Collaborative Research: 3D Virtual-Rock Models for Testing Category Learning Theory to Improve Student Learning in Physical Geology

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This project aims to serve the national need for highly effective undergraduate STEM education. Specifically, the project aims to enhance the teaching of rock identification and categorization in introductory undergraduate geoscience classes. Helping students learn about categorization, such as rock types in geology, is important in science curricula because categories are the building blocks of basic thought processes in humans. Categories provide an efficient means for humans to reason and draw inferences about the nature of the world. The project hypothesizes that students will learn how to categorize rocks better if they can study both physical rock samples and three-dimensional computer models of rocks. Consequently, the project will develop interactive three-dimensional computer models of rocks to supplement students’ interaction with physical rocks. The project will conduct research on the effect that using the computer models has on student learning. In addition, the project will develop teaching resources to supplement the computer models. These resources and the three-dimensional computer models themselves will be made widely available to geoscience educators throughout the nation. The aims of the project are to: 1) develop 3-D computer models of at least four different examples of ten different types of rocks; 2) conduct research on how students develop classification schemes for rocks with consideration of the impact on learning resulting from the order in which the rocks are viewed; and 3) provide the new computer models of rocks to the geoscience community of learners. The domain of rock classification appears to be both a challenging and highly representative example of natural-science category learning. Therefore, the experimental results obtained in this project should provide training guidance across the broad expanse of STEM disciplines in which students are tasked with learning and inducing categories from the study of individual objects. The results of the project have the potential to inform and improve standard practice in teaching science categories, and by so doing assist societal efforts to promote STEM education. Finally, the technology that will be used in the project will provide the geoscience-education community with a channel for instruction of students who are currently underserved because they have limited access to physical laboratory facilities. This project is supported by the NSF Improving Undergraduate STEM Education Program: Education and Human Resources. Through its Engaged Student Learning track, the program supports the creation, exploration, and implementation of promising practices and tools.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.