On Line Resources for Teaching Geoscience with Visualization Cathy Manduca, Carleton College; Michelle Hall, Science Education Solutions, Dave Mogk, Montana State University, Barbara Tversky, Stanford University, Jim Slotta, University of California, Berkeley, Jeff Crabaugh, University of Wyoming NSF CCLI- 0127141

Teaching with Visualization Visualization is an important part of geoscience expertise Understanding visualization and visual learning is an area of cognitive research Designing visual materials that support learning is non-trivial

How do we teach geoscience with visualizations effectively? Geoscientist who are leaders in using visualization in their teaching Learning scientists who study how we perceive and learn from visualizations Creators of visualizations and visualization tools Three groups of people bringing multiple perspectives scientific expertise - classroom experience with students -research on student learning - research on teaching -research on cognition -understanding of design, techniques, technology Session shares these three points of view.

How do we use visualizations in teaching? To tell stories about Earth history and geoscience concepts To explore and understand data To understand our students thinking Stories refers not to things not being true but to the use of illustrating a narative Exploring data contrasts with this in that the narrative is not as important as pattern recognition, quantitative analysis. Posters on the website More examples in todays session

Designing a visualization is like designing an educational activity What you see in a visualization is built on what you already know (students don’t see what you see) Be simple and provide context and guidance Match the mode of presentation to the mental organization the student is creating  High-Level Design Principles for Effective Visualizaitons While each visualization is a unique creation for a particular range of uses, several overarching themes emerged from the workshop that can help us in both creating new visualizations and selecting from existing ones for use in teaching. 1. The same things that work well in designing a class or educational activity work well in desiging or selecting a visualization. In particular, it is important  to know what you are trying to accomplish with the visualization: what are you trying to teach? What do you want the students to learn?  To ascertain what the students already know as this will determine what they see and learn from the visualization  To obtain feedback on how the visualization is working: does it convey the intended information? Work in the desired way? Enable the desired learning? 2. Students don’t always see what faculty are seeing when viewing a visualization. Just as in other aspects of learning, what students see and learn from a visualization is built on what they already know. Understanding what students know and see can be addressed on three levels:  Cognitive: what do students focus on in a visualization?  Educational: how does the visualization promote generation of new questions?  Geoscience: how do students understand and interpret the processes that are represented? 3. Simple is usually better. The power of visualizations comes from their ability to clarify relationships rather than from reproducing exactly the natural world. Thus, a design which emphasizes the desired relationships or information is likely to be more successful than one that makes every effort to be realistic. Students can become confused when elements of a diagram closely resemble the actual entity they represent in the real world (Uttal). 4. Context is important and is easily lost. Visualization need to be designed to maintain the context between different parts of the visualization and with the larger world. For example, when a series of diagrams are used to explain a scientific concept or process, it is important to keep the student aware of how a detail, or specific step in a progression, relates to the larger context of that concept or process. 5. Guidance helps. Visualizations present a large number of relationships at a single time. Visual or textual clues can focus attention on meaningful items or guide the learner through the visualization in a particular order. 6. Visualization are most effective if there organization reflects the mental organization that the student is creating. For example, if students create a series of still images in their mind to represent a geologic process, a series of still images will be most effective in conveying information. Similarly, if students create a mental movie, an animation may be more effective. (Tversky et al., 2002).

Resources for faculty Recommended readings and an annotated bibliography Essays and researchers websites Visualizations for teaching Tools Workshop program Discussion list serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/visualization

Visualization Collections Class size topics 3-12 visualizations chosen by faculty Pictures, diagrams, animations, movies 33 collections

Gerard Middleton, McMaster University Tom Whittaker, University of Wisconsin-Madison Gerard Middleton, McMaster University USGS Earth Science Photo Library Stephan Marshak, WW Norton