Creating an Academic Community to Foster Curiosity and Discovery in Introductory Geoscience Classes

摘要本计画旨在建立一个由教师、研究生及高年级本科生组成的教学与学习社群（TLC），将他们的专业与课程发展相结合，以改善地质学、气象学及海洋学实验课程的教学。TLC还致力于通过转移学生在实验室中开发的技能来提高学生在相关讲座课程中的学习。该项目开发、调整和完善了实验材料，不仅包含了一致的基于探究的学习（IBL）方法、真实世界的数据和与学生相关的问题，而且还明确地解决了科学的过程。项目工作由一个配备计算机的地球科学勘探实验室（GEL）提供便利，该实验室部分是通过该项目开发的，它为学生提供了收集自己数据的机会，使用计算机工具来分析、可视化、解释、综合和展示他们的结果和解释。这有助于学生在大学生涯的早期阶段培养有价值的思维和沟通技巧。评估计划包括形成性和总结性两部分，跟踪学生的学习和态度，以及参与教授实验课程的教师和研究生的专业发展。该项目的成果包括广泛传播的实验室手册，积极传播项目结果的国家研讨会，以及对更大的STEM社区感兴趣的评估结果的传播。

AbstractThis project creates a Teaching and Learning Community (TLC) composed of faculty, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates who are combining their professional and curricular development efforts to improve instruction in geology, meteorology and oceanography lab courses. The TLC is also working to improve student learning in associated lecture courses via the transfer of skills developed by students enrolled in the labs. The project develops, adapts, and refines lab materials that not only incorporate a consistent inquiry-based learning (IBL) approach, real-world data, and problems relevant to students, but also explicitly address the process of science. The project work is being facilitated by a computer-equipped Geoscience Exploration Laboratory (GEL), developed in part via this project, which is providing students with opportunities to collect their own data, use computer tools to analyze, visualize, interpret, synthesize and present their results and interpretations. This is helping students to develop valuable thinking and communication skills at an early stage in their university careers. The evaluation plan consists of both formative and summative components that track student learning and attitudes as well as the professional development of faculty and graduate students who are involved in teaching the laboratory courses. The outcomes of the project include a widely disseminated lab manual, a national workshop that actively disseminates the project results, and the dissemination of evaluation results that are of interest to the larger STEM community.