Case for a Cooperative Studio Classroom: Teaching Petrology in a Different Way, The

Figure 1 shows the class meeting time now compared with the way it was done before 2003. The old schedule involved three morning lectures and one afternoon lab. Now, although the official university time schedule lists lab and lecture separately, they are seamless and meet from 2 to 5 PM two days a week. Often students get so engaged in their projects that they stay until 5:30 or 6:00.

CURRICULUM

I use Winter's An Introduction to Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology (2001) as the main textbook for Petrology. Winter's book and other available petrology texts contain more information than any semester class can cover, no matter the format. Every instructor decides what to include or not include in their course; Table 2 summarizes the major topics in our Petrology class.

As many teachers have discovered, changing from lecture-based teaching to a classroom that incorporates more active learning required a decrease in the amount of material covered. Although I was prepared for this adjustment, its size was greater than expected. To give a sense of the change, Figure 2 compares the material covered before and after we rescheduled Petrology. The arbitrary scale used for visual comparison is based on the page numbers in Winter's book. The pages indicated are those the students read in support of our classroom activities.

TYPICAL CLASS

Three hours is a long time for a class to meet. While keeping students focused is important, avoiding boredom and tedium requires some variety. Class sessions varied, but our typical class might be:

15 minute mini-lecture

45 minute group project

15 minute discussion or mini-lecture

90 minute group project

30 minutes reporting/discussing

The group projects, key to the success of this class, emphasized cooperative and collaborative activities (Macdonald and Bykerk-Kauffman, 1996; Srogi and Baloche, 1997; Tewksbury, 1996). Projects included discussions, debates, presentations, paper and pencil exercises, computer projects and, in most classes, work with hand specimens or thin sections.

The projects were multifaceted and often took more than one class session. For example, when we considered the order in which minerals crystallize from a magma, students read the relevant sections in the textbook prior to coming to class. During class we started with a brief quiz, involving individual and group responses, to confirm they had done the reading. The quiz was followed by discussion of congruent and incongruent melting and Bowen's Reaction Series. We next looked at phase diagrams, discussed how to interpret them, and did some calculations and comparisons involving melting temperatures and products for different rocks and different minerals. We then examined a dozen rocks and thin sections, identified the minerals in them and gave the rocks names, and used textures to infer the order in which minerals crystallized. To end the day, students began modeling crystallization/differentiation using Karl Wirth's M&M Magma Chamber Exercise (Table 3). In the next class session, they finished crystallizing and analyzing the M&M's, discussed layered igneous complexes and how they form, and talked about cumulates. For homework, the students had read articles on the Stillwater and Bushveld complexes, and so some gave presentations to the class. Then we looked at maps, hand specimens and thin sections from those places, and the students answered a series of "guided inquiry" questions as a final activity. All of these activities were group activities involving 3 or 4 students in each group.