Collaborative Research: Open Access Blended Learning Modules for Teaching Laboratory Methods: Developing Scientific Skills for Undergraduates

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The lack of appropriate instructional materials at the undergraduate level for laboratory techniques presents a significant barrier to increasing student access to and knowledge of analytical skills necessary to succeed in the geosciences and other STEM fields. This project will create and evaluate five open access online learning modules for laboratory methods and scientific inquiry skills. These materials will initially be evaluated in courses at a four-year university (JMU) and a minority-serving two-year college (NOVA). The community-based review, evaluation, contribution, and further testing of these modules in various types of classrooms will create a forum for sharing ideas among geoscience and STEM faculty who wish to incorporate analytical methods into courses using robust peer-reviewed online teaching resources. The modular format will provide flexibility for instructors to use as few or as many units as needed for a specific course or student research experience. Five learning modules will be created that represent commonly available analytical methods as well as techniques available at both JMU and NOVA. These units will include gas and water plumbing, petrographic microscopes, thin sectioning equipment, energy-dispersive spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and Raman and infrared spectroscopies. Scientific inquiry skills will be embedded into the content modules, and will include creating and testing protocols, evaluating data quality and error, and synthesizing data. To benefit the larger geosciences and STEM community, the modules will be published on an open educational resource (OER) courseware site. Module structure and content will align with active, inquiry-based learning theories, and will include video mini-lectures, individual and group quizzes and assignments, expository materials in video or animation formats, video tours of equipment and laboratories, and instructor resources. This project will improve geosciences and STEM learning by establishing effective practices for integrating open educational resources into research-based instructional units in geoscience and STEM courses involving the use of analytical equipment. The assessment plan will include formative and summative evaluations of student learning and attitudes within required and elective courses in geosciences and STEM at JMU and NOVA, as well as module reviews by geoscience community members outside of these institutions. Evaluation will focus on the effects of open educational resources and a blended learning course format upon student retention of analytical methods and instrumentation skills, student mastery of scientific inquiry skills, and student attitude and competencies towards conducting research with analytical equipment. The protocol established by this study will be used to create additional modules on other analytical techniques in the future, and will be a template the STEM community may use to develop other online learning resources.