Page 5 - i1052-5173-29-10

ocean, land, and life—an approach that administrations, 3853 responses address courses that span the disciplines in the
has been advocated for more than 20 introductory courses. A second data set geosciences, with the largest combined
years (e.g., Ireton et al., 1996) but has comes from participants in professional numbers in Earth science, geology, and
been slow to be adopted. The system development opportunities (PD) led by oceans (Table 1), which are among the
includes humans, too: no longer, for On the Cutting Edge (Manduca et al., courses current teachers most commonly
example, will it be sufficient for students 2010), who uploaded syllabi to a digital report having taken as undergraduates
to describe the global distribution of repository, where they are publicly avail- (Banilower et al., 2013).
resources. In the new standards, the PEs able (SERC, 2002). The methods of analy- The total number of students enrolled
ask students to tie that distribution to sis of these two data sets are described in in the introductory courses represented in
human activity and assess the impacts of the GSA Data Repository (see footnote 1). the survey responses ranges from a low
resource extraction on the environment of 66,725 in 2004 to a high of 81,636 in
(Table S1 [see footnote 1]). RESULTS 2009, followed by 68,170 in 2012 and
Pedagogically, integrating the three 70,198 in 2016. This represents about a
dimensions requires that “students Demographics third of students counted through depart-
actively engage in scientific and engi- The number of respondents who com- mental responses to a survey describing
neering practices in order to deepen their pleted the survey describing an introduc- 2004–2005 enrollments (Martinez and
understanding of cross-cutting concepts tory course they teach has been ~1000 for Baker, 2006), and perhaps 20%–25% of
and disciplinary core ideas” (NRC, the past three administrations (Table S3 enrollment in 2016.
2012b, p. 217). The structure of this sen- [see footnote 1]); responses come from all
tence is purposeful: active engagement institution types, as do the 152 syllabi Survey Analysis
in the practices comes first and leads to uploaded between 2002 and 2016 (Table In all four survey administrations,
deeper understanding. The practices S4 [see footnote 1). Although the distribu- respondents were asked how frequently
describe the use of data as the founda- tion across institution types differs some- they used specific teaching strategies in
tion for developing explanations that what, both fall within range of an earlier the “lecture” portion of their introductory
are modified and refined through active report on introductory courses (Martinez course (Fig. 1). A large majority use tradi-
discourse (Table S2 [see footnote 1]). and Baker, 2006). Both data sets include tional lecture in every class, but the pro-
In Earth science, the PEs shift the focus portion has decreased significantly over
from identification and description of time. In parallel, the proportion of
Earth materials and landforms to analyz- TABLE 1. COURSE DISCIPLINES instructors using small-group discussions
ing geoscience data to construct explana- Broad discipline Survey Total and in-class exercises—considered
tions, make decisions, and evaluate Atmosphere respondents syllabi active-learning strategies—in every class
291
9
solutions (Table S1 [see footnote 1]). Earth science 218 12 and weekly has increased over time.
Together, these changes led Wysession Earth systems 74 3 Respondents employ these strategies
(2014) to assert that “the NGSS provide Environmental 312 9 regardless of the number of students in
152
0
America’s best opportunity yet in its Geography 1375 77 their classes (Tables S5 and S6).
Geology
almost 240-year history to educate its Hazards 168 9 A set of questions on the 2016 survey
citizens about the complex and critical Historical 333 4 asked respondents to indicate the fre-
issues of Earth science.” Oceans 294 25 quency with which their students engaged
This is an exciting development for the Other 543 3 in particular practices (Fig. 2). “Three or
Earth-science community but one that
will not be fully realized without deliber-
ate effort from all components of the edu- 100%
cational system. Because a powerful way
that teachers learn to teach is by observa- * * * Figure 1. Histogram showing
tion, mimicking the teaching strategies 80% * the frequency of use of teach-
they have experienced as learners * * ing strategies over the four
survey administrations. Aster-
(Windschitl and Stroupe, 2017), one key * * isks indicate statistically sig-
leverage point for effecting change is the 60% * * nificant differences in propor-
science courses that future teachers take. * tions (p < 0.05) between survey
years; the significance is only
In the geosciences, we have two rich data * shown for a particular fre-
sets that can be explored to assess the 40% Frequency quency of use when there is a
difference between multiple
extent to which introductory geoscience of use * years. Asterisks with bars indi-
courses align with the vision of the Never * cate that there is no significant
difference between the two
Framework. The National Geoscience 20% Once * years connected by the bars,
Several times
Faculty Survey (NAGT, 2018) was admin- Weekly * * * * but there is a difference
between those two years and
istered in 2004, 2009, 2012, and 2016. Every class * * the others.
The original survey was developed before * *
the Framework, but is based on the same 0% 04 09 12 16 04 09 12 16 04 09 12 16 04 09 12 16
In-class
foundational documents. Over the four Traditional Small-group Whole class exercises
discussion
lecture
discussion
www.geosociety.org/gsatoday 5