STEPWISE PROGRESSION FROM THE PHYSICAL CLASSROOM TO FULLY ON-LINE: DEVELOPMENT, HYBRID BLENDED FACE TO FACE, TO CYBER ON-LINE FOR INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE CLASSES AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE

The demand for on-line courses in Earth Sciences exceeds the current supply at Century College in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota. Rapid and full scale development of on-line geosciences course offerings is underway at our college. Notes from our transition of one of our most popular courses, Natural Disasters, offer many insights on how to proceed for maximum content traction as well as student success. From development phase, to blended on-site/on-line, to fully on-line in less than one year, we can offer some helpful insights on best practices to our community college colleagues in geoscience education. These include use of on-line meetings and presentations using ADOBE Products, cooperative team projects, ongoing course development using SOFT Chalk, and venerable real time, on the ground, and face- to- face field trips. We offer this presentation on how to succeed in the fully on-line, non-major, and introductory geoscience classes for diverse community college students and their learning of Earth systems science content.