CREATING A SENSE OF PLACE IN THE ONLINE CLASSROOM

Online courses are encouraged to find ways to connect the students to one another, creating a sense of a classroom community, usually through the Discussion board. Instead of focusing on creating this online community I incorporate assignments and labs that enhance the students sense of the geology in their own communities by taking what they’ve learned from the textbook and applying it to their location. Students are given tasks to complete that take them into their community to collect rocks, fossils, soil, and locate areas undergoing weathering and erosion. The discussion board is where they share what they have found with their classmates. For example, we have a Rock Collection discussion in which students find a rock, photograph it, describe it and give the location where it was found, and show how they determined whether it is igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic. The class is also required to go on a field trip either with the instructor or on their own and create a slide show which is posted in the discussion for them to share with their classmates. Many involve family members in these place-based exercises and often bring along friends and family on their field trips. Responses to surveys and questions posed in the exercises often include comments related to the eye-opening the students experienced in finding geology in their own backyards.