Research on Institutional Change and Professional Development

Over the past 20 years, numerous institutions and groups have repeatedly called for changes in undergraduate STEM education in the United States in order to develop a stronger, more diverse STEM workforce, to foster a more scientifically literate society, and to improve equitable access to education for all. To achieve these goals, substantial improvements in areas as broad as instruction, mentoring and advising, and departmental climate must be made. Our ability to change can be supported by a better understanding of how educators, departments, and institutions change and how professional development opportunities foster and support productive change. This theme chapter considers how future geoscience education research can address issues of change in institutions of higher education and professional development that will promote high-quality geoscience education. Specifically, it identifies and describes three grand challenges that connect to the following components: the individual geoscience instructor, the departments and programs in which geoscience instructors teach, and the broader communities in which these departments operate

Synthesis: Discussion and Implications

This project was a formidable undertaking, necessary to position our community to achieve an important goal: to improve undergraduate teaching and learning about the Earth by focusing the power of Geoscience Education Research (GER) on a set of ambitious, high-priority, community-endorsed grand challenges. Working groups, through examination of the literature and with the aid of reviewers\u27 insights, identified two to five grand challenges for each of the ten research themes. The thematic grand challenges illuminate interconnected paths for future GER. Collective this creates a guiding framework to harness the power of GER to improve undergraduate teaching and learning about the Earth. While the individual theme chapters lay out the rationales for those large-scale grand challenge research questions and offer strategies for addressing them, here the purpose is to summarize and synthesize - to highlight thematic research priorities and synergies that may be avenues for research efficiencies and powerful outcomes

Terrace formation and floodplain sedimentation in the northern Delaware River Valley, New Jersey, USA: fluvial response to postglacial climatic environmental, isostatic, and anthropogenic influences

Shifts in temperature, precipitation, and tectonic uplift have impacted the Northeastern USA since glacial retreat, resulting in changes in regional gradient, vegetation, water budget, sediment grain size and flux to river systems. Along the northern Delaware River in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, the T2 terrace, located 6-9 m above the modern river, records most of the last 21 ka. This study elucidates the depositional history and associated temporal framework of the T2 and adjacent landforms at a locality on the eastern (New Jersey) bank of the river at 41°10'3"N, 74°53'39"W. Ground-penetrating radar (GPR) facies and bounding surfaces, descriptions of six Geoprobe© sediment cores, and basic geochemical analyses are used to characterize the alluvial architecture of the T2. The landform is comprised of five units of varying sedimentary composition, radar facies, and degree of soil formation, separated by four bounding surfaces identified by radar terminations, changes in grain size, or buried soils. A grid of GPR profiles shows unit thickness, distribution, and geometry, but channel versus overbank grain size is difficult to distinguish, and smaller-scale deposits cannot be resolved. Seven cores from the primary study site, and one core each from the T2 landform at another site and from an eolian landform nearby, are interpreted in terms of radiocarbon ages and approximate optically-stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages and the published record of the paleoclimatic, paleoenvironmental, isostatic, and anthropogenic factors impacting the valley. Incision of Units 1 and 1a (deposited as proglacial braidplain sediments) began before 14.8 +/- 0.8 ka, and seasonally-stratified lakes formed on the surface of Unit 1. Later climatic amelioration allowed the accumulation of traction sands to floodplain fines in Units 2, 3, and 4, with the most widespread unconformity and buried soil associated with the solar insolation maximum around 9 ka. Warm events (Medieval Climate Anomaly, Holocene Hypsithermal) and significant anthropogenic disturbance are associated with channel destabilization, which foreshadow the effects of future anthropogenic climate change. Finally, this study contributes to a growing body of literature that shows climate change is the dominant driving force behind changes in fluvial deposition and terracing.Ph. D.Includes bibliographical referencesby Kelsey S. Bittin

Applying the Geoscience Education Research Strength of Evidence Pyramid: Developing a Rubric to Characterize Existing Geoscience Teaching Assistant Training Studies

<p>Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for direct instruction of geoscience undergraduate students at an array of universities and have a major effect on the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of their students. GTAs benefit from in-department training in both beliefs and practices that align with the existing literature on teaching and learning in the discipline, and such training can have long-standing effects when GTAs transition into faculty roles. However, the most recent review, in 2003, revealed little literature examining outcomes of geoscience GTA training programs. Using the framework of the GER Strength of Evidence Pyramid, this article outlines the development and application of a rubric to allow the user to analyze the existing geoscience GTA training literature and provide example study designs at each level of strength. Extending back to 1980, we discovered a total of three peer-reviewed articles describing and empirically evaluating the effect of GTA training programs in the geosciences. Thus, this article also draws from other science disciplines to provide examples for the levels of the rubric not currently represented in the geoscience literature, providing a set of contextually similar models that future designers of geoscience GTA training might draw on to maximize their strength of evidence, given specific institutional and programmatic constraints. Furthermore, we describe ways in which the use of the rubric provides a framework for characterizing the GTA training literature, which revealed areas of research and characteristics of rigor needed for future work.</p

Flipping STEM

This chapter contains case studies from stem content areas. Case studies in this chapter focus on the concept of discovery learning, incorporate constructivist principles, but also constructionist theories. Several cases reference the tradition of apprenticeship and research that shows the value of project work as a means to highlight the iterative nature of design, while maximizing in-class time with active learning through collaborative activities and personalized instruction. Each case study opens with the instructional context and a rationale for flipping the classroom. The case-study authors also describe the structure of the course, as well as descriptions about how they prepared their students for flipping, and an evaluation of the flipping experience from both the instructor and student perspectives