IMPROVING DELIVERY IN GEOSCIENCE EDUCATION IN URBAN COMMUNITY COLLEGES

Our Alameda County team is from three urban community colleges where student performance and interest in geosciences are limited by their poor basic skills and study habits. Our students are unfamiliar with science and its vocabulary, lack critical thinking skills, and geographic literacy. In addition, many have English as a second language, and difficult home and work situations.

Our Improving Delivery in Geoscience Education (IDIG) project used technology to improve instruction in introductory physical geography lecture and lab courses and to overcome the isolation of working as sole instructors in our discipline.

The following lessons were learned as we participated in the IDIG workshop: The IDIG workshop provided structure as we presented our goals to the group in our PowerPoint Presentation. We were inspired to develop websites by John Butler, we enhanced our Geographic Information Systems (GIS) knowledge, and we strengthened our ability to work as a team as we shared resources with one another. Together and individually we participated in other workshops on Geographic Information Systems, Web site design, online instruction, and oceanographic education and shared what we have learned.

We have improved our delivery of geosciences by developing multimedia tutorials, designing web resources, and creating lab exercises using the World Wide Web to show the connections between geosciences and daily life. We implemented Geographic Information Systems in our lab classes to explore topics that use spatial relationships and enhance critical thinking. Two of our colleges now offer courses in Introductory GIS.

Application of our project has resulted in more effectively addressing our diverse student learning styles by providing activities that mean more time on task, linking students to Web resources, implementing Geographic Information Systems, providing groundwork for transfer students, and addressing remedial needs of our students.