USING PEER INSTRUCTION AND COLLABORATIVE EXAMS TO INCREASE STUDENT LEARNING IN INTRODUCTORY GEOLOGY

Large, introductory science courses enroll students from a wide range of majors who are mostly fulfilling their general education requirement. Some of these students are not interested in science and the instructor must make the most out of this opportunity to show them the relevance of science and of the course content.

Introductory geology is a science course of choice for students who expect it to be an easier course and/or have some interest about the Earth. This results in high enrollments, but also in a broad range for level of engagement and performance. This is reflected in lower attendance and class participation as the semester progresses. While the top end of students will do well in the class no matter what the instructor does, engaging the lower achieving students is challenging in a class where it is easy to not be noticed.

Three semesters of exam results (fall 2014 to fall 2016) were used to study the effectiveness of active learning techniques such as collaborative, two-stage exams on student learning in a traditional auditorium with fixed seats. In fall 2014 the class was taught in a more traditional style, but used two-stage exams. Since fall 2015 the instructor has implemented a ‘flipped’ pedagogy for teaching along with continuing the two-stage exams. Students learn the content using required homework assignments before each class period, and spend the time in class working in groups to answer a series of questions or work on problems instead of listening to lectures.

Preliminary results of the analysis of exam scores show that lower achieving students, those with a score in the individual component of the first exam of 50% or lower, showed a statistically significant increase in their individual scores from the first exam to the final exam in all three semesters. No statistically significant difference was observed between the first and final exam for students with scores in the individual component of the first exam above 50%. Between fall 2014 and fall 2015 and 2016 there was also an average decrease of 6.6% in the number of lower achieving students and a 4.6% increase in the average final grade for the whole class.

Future research will look at metacognition, self-regulation, and group dynamics for the role they play in student learning in an auditorium designed for team-based learning.