A WORLD APART: IMPLEMENTING ACTIVE LEARNING IN AN INDONESIAN GEOSCIENCE CLASSROOM PRE- AND POST-COVID-19

Active learning is demonstrably better than passive learning. But implementation of active learning into a geoscience classroom is not necessarily straightforward. Barriers to adoption can include teacher and student unfamiliarity with the method, resulting in a great deal of resistance. Teachers often hesitate to implement these unfamiliar methods and students often feel like they are learning less in an active learning classroom. These challenges likewise exist overseas and are compounded by lack of resources for implementing active learning methods. With the COVID-19 pandemic necessitating remote learning, significant digital infrastructure barriers further amplify these challenges.

We will discuss our experience in implementing active learning techniques at Khairun University in eastern Indonesia. The course, Marine Geology, was co-taught by the authors during the Spring 2020 semester to ~40 Indonesian students with limited English-speaking abilities. Active learning experiences included thought experiments, back-of-the-envelope analysis of digital datasets, and comparison of rocks students brought from their home islands. Students showed noticeable engagement in course activities during active learning segments. However, we also faced significant challenges in implementing these active learning techniques. Internet bandwidth was severely constrained (or unavailable), eliminating most digital tools from usage. Additionally, digitized scientific datasets are often not designed to be easily usable or accessible via smartphone, the students' primary portal to the internet. Post-COVID-19 lockdowns forced the curriculum into online-only mode, where we faced two challenges that were nearly impossible to overcome: 1) students' low digital literacy which resulted in inability to correctly use digital tools and 2) lack of affordable, low-bandwith-friendly tools for constructing digital active learning classrooms or experiences. As a result, the class was forced to revert to WhatsApp text discussions and PDFs.

This experience has illuminated the inequitable assumptions with which digital tools are built and the lack of good digital tools for supporting active learning in classrooms that lack access to top-of-the-line technology. Potential solutions will be presented.