1. Strengthening Teaching and Learning in the Geosciences: The Role of Education Research
Cathy Manduca
Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College
Executive Director, National Association of Geoscience Teachers
AAAS , Boston, MA
February 17, 2017 c

2. Effective Teaching and Learning Research on Teaching and Learning
Ideal World
Effective Teaching and Learning
Research on Teaching and Learning

3. Starting the Cycle
1997
2002 -Geologic time, complex systems, visualizing the earth
Customized dissemination in a geoscience context

4. Effective Teaching and Learning Research on Teaching and Learning
Ideal World
Effective Teaching and Learning
Research on Teaching and Learning
More emphasis on moving existing research into education
How was this done.

5. Ten Years of Transforming Undergraduate Geoscience Education
with the NSF CCLI/TUES program
Ten Years of Transforming Undergraduate Geoscience Education
2012
From offered 118 workshops and events attended by more than 2000 geoscience faculty and 800 postds/students. ~20% of geoscience faculty
Lots of different short workshops -2.5 to 5 days long
5000 pages of website content generated by participants for their colleagues that couldn’t attend
Starting Point Website
Heather Macdonald College of William & Mary, Cathryn Manduca SERC, Carleton College
David Mogk Montana State University
Barbara Tewksbury Hamilton College
Rachel Beane Bowdoin College
David McConnell North Carolina State Univ.
Katryn Wiese City College of San Francisco
Michael Wysession Washington University
An NSF-DUE CCLI/TUES Phase 3 Program

6. A Community Supporting Improved Teaching
A geoscience education community that learns from one another and from experts
Faculty make an informed responses to specific teaching circumstances
Underpinning philosophy
Improving teaching through learning together
Introduce research on learning
All workshops addressed active learning – how people learn level
All were designed for active learning
All involved faculty in working on how they would use what they learned in their own teaching
All produced web- content summarizing what was learned
Did it work – administered a national survey of geoscience faculty in 2004, 2009, and 2012
Inquired about teaching practices, how learned about pedagogy and content and how contributed knowledge back to the community
Observational study of 200 geoscience faculty to validate results
Several interview studies as part of the project evaluation to understand what was happening
Sharing of Innovation

7. Serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops

8. Serc.carleton.edu/sp

9. What Happened? National Survey of Geoscience Faculty
( responses, responses responses)
Teaching practices
How learn about pedagogy and content
How contribute knowledge to the community
Observation Study (200+ faculty)
Interview Studies as part of evaluation (120 faculty)

10. - Up to date

11. Teaching Styles
: Faculty reporting frequent use of small group discussion, whole class discussion, or in-class exercises with or without the use of any other methods.
Education focused faculty out perform on most measures related to practices related to education research: metacognition, student centered learning
guided data analysis (71% education-focused faculty, 61% geoscience research-focused faculty, 60% teaching faculty; c2 = 44.62; p <0.001)
student data collection to solve a problem (53%, 46%, 44%; c2 = 30.66; p <0.001)
problems of national or global interest (64%, 52%, 52%; c2 = 53.51; p <0.001)
problems of local community interest (46%, 34%, 32%; c2 = 49.23; p <0.001)
study skills or time management reflection (45%, 26%, 35%; c2 = 15.42; p <0.001)
learning success reflection (56%, 39%, 40%; c2 = 59.79; p <0.001)
problem solving strategies reflection (52%, 43%, 39%; c2 = 52.24; p <0.001)
student motivation (79%, 66%, 66%; c2 = 74.58; p <0.001)
low stakes opportunities for testing (70%, 55%, 58%; c2 = 28.95; p <0.001),
time for students to get to know each other (65%, 48%, 51%; c2 = 84.13; p <0.001)
teamwork and collaborative learning (76%, 56%, 60%; c2 = 86.22; p <0.001)
Cutting Edge workshop participants who also make use of the website are 1.5 times more likely to spend more than 20% of class time on activities, questions, or discussion, and 1.2 times more likely to report teaching using an active learning teaching strategy, as opposed to an active lecture teaching strategy, than are respondents who had neither used the website nor attended a Cutting Edge workshop.

12. Is Teaching Improving?
2/15/17 – Up to date

13. Engaged Learners Use Research Based Practices in their
Yes! – Research on Teaching and Learning is Making its Way into the Classroom
Engaged Learners Use Research Based Practices in their
Independent learner vs structured learning opportunity
Peer instruction and learning communities appear important
Learning about teaching in shorter doses has an impact

14. Similar behavior of faculty integrating learning over time reported in this anthropologic study.
Tracking to student learning – not done in this study because students are everywhere.

15. Effective Teaching and Learning Research on Teaching and Learning
Ideal World
Effective Teaching and Learning
Research on Teaching and Learning
Increased focus on using same community strategy tofostering research

16. Meanwhile – Research efforts increased, GER positions established

17. Community approach applied to GER
Series of workshops creating research agenda, community, and onramp
GER Division

18. Strength of Evidence Pyramid
Like others, and as pointed out in DBER report – most work is low on this scale of evidence – how to move up to community scale

19. 1,592 Complete Sets of Student Data
7,426 Partial Sets of Student Data
1,592 Complete Sets of Student Data
Based on a combination of a “teaching_materials_project” export completed on 1/18 and the results of the REACH survey.
Slightly less than half of all students enrolled in pilot testing/IP sites are represented in the student data collected.
Generalizable knowledge – 1 faculty will adopt and adapt materials; 2)website, word of mouth, and PD effort together are leading to broad visibitity

20. Rendezvous

21. A Thriving Community

22. A Community Supporting Improved Teaching
Challenges to Continued Improvement
A Community Supporting Improved Teaching
Improved Teaching
A geoscience education community that learns from one another and from experts
Faculty make an informed responses to specific teaching circumstances
Growing beyond 20% - not just a diffusion problem; structural/context problems ala Kezar, Henderson, Slakey
Issues of research – scaling up type of evidence
Sustaining the cycle is not free and requires not only backbone but also ongoing activities/projects
Financial model is not mature – consider science model and variey of supports (prof societies, grants)
Sharing of Innovation