2014 GSA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia (19–22 October 2014)

Paper No. 305-1
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM

EARTH FUTURES: A BLENDED GENERAL EDUCATION COURSE AT THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY


BRALOWER, Timothy J.1, BICE, David M.2, MILLET, April3, OAKES, Rosie2, BRUCKNER, Monica Z.4 and IVERSON, Ellen4, (1)Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, 503 Deike Building, University Park, PA 16802, (2)Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, (3)Dutton e-Education Institute, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, (4)Science Education Resource Center, Carleton College, 1 North College Street, Northfield, MN 55057

Earth in the Future: Predicting Climate Change and Its Impacts Over the Next Century is a general education course with a laboratory designed to provide a broad survey of the science underlying climate change as well as the impacts on natural and human systems. The course was developed in a face-to-face format, and recently converted to (1) a fully online mode of delivery taught through the Penn State World Campus and (2) a blended version where students attend a once-per-week 75-minute laboratory session and take the lecture online.

https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth103/

The online version is taught to a diverse body of students from around the world including adult learners, while the blended version is taught to a more homogeneous group of students on campus. One semester per year, the online and blended sections are taught simultaneously; in the other semester, the online section is taught on its own. Enrollments in the fully online sections are typically between 50 and 80, while the blended sections are capped at 25 students. The blended course is instructed in a versatile state-of-the art classroom in which students are able to work in teams of two or three. Since students do not receive help for the online laboratories, the exercises are shorter than the blended versions. Online laboratories are graded automatically within the course management system whereas the blended section laboratories are graded by hand. In addition to laboratories, assessment includes weekly self-reflection blogs and quizzes as well as midterms. The simultaneous instruction provides a unique opportunity to compare the strengths and weaknesses for the blended and fully online mode of delivery. We have evaluated student learning using two instruments developed by the NSF-InTeGrate GEO-STEP center, the Geoscience Literacy Exam (GLE), designed to quantify the effectiveness of the course on students' geoscience literacy, and the Student Attitudinal Survey intended to probe students' ability and motivation to use their geoscience expertise to address problems of environmental sustainability:

http://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/about/assessment.html

In this presentation we will present the results of the two evaluation instruments for blended and fully online mode of instruction for two and three semesters, respectively.

Session No. 305

T65. Successful Models of Blended/Hybrid Learning Environments in the Geosciences (Posters)
Wednesday, 22 October 2014: 9:00 AM-6:30 PM
Exhibition Hall C (Vancouver Convention Centre-West)
Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 46, No. 6, p.734
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