96,146 research outputs found

    A Strategy for Teaching an Effective Undergraduate Mineralogy Course

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    An effective undergraduate mineralogy course provides students with a familiarity and understanding of minerals that is necessary for studying the Earth. This paper describes a strategy for integrating the disparate topics covered in a mineralogy course and for presenting them in a way that facilitates an understanding of mineralogy that enables students to apply it in subsequent courses and research. The course is organized into a well-integrated sequence of lectures, demonstrations and laboratory exercises that unfolds the material logically and at a pace that is responsive to the students’ needs. The course begins with six weeks on crystal chemistry, then five weeks covering analytical methods for characterizing minerals and ends with five weeks on the silicates. This order facilitates a progression of learning from the basic concepts to the more advanced and allows us to reinforce the concepts of crystal chemistry during the final section on the silicates. Optical mineralogy is almost entirely taught in the lab and is aided by use of a mineral identification chart developed to help students learn to identify minerals in thin section. Student performance is assessed through one technical paper and presentation as well as homework, essay exams and lab practicals. Educational levels: Graduate or professional

    Educational Research Abstracts

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    Using Concept Inventories to Measure Understanding

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    Measuring understanding is notoriously difficult. Indeed, in formulating learning outcomes the word “understanding” is usually avoided, but in the sciences, developing understanding is one of the main aims of instruction. Scientific knowledge is factual, having been tested against empirical observation and experimentation, but knowledge of facts alone is not enough. There are also models and theories containing complex ideas and inter-relationships that must be understood, and considerable attention has been devoted across a range of scientific disciplines to measuring understanding. This case study will focus on one of the main tools employed: the concept inventory and in particular the Force Concept Inventory. The success of concept inventories in physics has spawned concept inventories in chemistry, biology, astronomy, materials science and maths, to name a few. We focus here on the FCI, ask how useful concept inventories are for evaluating learning gains. Finally, we report on recent work by the authors to extend conceptual testing beyond the multiple-choice format

    Subject benchmark statement: agriculture, horticulture, forestry, food and consumer sciences

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    Conveying troublesome concepts : using an open-space learning activity to teach mixed-methods research in the health sciences

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    In the past decade, there has been a groundswell of interest in the use of mixed-methods approaches to conduct research in the health sciences. However, there remains a paucity of diverse teaching materials, curricula and activities to support the continued expansion of education and innovation in mixed-methods research. Here, we report the development and evaluation of an open-space learning activity and tool to aid teaching the concept of synthesis in mixed-methods research. We detail the iterations of the teaching activity and tool as they were developed, we report student feedback, and we discuss the utility of the activity and tool for introducing the concept of synthesis in mixed-methods research within health science and related fields

    SciTech News Volume 70, No. 4 (2016)

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    Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 4 SLA Annual Meeting 2016 Report (S. Kirk Cabeen Travel Stipend Award recipient) 6 Reflections on SLA Annual Meeting (Diane K. Foster International Student Travel Award recipient) 8 SLA Annual Meeting Report (Bonnie Hilditch International Librarian Award recipient)10 Chemistry Division 12 Engineering Division 15 Reflections from the 2016 SLA Conference (SPIE Digital Library Student Travel Stipend recipient)15 Fundamentals of Knowledge Management and Knowledge Services (IEEE Continuing Education Stipend recipient) 17 Makerspaces in Libraries: The Big Table, the Art Studio or Something Else? (by Jeremy Cusker) 19 Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 21 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 22 Advertisements IEEE 17 WeBuyBooks.net 2
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