Assessment and active learning strategies for introductory geology courses

Journal of Geoscience Education, Mar 2003 by McConnell, David A, Steer, David N, Owens, Kathie D

ABSTRACT

Educational research findings suggest that instructors can foster the growth of thinking skills and promote science literacy by incorporating active learning strategies into the classroom. Active learning occurs when instructors build learner participation into classes. Learning in large, general education Earth Science classes was evaluated using formative assessment exercises conducted by students in groups. Bloom's taxonomy of cognitive development was used as a guide to identify critical thinking skills (comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, evaluation) that could be linked to specific assessment methods such as conceptests, Venn diagrams, image analysis, concept maps, open-ended questions, and evaluation rubrics. Two instructors conducted a series of analyses on sample classes taught with traditional lecture and inquiry-based learning methods. Qualitative and quantitative analyses show that such methods are preferred by students, improve student retention, produce no decrease in content knowledge, promote deeper understanding of course material, and increase logical thinking skills.

Keywords: active learning, inquiry-based learning, assessment, Bloom's taxonomy

INTRODUCTION

Several studies have emphasized the need to improve science literacy among non-science majors (American Geophysical Union, 1994; National Science Foundation, 1996; National Research Council, 1997) and college instructors have consistently ranked student intellectual development as a primary teaching goal (Angelo and Cross, 1993; Trice and Dey, 1997; Figure 1). Teachers can meet these complementary goals by, focusing on remedies that make content relevant to the intended audience, increasing student-student interaction in class, and encouraging conceptual understanding rather than rote memorization of facts (Chickering and Gamson, 1987; Tobias, 1990,1992; Angelo, 1993; Astin, 1993). Such objectives can be realized by the combination of two teaching strategies, active learning and inquiry-based learning (Siebert and McIntosh, 2001). Active learning occurs when instructors build learner participation directly into classes using exercises that ask students to apply newly acquired knowledge to solve problems that may range from a single multiple-choice question to a class-length project Silberman, 1996). Inquiry-based learning introduces elements of scientific inquiry into active learning exercises. Teaching strategies that promote inquiry-based learning (Allard and Barman, 1994; Mazur, 1997) emphasize higher-level thinking processes such as making observations, posing questions, analyzing data, making predictions, and communicating ideas (Brunkhorst, 1996; National Research Council, 2000).

This paper describes a variety of learning strategies that may be adopted in introductory geology courses to encourage the development of higher-order thinking skills. We assume the reader has no prior experience in active learning methods and provide directions for implementing these techniques in the classroom. We discuss six hierarchical levels of student learning and link them to examples of appropriate assessment tools that were used successfully in several sections of a general education Earth Science course taught by two instructors at the University of Akron. These teaching strategies have been evaluated qualitatively using peer reviews, student written evaluations and semi-- structured student interviews; and quantitatively by measuring improvements in student retention, exam scores, and scores on a logical thinking assessment instrument.

TEACHING, LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT

Teaching faculty consistently rank the development of higher-order thinking skills ahead of other teaching goals (Angelo and Cross, 1993). Unfortunately, large numbers of students in introductory courses frequently find themselves in an educational setting where learning is reduced to low level intellectual skills of listening and recording information that will be memorized for a multiple choice exam (Pinet, 1995; Prothero, 2000; McManus, 2002). Student familiar with high school experiential learning strategies allied with the national science standards will be unaccustomed to lecture delivery, especially in large-class settings (Collins, 1997). Content-driven coursework that can be efficiently graded by multiple-choice tests has proven ineffective in promoting deep student understanding of basic science concepts (Tobias, 1990). Futhermore, it can have a negative impact on student attitudes about science, even among majors (Allard and Barman, 1994; Gibbons, 1994; Sunders et al., 1994; De Caprariis, 1997). As a result, such courses are usually poor recruiting and retention tools. In many institutions, pre-service teachers make up a significant proportion of introductory science courses. Teachers in K-12 schools not only learn what they will teach in these classes, but are also exposed to teaching models by their instructors (Collins, 1997). Finally, general education science courses represnet an important opportuniy for students to develop the critical thinking skills that are essential for success in college.