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Online courses can feel isolating and sometimes lack human connections that can motivate students. We developed a fully online geoscience course to build a ‘Community of Inquiry’ with atten...

Promoting collaboration and discourse in asynchronous online courses is challenging; students need something engaging to talk about, a communications medium in which to fluidly discuss it, and a so...

What teachers believe about their own effectiveness in the classroom influences what and how they teach, so teacher preparation programs should work to cultivate strong self-efficacy beliefs (SEBs)...

Each year our physical science class for pre-service elementary teachers launches water-powered rockets based on the activity from NASA.1 We analyze the rocket flight using data from frame-by-frame video analysis of the launches. Before developing the methods presented in this paper, we noticed our students were mired in calculation details while losing sight of physical concepts. Sloppy measurements and calculations (even when using spreadsheets with formulas provided) sometimes led to such poor results that physical concepts could not be reliably taught from the data, but students were unmotivated to either notice or correct their errors. We adopted a collaborative, computer supported approach using simple and easily available functions in Google Spreadsheets to pool observations, provide instant feedback, and publicly display results from all teams side-by-side in real time. These instant comparisons promote student accountability and engagement, inspiring them to think more carefully about why answers...

Students who have a strong urban place-identity may perceive the natural world differently from many geoscience instructors. These urban thinkers have less experience in the natural world and are more comfortable in built environments. They may have subtle differences in cognitive and spatial skill development, interest level in the natural environment, comfort with field experiences, and possible fears of outdoor settings. Curriculum is more effective at reaching urban thinkers when it accounts for these differences. Since urban thinkers are more comfortable in the built environment, short excursions on campus or in the schoolyard can be a bridge between settings familiar to urban thinkers and geologic processes important for the study of geosciences. These mini–field experiences provide opportunities for students to ask questions about the world around them, especially if emphasis is placed on the physical processes that shape the urban landscape. Once students are familiar with the observation...