Teaching

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Twitter for [Geography] Teachers: Intro & Signing Up

I've come across a number of these folks, many of them high school teachers, who are interested in using Twitter but have no idea where to start. What I'm hoping to do in the next few entries is give a beginner's guide to using Twitter, specifically geared toward folk who are completely lost at how to begin. I'll also be working toward some "best practices" once the basics are out of the way. Read more

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Twitter for [Geography] Teachers II: Setting Everything Up

Okay, this is the second entry in the series about getting started on Twitter, specifically written for geography teachers. In the second of the series, we're going to get all of the set-up for the account complete, plus explore the interface on Twitter.com. This entry assumes you've signed up and are logged in for the first time. Read more

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Twitter for [Geography] Teachers III: Tweeting & Following

This one is the third entry in the series about getting started on Twitter, specifically written for geography teachers. In the third post of the series, we're going to explore making our first Tweets, finding people to follow, and engaging in conversation with other users. This entry assumes that you've completed the set-up with your Twitter account and are reasonably familiar with the interface. Read more

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Twitter for [Geography] Teachers IV: Advanced Tweeting & Twitter Etiquette

This one is the fourth entry in the series about getting started on Twitter, specifically written for geography teachers. In the fourth post of the series, we're going to explore advanced Tweeting such as the inclusion of photos, links and location, and some basics of Twitter etiquette. Once again, we're going to assume that all of the topics covered under earlier lessons are comfortable for you now. Read more

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Introducing a 3D Google Earth Model of UWFox

At UWFox this spring, GEO 106 encountered a number of technical problems largely related to software and hardware obsolescence. So old were these machines that even our resident Helpdesk miracle workers found the challenges daunting. Despite mounting frustrations, the students kept an overwhelmingly positive attitude and pushed forward.

Just after midterm, an important GIS lesson was again aborted by the software company’s failure to support its older products still in use. At that time, the class discussed alternate project lessons that could provide a laboratory and application for all necessary skills while creating a product useful beyond the limits of this particular course section or semester.

With this, the first three-dimensional model of the University of Wisconsin-Fox Valley campus was born.

Read more

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GeoTube: A Curriculum Reform for GEO 125

(Submitted as a proposal for the Curriculum Reform Grant, sponsored by the Women in Science Program at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh)

Proposal for GEO 125 Curriculum Reform to Student-Centered Pedagogies

Geography and geology are two scientific fields that attract a limited number of majors in any incoming first-year cohort, partially because the fields have been decimated throughout the K-12 system. Therefore, it is imperative that instructors such attract interest through engagement with students while completing geosciences courses as part of general education requirements. Because of its very hands-on, practical content and its wide focus on lithospheric, atmospheric and hydrologic processes, the introductory Physical Geography curriculum tends to be a crucial “gateway course” for the geosciences. In the UW Colleges, Physical Geography (GEO 125) is a five credit-hour course with two weekly labs, taken for natural science and lab science credits as part of the UW Colleges’ Associate of Arts & Science degree, and is transferable to all four-year institutions in the UW System.

Unfortunately, the curricula provided by textbook publishers for GEO 125 and equivalent courses are quite lacking in pedagogical currency. Many of the laboratory manuals published for introductory physical geography courses are generic reiterations of manuals first published in the 1970s or 1980s. None of them provide any framework for adapting the suggested course activities to student-centered pedagogical methods. Few make use of the many advances in accessible geospatial technologies – such as Google Earth – and other technologies far more accessible now than 15 years ago. Redeveloping the physical geography curriculum into a course refocused upon engaging students in constructivist student-centered learning activities while incorporate these potentially enriching technological resources would be directly beneficial to the mission of attracting majors to the geosciences.

Summary of Proposed Changes

Three major changes are proposed to reform the curriculum of GEO 125 to student-centered pedagogies: development of laboratory exercises designed for group learning activities, the implementation of “Clicker” activities into the traditional lecture portion of the course, and the design of a student-driven video project that allows additional focus on important topics within the course.

Laboratory Exercises Designed for Group Learning Activities

In existing laboratory manuals, these exercises are designed to produce individual work for submission. It is proposed that these laboratory exercises are updated using the best content features of existing manuals to group learning activities, particularly Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning (POGIL) that are centered on a constructivist epistemology.

Activities in existing laboratory manuals fail to utilize the accessible geospatial technology Google Earth. Newly created laboratory exercises will take advantage of this tremendous information portal to allow students opportunities to virtually explore examples of processes explained in lecture and demonstrated during laboratory meetings.

GEO 125 typically features between 25 and 30 laboratory exercises. Because POGIL activities tend to take more class time to complete than individual activities, between 15 and 20 of these activities will be created. To reduce the number of activities, some content formerly covered in separate labs will be combined into single activities, while other content considered extraneous will be eliminated from the new curriculum.

Implementation of Clickers into the Traditional Lecture

Material in physical geography is traditionally covered with a lecture format. Though this proposal does not seek to directly change that method of delivery, it will be modified with the addition of electronic “clickers” into lecture discussion.

Clicker activities will include:

Between five and eight short graded quizzes of three to five questions to gauge learning and encourage preparation before class meetings.

Between five and eight group discussions in constructivist think-pair-share activities.

A collection of informal questions, to be graded as participation that gauge comprehension of information and allow students to reflect on the material.

The lecture section of the course is typically three days per week with 50 minutes per meeting, a total of 45 meetings during a semester. Clicker questions will be developed for each meeting.

GeoTube: A Student-Driven Video Project

Student groups will be charged with exploring four of course’s more difficult topics in an ongoing project producing short educational videos through the semester. The concept is based on the Illustrated Novel pedagogical method introduced during the WIS workshop for new STEM faculty.

Class will be organized into groups of four to five students, which will remain the same through the semester. Groups will be called “studios,” each with a name and logo of the studio’s choosing.

Videos will be graded specifically on accuracy of content and clarity of delivery. Imagination and creativity evident in the videos will also be rewarded with potential for extra credit and additional recognition from peers.

Videos will be uploaded to the course’s special YouTube account, called “GeoTube.” GeoTube will grow to become a collection of video lessons of the more difficult concepts covered in introductory physical geography courses. If the participating students grant permission, this collection will be visible to the wider public.

At the end of the semester, the course will hold a GeoTube Awards Ceremony to recognize the most exceptional, effective and creative videos with trophies and other prizes.

Through the implementation of these three major changes in the curriculum of GEO 125, the course’s approach will be far more student-centered and will allow for enhanced engagement with students with all learning styles and from all backgrounds. For the geosciences, this adaptation is crucial to attracting students to our fields.

Summary of Assessment Methods

It will be difficult to assess the reform’s effect on student outcomes without a comparative control sample. The limited schedule of course offerings on the UW-Fox Valley campus disallows the use of an effective control section for statistical comparison. The effectiveness of the reformed curriculum will be assessed through several methods:

A before-and-after concept quizzes. Students will be given a short multiple-choice quiz before and after two randomly chosen lessons during the semester. Results from these quizzes will be compared for individual students and collectively.

Long-form student evaluative surveys. Anonymous surveys with open-ended questions will be administered at the end of the semester, asking the students directly about their opinions of the new pedagogical methods and how they felt these methods impacted their progress in the course.

Analysis of Student Grade Distribution. Student grade distributions will be compared to earlier sections of this course taught by the same instructor, to other courses taught by the instructor, and to the science courses at UW-Fox Valley as a whole.

Instructor Self-Assessment. The instructor will constantly reflect upon the progress of the course and journal these reflections to monitor the success of the new methods.

Though these methods are not the laboratory ideal of simultaneously teaching two different sections with different curricula to derive a control group, these four methods of assessment should provide some useful insights to the reformed curriculum’s impact on student learning and engagement.

Summary of Reporting Methods

The reformed curriculum and a summary of assessment results will be shared with the larger academic field, including the UW System, the discipline of geography, and the larger global community of science educators. The results of the reform will be shared through a two-pronged approach which will include a more informal, web-based reporting, and a formal academic reporting through professional channels.

Informal Web-Based Reporting

Creation of a course website that will include the entirety of the new curriculum:

Visitors will be able to access all created course documents, including the laboratory exercises, clicker questions, and GeoTube video links.

In addition, all materials will not only be available for use, but they will be distributed as an “Open Source” curriculum that other educators may adapt to their needs. These materials will be made available in editable formats, such as Microsoft Word and PowerPoint documents, to enable and encourage adaptation to individual user needs.

Materials will be licensed with a “Creative Commons License,” meaning that none of the material can be purchased or sold for money. They are to be freely available to all, and the laboratory exercises are to be made freely available to students by instructors who implement any part of the lessons.

Website will be connected to the Women & Science home page.

The course activities will create a GeoTube collection of topical videos that will continually expand, be updated and will be available to all physical geography instructors globally.

Formal Academic Reporting

Presentation at the fall 2013 Women in Science Workshop for New STEM Instructors.

Presentation of method and results at the National Council for Geographic Education national conference in fall 2013.

A paper prepared for publication that will summarize these curriculum changes and the results of their assessments, to be submitted to Journal of Geography.

By engaging geoscience educators who might similarly adapt their course through both of these approaches, it is ensured that not only will the reporting reach a wide audience, but also that the necessary tools will be available to anyone who is interested, with no barriers to implementing the methods.

Submission of Proposal

This proposal is submitted to the UW System Women In Science Program as an application for an Inclusion of Student-Centered Pedagogies in STEM Courses grant. It is hoped that the committee will consider this project for funding during the summer of 2012, with implementation of the proposed reforms during the 2012-13 academic year.

Please do not hesitate to contact the submitter of this proposal at any time for clarification, with questions or concerns, or for further detail regarding the information contained herein.

Respectfully submitted,

Andrew Shears
Assistant Professor of Geography
University of Wisconsin – Fox Valley
andrewshears.com

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UWFox's Geography Offerings for 2012-13

I was only on the job about a month at UWFox before I got an email from the associate dean asking me for my proposed curriculum for the next academic year. Wait, what? You mean I get to decide what we're offering in geography for an entire school year? That's nuts! I'm not a department chair or anything, and I've certainly never designed or proposed a curriculum. Hell, I haven't even completed one semester as a full-fledged faculty member yet... Read more

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Promoting UWFox Geography, Fall 2011: An Active Geo-Adventurers Club

Our main goal with the Geo-Adventurers is to get students active in extra-curricular activities. In the case of this club, most of those activities involve getting down and dirty with the earth, which provides a natural link to the geoscience curriculum at UWFox. But again, first goal is involvement, and anything that happens after that is icing on the cake. Read more

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Promoting UWFox Geography, Fall 2011: Marketing Spring Courses

Let's face it: higher education is, for better or for worse, all about the numbers.  If our enrollment suffers, it's likely to be curtains for budget and for fun upper-level classes.  However, if enrollment grows, so does our department.  The other, even more crucial point is, of course, that both geography and geology are fields that have to recruit from within.  More enrollees give us more chance to bring students to the "dark side." Read more

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Promoting UWFox Geography, Fall 2011: Growing interest in the discipline and, hence, our little department

By raising the (quite low) awareness of what geography is as a discipline, it raises the potential for interest from students.  By growing interest with potential students, we've got a better chance at increasing the enrollment, therefore awareness is important in this job. Read more