METHODS FOR BRINGING STUDENT BASED FIELD EXPERIENCES AND OBSERVATIONS INTO A PEER LEARNING COMMUNITY THAT IS DESIGNED FOR LARGE INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCES COURSES AND BEYOND

Having students work and engage with out-of-classroom observations in large introductory course settings is a challenge. It is not only important for students to gain these experiences, but also to interact and reflect on them after the immediate lesson has passed. Fortunately, technology has provided easy and affordable means for our students to capture and elaborate on these experiences. Once captured, they can be shared to a larger learning community for peer discussions and reflection with an ultimate goal of presenting the final product for classroom evaluation. This process will bring the outside experiences of the few to the many, and allow for more locations/observations to be studied. To initiate this exercise, I have students utilize three different applications: Adobe Sketch, Adobe Spark Page, and Adobe Spark Video. In this presentation I will demonstrate how these three applications can be used in tandem to generate colorful, engaging, and annotated graphics that highlight the learning outcomes from what now become shared filed experiences. In addition to the student or students assigned to this project, other students in the course may access and augment the product and add additional annotations as warranted. This demonstrates that a fresh set of eyes can be beneficial to field work in any of the geosciences. This simple and fun process can be extended beyond introductory classrooms. If there are collaborating professors at different universities, then the products can be easily shared between the two. This will allow for students to benefit from field based observations obtained at different and possibly multiple locations/environments. This process can also be applied for students in upper level geosciences courses. If properly utilized, this process can be integrated into ePortfolio/artifact generation that can benefit the students throughout their geosciences education.