Redesigning GEO-100
Earth Systems Science
Reed A. Schwimmer
Geological and Marine
Sciences
First-Year Experience
Faculty Development Day
August 21, 2006
How are courses
commonly designed?
• Make list of content items important to
coverage of the field
• Develop syllabus by organizing items
into topical outline
• Flesh out topical items in lectures,
discussions, labs
• Test knowledge learned in course
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What’s missing?
• Articulation of what your students need
• Articulation of goals beyond content/
coverage goals
• Deliberate consideration of strategies to
achieve goals beyond content goals
• Plan for evaluation of success
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An alternative goals-based
approach
• Brings same kind of introspection,
intellectual rigor, systematic
documentation, and evaluation to
teaching that each of us brings to our
research
• Really shakes the tree and designs the
course from the bottom up
• Assessment falls out naturally
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Step 1: Context and audience
The course design process begins with
answering the following:
• Who are my students?
• What do they need?
• Can’t set goals effectively until these
questions are answered
• What are the constraints and support
structure?
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GEO-100 Audience
• Freshmen to seniors
• Science and non-science majors
• Course is a requirement or elective
• Not active learners; they haven’t been
taught how to learn
Step 2: Develop overarching
goal(s)
• Teaching is commonly viewed as being
teacher-centered
• Commonly reinforced by how we phrase
course goals: “I want to expose my
students to….” or “I want to teach my
students that…” or “I want to show
students that…”
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Instead…goals can be studentcentered
• “At the end of this course, students will
be able to…”
• What do you want the students to be
able to DO at the end of the semester?
• This focuses beyond the semester –
what value has the course added to
student lives, abilities, and skill sets?
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So you don’t want students to…
list…
explain…
calculate…
identify…
describe…
know about…
recognize…
paraphrase… prepare…
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Instead, you want to facilitate
higher-order thinking tasks
derive…
predict…
analyze…
design…
interpret…
synthesize…
formulate…
evaluate…
create…
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GEO-100 Overall goals
1. Students will be able to derive the
relationships between process and
product.
2. Students will be able to synthesize
the interactions between different
Earth systems (e.g., lithosphere,
biosphere, atmosphere).
From these goals, course content
can then be selected
• Choose broad content topics that will
help you achieve your goals.
• Then for each topic, select content
items that you want the student to
master.
• “How will you give students practice in
doing…”
• You don’t need to cover “everything.”
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The problem with textbooks
• Chapters are arranged around specific
topics, not the connecting processes
• Each chapter is treated as a separate
entity
• Not organized to emphasize these
connections
Example of table of contents from an
Earth science textbook
One solution…
• Develop the overall goal(s) early
and keep focusing on it throughout
the course.
• Use concept maps to illustrate the
interrelationships within this goal.
• Have students demonstrate their
understanding by creating concept
maps.
Three levels of concept maps
1. Connecting concepts and terms within a
topic (within a chapter)
2. Connecting concepts between topics
(across chapters)
3. Connecting concepts to the overarching
goal (generally not done in textbooks)
TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS
ASTRONOMICAL
PROCESSES
• SHAPE OF ORBIT
• TILT ANGLE
• AXIS WOBBLE
summer
SEASONS
winter
SUNLIGHT ANGLE
AND DURATION
SURFACE AIR TEMP
AIR DENSITY CHANGES
RISING OR FALLING
AIR MASSES
warm
AIR PRESSURE
DIFFERENCES
cool
HIGH
L
H
LOW
WIND
a dna ™emiTkciuQ
rosserpmoced )desserpmocnU( FFIT
.erutcip siht ees ot dedeen era
Option 1 – Students arrange topics into a flowchart
TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS
warm
summer
SEASONS
winter
WIND
RISING OR FALLING
AIR MASSES
a dna ™emiTkciuQ
rosserpmoced )desserpmocnU( FFIT
.erutcip siht ees ot dedeen era
cool
L
H
SURFACE AIR TEMP
AIR DENSITY CHANGES
SUNLIGHT ANGLE
AND DURATION
ASTRONOMICAL
PROCESSES
• SHAPE OF ORBIT
• TILT ANGLE
• AXIS WOBBLE
AIR PRESSURE
DIFFERENCES
HIGH
LOW
Option 2 – Students describe the connections.
SEASONS
ASTRONOMICAL
PROCESSES
SHAPE OF ORBIT
TILT ANGLE
AXIS WOBBLE
summer
winter
TILT OF
EARTH’S
AXIS
SUNLIGHT ANGLE
AND DURATION
SURFACE AIR TEMP
AIR DENSITY
CHANGES
RISING OR FALLING
AIR MASSES
warm
L
H
HEAT ENERGY CONC.
AIR PRESSURE
DIFFERENCES
HIGH
KINETIC ACTIVITY
CONCENTRATION
LOW
EQUILIBRIUM
DIFFUSION
WIND
a dna ™emiTkciuQ
rosserpmoced )desserpmocnU( FFIT
.erutcip siht ees ot dedeen era
Option 3 – Students create their own flow chart.
Concept
SUNLIGHT ANGLE
AND DURATION
SURFACE AIR TEMP
ASTRONOMICAL
PROCESSES
WIND
RISING OR FALLING
AIR MASSES
AIR PRESSURE
DIFFERENCES
SEASONS
Connections
TILT OF EARTH’S AXIS
SHAPE OF ORBIT
TILT ANGLE
AXIS WOBBLE
AIR DENSITY CHANGES
HEAT ENERGY CONC.
KINETIC ACTIVITY
CONCENTRATION
EQUILIBRIUM
DIFFUSION
Final thoughts…
• As you enter a classroom, ask yourself
this question: “If there were no students
in the classroom, could I do what I am
planning to do?” If the answer is yes,
General Ruben Cubero, Dean of the
don’t do it.
Faculty, United States Air Force Academy
(Novak et al., 1999, Just-in-Time Teaching)
• If all you have is a hammer, everything
looks like a nail.
• Same goes for teaching. If the only tool in
your teaching toolbox is lecturing, then….
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