Digital Libraries Providing Pedagogic Guidance: a Multi-Disciplinary Collaboration Bill Bruihler, Sean Fox, Cathy Manduca, Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College Jeffrey Bell California State University-Chico Scott Cooper University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Bruce Mason University of Oklahoma James Rutledge St. Petersburg College
Overview What is the SERC Pedagogic Service Project? How and Why is MERLOT involved? How can Professional Societies partner with SERC and MERLOT?
SERC: Pedagogic Service Project Based on Starting Point: Teaching Entry-Level Geosciences portal Core set of pedagogic modules (Teaching Methods) Collections of activities and resources Integration of pedagogic modules with teaching activities Customization for different partners pedagogic modules What, why, and how of teaching method Grounded in research on learning
MERLOT: Peer reviewed online materials and assignments (total sites) Biology 1317 296 169 (110) Chemistry 491 63 19 (12) Math 998 263 50 (42) Physics 1659 147 103 (66) Statistics 311 56 5 (4)
Existing Collaborations CAUSE ComPADRE JCE SERC (Pedagogy) MERLOT (Review) Biology, Math, Chemistry, Physics, Statistics
MERLOT/SERC/Societies Partnership MERLOT contains links to thousands of educational websites, many with peer reviews and assignments. SERC has a well defined pedagogic format, focusing on the use of individual activities in the classroom. Authors and users of educational materials identify strongly with their professional societies.
How can we link content and pedagogy to improve teaching? Faculty think about pedagogy in the context of the specific topics they teach (if they think about it at all) Impact of content vs methods cannot be disentangled Strong interest in topical examples Link Pedagogy to Examples
SERC Starting Point Intellectual model underpinning the site is described here: http://www.dlib.org/dlib/may05/fox/05fox.html
Example SERC Modules 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. Just-in-Time teaching gets students to read assigned material outside of class, respond to short questions online, and then participate in discussion and collaborative exercises in the following class period. 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 statistical parameters. And 20 more……
SERC Services to Partners
How can you get involved? Contribute your great teaching activities Opportunity to submit at MIC session Content Management System simplifies entry Screen shot of activity submission form Great professional development activity Recommend colleagues with possible contributions Become a peer-reviewer Explore the collection
Submitting activities to SERC Generic information about submitting: http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/submit_activity.html
Biology Activity Example
Activity Details
Societies (Content) SERC (Pedagogy) MERLOT (Review)
Acknowledgement: This project is supported by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Science Digital Library through award 0532768. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.