ASSESSING THE IMPACTS OF A HIGHLY INTERACTIVE PLANETARY SCIENCE ELECTIVE COURSE FOR SENIOR SCIENCE STUDENTS

Detailed assessments of a new highly interactive planetary science course for senior general science students show that active components can be effective. When optimally tuned, these components are appreciated by students, and support learning goals aimed at general science thinking skills. This is significant because it is challenging to develop courses that target senior students who are not majoring in the subject of the course. While these students are beginning to exhibit a growing maturity as scientists within their discipline, they may lack foundational background in the subjects of these elective courses. Therefore, such a course should be designed to focus on development of scientific thinking and communication skills rather than advanced details of the subject.

To assess this course, the needs and background abilities of students were first established using demographic and diagnostic surveys. Then the impacts of several specific interactive strategies were evaluated using work produced by students and midterm and end of term surveying. The specific strategies assessed include: use of learning teams for quizzing, in-class worksheet oriented activities and corresponding whole-class discussion sessions; the incorporation of a Personal Response System (PRS, or “clickers”) into lecture components; replacement of a final exam with a staged-delivery poster-presentation project including peer assessment; pre-post testing of content knowledge in two of four course modules; and two midterm tests, which students requested to help them gauge progress. We will show how assessment of these strategies has contributed to improving this course’s efficiency as well as its ability to help students achieve the learning goals. Finally, interviews with instructors showed that teaching this type of course can be more rewarding than traditional lecturing, but only if instructors take the time to familiarize themselves with, and practice, the interactive strategies.