Reforming Teaching Practice: Introductory Severe Weather Dr. Cody Kirkpatrick Indiana University July 21, 2016 Slides available on the conference website

About this course Atmospheric-based natural hazards Freshman level, now general education 3 cr., no lab, 2 meetings per week (75 min)

My first couple years… Evaluations were fine… …but I struggled with organization. And I was not assessing correctly.

Questions I began asking What should class time really look like? How should it be organized? What should we “do?” In what ways should I be guiding students in their learning?

“…as science is practiced.”

How is science practiced? Is science practiced by standing around talking about it for 50 or 75 minutes at a time? Or is the practice of science: Interactive Collaborative Socrative Based on observation of the physical world. And has been for 2,000 years.

Here’s one example. Students love tornadoes Are a key topic in a severe weather course I developed a “mini-lab” for students to closely examine tornado damage Wikipedia Commons

Here’s one example. Before class: In class: Read ~6 pages from the textbook Watch a 5-minute Youtube video Answer 3 questions online about these tasks In class: A full class period spent on examining photos and determining wind speeds

And then… Let students practice mastery in class "Roof is gone" "Windows blown out" "Some exterior walls still standing" "Barn in the back is okay???" "Half of house totally compromised" "Debris still on-site" Potterville, MI, 2008 – Ben Holcomb

An important point. You gotta have learning outcomes! What do you want students to be able to do? “Estimate a tornado’s wind speeds based on a photograph of damage” “Describe differences in damage from one location to another in the same tornado” If the activity isn’t aligned with your course goals, it’s not worth doing.