Pedagogic Service Project: Enriching the MERLOT Collection Ellen Iverson Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College Scott Cooper University of Wisconsin-La Crosse University of Wisconsin-La Crosse

Overview  What is the Pedagogic Service Project?  How is MERLOT involved?  How can you get involved?

Pedagogic Service Project  Based on Starting Point: Teaching Entry-Level Geosciences portal  Core set of pedagogic modules  Collection of teaching activities and resources  Integration of pedagogic modules with teaching activities  Partners create customized version Partners include: MERLOT, ComPADRE, CAUSEweb, ERESE, eduCommonsStanford Center for Teaching and Learning, Perlman Center for Teaching and Learning

Goal: Impacting Instruction  Premise  Get faculty to the site  Teach them about pedagogy while they are there.

How it Works: the Model for Geosciences  Get faculty to the site (80% from search engine)  Site portal: 25% users entering this avenue  Search for resources: 30% users search by geoscience topic  Search for pedagogic content  Teach them about pedagogy while they are there  Embedding teaching activities & resources within pedagogic modules  Internal site navigation and faceted search features

Site Use

Findings  Faculty think about teaching in context of topics they teach and they love examples  Design for topical search  They look regularly on line for images and info for lecture, but rarely for pedagogic information  Link pedagogy to examples full of images/info  They seek info on pedagogy from their colleagues  Faculty authors, faculty voice, word-of-mouth advertising

MERLOT/SERC Partnership  MERLOT contains links to thousands of educational websites, many with peer reviews and assignments.  SERC brings a significant collection of geoscience content with a well defined pedagogic format, focusing on the use of individual activities in the classroom.  Partnering MERLOT and SERC builds on the strengths of both programs.

Linking MERLOT and SERC  Targeted portal development services:  Year 1: MERLOT Biology Community  Year 2: MERLOT Math Community  Year 3: TBA  Activities to bridge MERLOT resources with SERC’s pedagogic modules 

MERLOT members involved  MERLOT Editorial Board members contributing to initial activity collection  Scott Cooper-Biology Editor  Jeff Bell-Biology Editor  Jim Rutledge-Math Editor  Project Management  SERC-Bill Bruihler  Cathy Swift-Editorial Board Chair

How can you get involved?  Contribute your great teaching activities  Opportunity to submit at MIC session  Content Management System ease of use   Recommend colleagues with possible contributions  Become a peer-reviewer  Explore the collection

Acknowledgement: This project is supported by the National Science Foundation as part of the National Science Digital Library through award 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.

Overcoming Barriers  Contributors  Content Management System  Ease of use  Templates reflect best practices in research on learning  Project partners (such as MERLOT)  Peer reviews  Users  Findable from Google  Community-built vocabulary to enable browsing  Enable “re-finding” information  Lead them to pedagogy

How would they learn about teaching methods while they were there?  Faculty think about pedagogy in the context of the specific topics they teach  Impact on content vs methods cannot be disentangled  Strong interest in topical examples Link Pedagogy to Examples

Faculty learn about teaching from one another Content Methods Majors Intro (Cutting Edge Survey) Use Faculty Authors, Voice, Referrals

 What?  Think-pair- share  ConcepTests  Longer Activities

From Example to Method

From Method to Example

Use of Websites Starting Point 39% Faculty Cutting Edge 50% Faculty Pop up survey-2005

Faculty Barriers  Contribution Barriers – Sharing Teaching Activities  Faculty with own website but no mechanism for enhancing use  Faculty with no website or time to publish activities  Use Barriers  Limitations of Google  “Good enough”- satisficing behavior  Importance of vetting (colleague or known entity) * McMartin, 2006; Zach, 2004