Linking Pedogogy, Resources and Community Interaction to Support Entry-Level Undergraduate Geoscience Courses

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This project involves the development of a thematic collection and specialized portal for faculty teaching entry-level geoscience to college students and is exploring some of the ways that the NSDL can catalyze improvement in undergraduate teaching. The project has two major components: 1) Creation of a thematic collection that contains the full suite of resources needed to support faculty teaching at the entry level including teaching resources (e.g., visualizations; field, lab and classroom activities; problem sets), information on effective teaching methods, and examples of successful teaching in the geosciences. 2) Development of a portal designed specifically to support faculty and graduate teaching assistants teaching entry-level geoscience. The portal presents resources from the collection in thematic views or modules that link pedagogic and content resources and place them in the context of a specific issue in teaching entry-level geoscience. Supporting a virtual community of faculty will be an integral aspect of the portal. The collection is being developed around four priority issues: inquiry based laboratory and field experiences, using an Earth system approach, effective pedagogical approaches, and teaching quantitative skills. This project is drawing on resources in existing NSDL collections including several DLESE collections, the Math Forum, the Learning Matrix and the Gender and Science Digital Library demonstrating the power an integrated library holds for sharing among the disciplines. Significant co-funding of this project is being provided by the Division of Earth Sciences in the NSF Directorate for Geosciences in recognition of the importance that this collection of digital resources on teaching entry-level geoscience courses has for graduate students and undergraduate faculty.