REDUCING STUDENT MISCONCEPTIONS IN INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE COURSES USING LECTURE TUTORIALS

Students commonly leave introductory geoscience courses with their misconceptions still intact. Here we describe Lecture Tutorials, an alternative to traditional lectures, which we developed in order to alleviate this problem. Lecture Tutorials are 10-15 minute interactive worksheets that students complete in small groups in class after a short introductory lecture. We wrote Lecture Tutorial worksheets to increase student learning in the introductory undergraduate geoscience classroom by engaging the students to think about their alternative conceptions and guiding the students to a more scientific way of thinking. Lecture Tutorials are short and straightforward and therefore are relatively easy for instructors to implement in their course without a dramatic redesign. In addition, students feel that the Lecture Tutorials are an important and useful part of their learning experience.

Our study shows that Lecture Tutorials increase student learning in the classroom more than just lecture alone. On multiple choice questions asked after a short lecture on the topic and then again after the students completed the Lecture Tutorials, student scores increased 18% after the Lecture Tutorial (from 58% to 76% correct). Embedded in these questions were the reliable and valid Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI) questions, and student scores increased 14% on these questions (from 61% to 75% correct). When a subset of the questions was given before and after an extended lecture instead of a Lecture Tutorial, student scores increased by only 5% (with no increase for the GCI questions). On exam questions relating to Lecture Tutorials, students who completed the Lecture Tutorials scored significantly higher than students who heard just lecture. This study was conducted at one state university and three community colleges, two of which consist of more than 75% underrepresented minorities.

Thirteen Lecture Tutorials have been developed so far on topics ranging from rock formation to the Earth's interior to earthquakes to climate change. They are being disseminated and are available for instructor use by contacting kkortz@ccri.edu or visiting the webpage: http://faculty.ccri.edu/kkortz/lt.shtml.