FossilPlot: Data-Driven Web-Based Software and Teaching Modules for Undergraduate Education On the History of Life

爱达荷州立大学正在开发一个免费的、基于互联网的软件工具和一套可重复使用的教学模块，旨在加强本科生对化石记录的主动和定量学习。该项目建立在Sepkoski数据库的基础上，使教育工作者和他们的学生能够汇编36,000种海洋动物属的任意组合，以创建图表，说明显生宙的动物多样性及其地质范围。教学模块是针对历史地质学和古生物学导论课程的特定教学目标而设计的，并与课堂、实验室和实地考察的教学活动相辅相成。FossilPlot程序和教学模块是由教师、硕士和博士生组成的团队创建的，他们的专业是主题内容、教学设计和软件工程，以确保教学目标和软件内容之间的一致性，并产生一个用户友好的界面，促进学习目标。FossilPlot项目和教学模块将由爱达荷州立大学、犹他大学、伍斯特学院（俄亥俄州）、威特沃特斯兰德大学（南非）和鲁汶天主教大学（比利时）的教授和学生组成的焦点小组实施和评估。评估的反馈将为项目的修改提供信息，并在项目完成时生成化石计划的更新版本。

Idaho State University is developing FossilPlot, a free-access, internet-based software tool and set of reusable teaching modules that aims to enhance active and quantitative learning of the fossil record at the undergraduate level. Founded on the Sepkoski Database, the program gives educators and their students the ability to compile any combination of 36,000 marine animal genera to create graphs illustrating faunal diversity and their geologic ranges over the Phanerozoic. Teaching modules are designed for specific teaching targets in Historical Geology and Introductory Paleontology courses, and are organized to complement teaching activities in the classroom, laboratory and field trip setting. The FossilPlot program and teaching modules are created by a team of faculty, Masters and Doctoral students with specialties in subject matter content, instructional design, and software engineering to ensure alignment between teaching targets and software content, and to produce a user-friendly interface that facilitates learning objectives. The FossilPlot program and teaching modules will be implemented and assessed by a focus group of professors and students at Idaho State University, the University of Utah, the College of Wooster (Ohio), the University of Witwatersrand (South Africa), and the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). Feedback from the assessments will inform modifications to the program and result in an updated version of FossilPlot by the completion of the project.