DELIBERATELY CREATING A TEACHING AND LEARNING COMMUNITY TO ADVANCE GRADUATE STUDENT AND FACULTY INNOVATION IN INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE CLASSES

Using funding from a NSF Course, Curriculum and Laboratory Improvement grant, geoscientists at San Francisco State University created a new computer lab space and inquiry-based lab materials to fundamentally revise introductory-level courses in geology, oceanography, and meteorology. Essential goals were to provide better support to graduate students who teach the labs and to generate a Teaching and Learning Community (TLC) where participants would learn about pedagogical techniques to improve their instruction, share their curriculum development experiences, and communicate with each other to better link lab and lecture components. Previously, lab and lecture were separate parts with disparate content; interviews with graduate students who taught the labs (GTAs) indicated a high level of frustration because there was little interaction with the lecture instructor and little help to implement their lab sections.

Starting in Fall 2010, instructors associated with the introductory courses, and other instructors interested in pedagogical innovations, participated in a 1-unit course that met weekly to discuss classroom experiences and topics such as understanding students’ misconceptions, improving quantitative skills, facilitating small-group collaboration, and teaching about the process of science. Lab and lecture instructors for each course also met each week to coordinate activities. In May 2011, after two semesters of implementation, participants were interviewed about their experiences. Results indicate resounding success of the TLC in supporting instructional improvement. GTAs who taught a lab both pre-project and post-project attested to a “100% improvement” in their experience; all GTAs felt supported in their efforts and valued interacting closely with a wide variety of faculty and other students. Faculty members were impressed by the change in culture the TLC activities brought to the department.

Even with already-linked lab and lecture components, our results suggest that weekly meetings of all instructors, to discuss educational research and classroom experiences, can have a profoundly positive influence on the professional development of graduate students, lecturers, and regular faculty, and help them to more effectively implement active-learning strategies.