POINT OF VIEW
Why Students Should Listen
By Laura Guertin
I
recently returned from the Summit
on the Future of Undergraduate
in Geoscience Education (http://
www.jsg.utexas.edu/events/
future-of-geoscience-undergraduateeducation/), a 3-day, National Science
Foundation–sponsored gathering in
Austin, Texas, for 200 geoscience
educators, administrators, and government/industry representatives. It
has been 18 years since the geoscience community last came together to
create a community vision for undergraduate geoscience education. The
plenaries and working groups were
focused on the overarching topics of
curriculum, pedagogy, broadening
participation and retention, and preparing future K–12 science teachers.
The first panel of the summit included a short presentation on skills
needed to prepare undergraduate
students for graduate school and/or
future geoscience careers. Christopher
Keane, from the American Geosciences Institute, addressed data on the
geoscience workforce collected by his
organization:
When we talk to the employers, one of the critical issues of
employability . . . the first one is
strong communication skills. I’m
going to expand upon what that
actually means. That isn’t just
presentation skills, writing skills.
. . . One of the other complaints
that we hear is listening, cognitive integration . . . particularly
if you are in the consulting field,
listening to clients, listening to
regulatory agencies, interpreting
documents and technical material that may be outside of their
8
Journal of College Science Teaching
normal comfort zone, this is a
huge area. So it is both directions
of communication that is absolutely critical. (Keane, Wilson, &
Houlton, 2014)
This single bullet point from one
PowerPoint slide stayed with me
throughout the summit, and it is a
point that merits further attention.
The challenge of getting students to
improve their “listening” abilities followed by “cognitive integration” is a
challenge I am sure is not unique to the
geosciences but across all of science,
technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). We spend so much
time working on student writing skills,
especially in a STEM context (e.g.,
Feldman, Anderson, & Mangurian,
2001), but do we do enough to help
students become better listeners and
better able to apply their knowledge
sourced only from audio?
It is more than getting our students
to listen during our lectures, course
announcements, and/or instructions
for laboratory exercises. The Engage
to Excel report states that “lecture has
been a mainstay of higher education
since the world ‘lecture’ was created
in the 14th century, and today most
introductory STEM courses are taught
largely through lectures” (President’s
Council of Advisors on Science and
Technology, 2012). We know that being the “sage on the stage” is no longer
considered a best teaching practice, but
has the push for active learning techniques eliminated some opportunities
for students to engage in listening and
integrating content?
What can we do to help students engage in listening, processing content,
and applying the information sourced
through live and prerecorded audio?
Two ideas for student exercises immediately come to mind:
• Listen to discipline-based podcasts—with a follow-up activity.
This activity can be done in and out
of class (Guertin, 2011) or used for
instruction during field-based activities (Elkins, 2009). For example, students may listen to an audio
file from National Public Radio or
Living on Earth, then be asked to
list different types of data needed
for the research described or write
up a summary of the audio file using nontechnical terminology or
describe the significance of the
research and its application to society. For fieldwork, students may
listen to an audio file describing a
feature they will have to locate and
observe in the field, thereby requiring them to analyze and apply information they just received.
• Attend department seminars—with
a follow-up reflection. Carleton
College’s Biology Department requires undergraduate students to
attend at least 10 department seminars. The Colorado College Physics Department requires physics
majors to give a 45-minute department seminar on a subject of their
choosing. The addition of a followup assignment for students in the
audience at each seminar, such as
a written reflection or online discussion forum, would require them
to listen to the speakers at a deeper
level, then process and apply the
concepts they have learned to be
able to complete the exercise.
My take-home message is for each
of us, in our courses and in our departments, to go beyond getting students to
be passive listeners. We need to hold
students accountable for their learning
with an assessment that challenges
students toward the top of Bloom’s
Taxonomic Scale (Anderson, Krathwohl, & Bloom, 2001; Bloom, 1969).
Perhaps then we can help improve the
listening and integration skills of our
students, better preparing them to enter
the workforce or graduate school. ■
References
Anderson, L. W., Krathwohl, D. R., &
Bloom, B. S. (2001). A taxonomy for
learning, teaching, and assessing:
A revision of Bloom’s taxonomy of
educational objectives. New York,
NY: Longman.
Bloom, B. S. (1969). Taxonomy
of educational objectives: The
classification of educational goals:
Handbook I, Cognitive domain. New
York, NY: McKay.
Elkins, J. (2009). Using portable
media players during a field-based
introductory geology course. Journal
of Geoscience Education, 57, 106–
112.
Feldman, S., Anderson, V., & Mangurian,
L. (2001). Teaching effective
scientific writing, refining students’
writing skills within the Towson
Transition Course. Journal of College
Science Teaching, 30, 446-449.
Guertin, L. (2011). Classroom
integration of earth and space science
news stories through audio. The Earth
Scientist, 27(2), 41–45.
Keane, C., Wilson, C., & Houlton, H.
(2014). Geoscience workforce—
pain points in a high demand
environment. Summit on the Future
of Undergraduate Geoscience
Education, Panel Discussion I,
timestamp 42:50-48:45. Available at
http://bit.ly/1ahTbCB
President’s Council of Advisors on
Science and Technology. (2012).
Engage to excel: Producing one
million additional college graduates
with degrees in science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics.
Available at http://www.whitehouse.
gov/sites/default/files/microsites/ostp/
pcast-engage-to-excel-final_feb.pdf
Laura Guertin (guertin@psu.edu) is an
associate professor in the Department of
Earth Sciences at Penn State Brandywine
in Media, Pennsylvania.
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