Transcript Important issues related to undergraduate geoscience education  Preparing future geoscience professionals  Educating an intelligent citizenry  Helping students with career planning  Increasing diversity.

Important issues related to
undergraduate geoscience education
 Preparing
future geoscience professionals
 Educating an intelligent citizenry
 Helping students with career planning
 Increasing diversity in the profession
 Preparing future teachers
Focus of this presentation
Improving
the quality of teaching at
the undergraduate level
Attracting students to geoscience
courses and geoscience majors
My
aim is to enlist your help
Improving teaching at the
undergraduate level
 Change
is occurring slowly
 Need for on-going professional
development for geoscience
faculty
Professional development for
geoscience faculty
 Many
individual initiatives
over the past 6-7 years
 Focus on a program called
On the Cutting Edge
 5-year
NSF-funded initiative begun in spring 2002
 PIs: Heather Macdonald, Cathryn Manduca, David
Mogk, Barbara Tewksbury
 Co-sponsored by NAGT and DLESE
 Builds on previous successful programs sponsored
by NAGT, DLESE, and PKAL over past 7 years
 Why
 By
focus on this program?
the end of 2006, program will have
developed a significant infrastructure,
momentum, and leadership base
 This is program is designed for continuation
into the future
 Member societies can play a crucial role in
maintaining momentum
 Components
of the program
 Workshops
 Website
 Leadership
development
 Workshops
 Emerging
theme workshops: to develop ways of
bringing emerging research topics in geoscience and
pedagogy into the classroom
 Mature topic workshops: to disseminate best practices
 Early
Career Faculty Workshop
 Graduate Student/Post Doc Workshop
 Workshop on Effective and Innovative Course Design
 Teaching Petrology in the 21st Century (2003); Teaching
Structural Geology in the 21st Century (2004)
 Web
site
 Support
for individual workshops
 Development of on-line delivery for
aspects of certain workshops
 Resource for geoscience faculty
 On-line registration system
 Leadership
 Involvement
of 5-10 new individuals in
each of 6-8 workshops each year
 Instruction in workshop “best practices”
 After
5 years, what will we have?
 Robust
models for successful workshops of
many types
 Track record for workshops that faculty wish
to continue to attend
 Stable and efficient system for on-line
registration and support
 Large number of potential leaders
 What
would we like your help with?
 Help
with spinning off workshops that can augment
the existing program
 Example:
Incorporating Planetary Geology into Geoscience
Courses at the Undergraduate Level
One-day workshop at GSA Annual meeting 2003
 Co-sponsored by GSA Planetary Geology Division and On the
Cutting Edge

 Example:
Using Data to Teach Earth Processes: An
Illustrated Community Discussion

Special poster session at GSA Annual meeting 2003
 What
else would we like your help with?
 Finding
ways to continue these workshops after
NSF funding expires
 Example: Teaching Economic Geology in the
21st Century
Increasing the number of
geoscience majors
 Undergraduate
geoscience degrees granted
annually now lower than any time since the 1960s
 High
of 7200 in 1982, then declined dramatically to
low of about 2600 in 1991
 Rose to about 4800 in 1995, followed by precipitous
decline
 2001: about 2100
 Impact
on departments, the profession, and society
What do we need to do?
 Teach
better and emphasize the relevance of
geoscience
 Do more than passively accept those who are
interested in a geoscience major
 Recruit actively
 Encourage those who are interested in other career
paths to major in geoscience as undergraduates
 Be proactive in creative career advising
What can member societies do?
 Think
creatively about how we can help
departments recruit more effectively
 Seek out and publicize success stories and
develop models for success
 Develop strategies to increase the number
of top high school students who pursue
geoscience research topics in high school
Questions for brainstorming
 How
might your society become involved in
extending the On the Cutting Edge professional
development program, either now or after 2006?
 What might your society do to help departments
develop strategies to attract more students to
geoscience courses and majors?
 What might your society do to increase the
number of top high school students who pursue
geoscience research topics?