunities for them to participate in active learning.
- Studio Teaching is done in under circumstances that maximize students working together in groups and being responsible for their own learning.
- Teaching with Data helps faculty find and integrate real data sets into their classes.
- Teaching with GIS in the Geosciences shows how this powerful new tool can be used to help teach geoscience.
- Teaching with Google Earth provides detailed instructions for bringing rich imagery and interactive information into the classroom.
- Teaching with Interactive Demonstrations helps faculty use effective these hands-on, inquiry-based learning opportunities in class or lab. (Includes what was previously Physical Analog Models.)
- Teaching with Models helps students understand the relationships between data and Earth processes.
- Conceptual Models are qualitative models that help highlight important connections in real world systems and processes.
- Mathematical and Statistical Models involve solving relevant equation(s) of a system or characterizing a system based upon its statisical parameters.
- Teaching with Visualizations helps students see how systems work. (Includes what was previously Visualization Models.)
Designing a Course
- Browse Course Descriptions - a searchable collection.
- Assessment helps faculty find ways to understand what their students are learning.
- Designing an Earth System Course provides help creating a course with a systems emphasis.
- Field Labs provides tips and help for getting students outside.
- Indoor Labs are structured investigations and experiments of materials, models, and other equipment.
- Using an Earth History Approach provides faculty with resources and insights on teaching from this perspective.
- The First Day of Class describes several different ways to focus on student learning, starting on the first day of class, and includes a collection of example activities.
- Teaching Urban Students provides information about how to effectively teach in an urban environment. Urban students bring a rich set of experiences to the classroom that may be significantly different than those of students in small-town settings. Effective teaching of urban students requires instructors to tap into these rich experiences, cultural customs, and practical skills sets.
Teaching about the Earth System