DEPARTMENT-WIDE IMPACTS OF ON THE CUTTING EDGE PROGRAMS ON TEACHING, LEARNING, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT, AND DEPARTMENTAL GROWTH

Over the lifespan of the On the Cutting Edge program, five of our eight tenured/tenure track geoscience faculty have engaged in more than a dozen workshops and the impacts have resonated throughout our department. Our participation has included discipline-based, cross-disciplinary, and career-enhancement workshops as well as workshops on course design, assessment, and the affective domain. Many aspects of the workshops made them effective in helping us to transform our introductory and upper-level courses. The warp and woof of collaboration and reflection were the woven fabric of each workshop that built strong individual understanding and larger communities. The workshops pulled together a wide spectrum of facilitators and participants. The Teaching Structural Geology, Geophysics, and Tectonics workshop is an example of an extended professional network that provided experiences to broaden our perspectives. The design of the workshops with participants leading small groups in example activities reminded us what it feels like to be students, sparked new ideas, and developed mutual confidence in trying new approaches. In these ways, the Cutting Edge workshops respected learning as a process for both faculty and students. Specific examples of educational impacts will be given in our presentation. Cutting Edge workshops also provided numerous faculty development opportunities that led to publications. One of us has transitioned from a participant to a leader of the Early Career workshops. On the Cutting Edge programs have had other department-wide benefits. Assessment workshops provided foundational strategies that were adapted over the years to build a long-term program to assess student learning. The site visit of a team from the Building Strong Geoscience Departments component of Cutting Edge brought the department together in a structured, productive discussion with results incorporated into our five-year program review.