WHAT MIGHT FUTURE-FOCUSED, HUMAN-CENTERED, ADAPTABLE AND BLENDED GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE TRAINING LOOK LIKE? LEARNING FROM 6 YEARS OF COHORTS FROM AN INTERDISCIPLINARY COURSE CENTERING WRITING AND QUANTITATIVE ANALYSES

Approaches needed to tackle many of the truly “wicked” societal problems require diverse perspectives and work across traditional disciplines. Universities should play a key role in helping all students develop the adaptable creative-thinking skills that are needed in workplaces characterized by rapidly changing roles and technologies. However, there is evidence that there has been unequal access to the kind of inquiry-centering learning that can promote these skills. Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CURES) in Geosciences have often focused on field experiences and discipline-specific questions, which can systematically exclude certain identities and interests. It can also be difficult for many students to enter and experience independent research in PI labs in part due to an implicit or explicit focus on talent selection rather than a growth mindset focused on talent development. Other barriers include the cost and mechanisms of delivering inquiry experiences at scale. Finally, entry into research can be perceived as a restrictive process of assimilation into cultural and methodological norms rather than as the development of holistic and diverse scientific self-identities through support and celebration of difference.

Here we present over six years of cohort data on a blended undergraduate and graduate course offered as a Geoscience elective, called “Curiosity to Question: Research Design, Quantitative Analysis, and Data visualization”. We discuss quantitative results from surveys (URSSA) of student outcomes, and compare them to Biology and Geoscience CURES and REU sites. We also discuss mechanisms of course efficacy from a qualitative learning sciences perspective. We show how the course differs from traditional CUREs in that there is no shared discipline or technique but a shared process and product: a scientific paper. The course also uniquely engages graduate students by design, actively leveraging diverse experience levels in tiered mentorship networks (rather than student-TA relationships). And finally, we make the case that this adaptable, low-cost model may inform a re-envisioning of graduate and undergraduate curricula in geosciences and other disciplines.