AN INTERACTIVE SCALE-UP CLASSROOM VS. A TRADITIONAL INSTRUCTOR-LED CLASSROOM: A COMPARISON OF STUDENT LEARNING GAINS IN AN EARTH SCIENCE COURSE FOR NON-SCIENCE MAJORS

In 2015 Wright State University opened the doors to the new innovative Student Success Center with classrooms and resources available to students supporting active learning pedagogies. While many studies have been conducted with physics students, active learning design has seen positive results in multiple disciplines (Beichner, 2008; Foote et al., 2014; Gaffney et al., 2008; McConnell and Ryker, 2013); however, there has been a deficit in active learning research in the Earth Sciences. For many years the Earth & Environmental Sciences Department has offered a physical geology course, The Dynamic Earth, to non-science undergraduate students. This course fulfills a natural science requirement within the Wright Core. In the fall of 2015 a section of The Dynamic-Earth was taught for the first time using a Student-Centered Active Learning Environment with Upside-down Pedagogies or SCALE-UP format. Due to the success of this pilot course, a section of The Dynamic Earth was again taught using the SCALE-UP format classroom during the fall of 2016. A second section of this course was also conducted using a traditional instructor-led lecture method. Student learning was assessed in both sections based on the administration of the Geoscience Concept Inventory (GCI). Student learning gains were determined through pre- and post-test analysis. Upon completion of the course, students also expressed their opinions through the Student Assessment of Learning Gains (SALG). A comparison of learning gains between the two teaching methods was then conducted. Furthermore, correlations between specific demographic groups and successes in the two classroom styles were analyzed.