Why Some Students Have Trouble With Maps & Spatial Representations: An On-line Tutorial for Geoscience Faculty

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ABSTRACTWhy Some Students have Trouble with Maps & Spatial Representations: an On-line Tutorial for Geoscience FacultyThis project develops an on-line interactive tutorial which addresses a topic of widespread concern to geoscience educators. The topic for the proposed tutorial is maps and related spatial representations. Making and interpreting maps and other spatial representations is central to most of the geoscience disciplines, yet it is a skill that a substantial minority of undergraduates struggles with. Most college professors have little or no professional training in how people learn or think, and they have little time or infrastructure for professional development as educators on the job. Cognitive and developmental researchers have extensively studied the cognitive processes that underlie the comprehension and generation of maps, but few of those insights have reached geoscience faculty. DLESE has the potential to help this situation by providing on-line professional development materials, designed for college faculty, focusing on specific problems or issues that arise commonly in teaching geoscience concepts and skills.