USING ONLINE RESOURCES TO PROMOTE ACTIVE LEARNING IN LARGE-LECTURE INTRODUCTORY GEOSCIENCE CLASSROOMS: A SET OF READY-TO-GO IN-CLASS EXERCISES FOR GUIDED EXPLORATION OF TOPICS IN GEOHAZARDS AND EARTH HISTORY

The sheer size of large-lecture introductory geoscience courses at many institutions has traditionally shackled the instructor to lengthy slideshows as the most effective content-delivery model. We present and make available a curated suite of activities that we have developed to integrate active learning within the time and physical constraints of a large lecture hall. These activities engage students via online resources that provide exploratory opportunities, virtual field trips, and real-time data. In Geohazards, we created the following in-class exercises: Relative Dating; the Palu 2018 Earthquake and Tsunami; a Decade Volcano Showcase; Hydrographing Your Favorite River; and Visualizing Climate Change. In Earth History, we created the following in-class exercises: Investigating Plate Tectonics via EarthViewer; Exploring the Virtual Burgess Shale; Visualizing Virtual Fossils; and Interacting with Mass Extinctions. All of our in-class exercises are designed to take less than 20 minutes of class time and to connect students with a variety of pre-existing online tools by leading them through a guided virtual exploration of a setting, concept, or data. A foundational goal of our approach is to build on concepts delivered in that same lecture in ways that encourage critical thinking and peer collaboration. We use the exercises as group pop quizzes to encourage attendance, team-building, and using the instructor as a more personalized resource. The results of student questionnaires from the past two semesters show that students consistently rank our in-class exercises as both enjoyable and valuable to their learning experience. These in-class exercises are ready-to-use in a variety of geoscience courses at the upper high school, community college, or lower-university levels.