HR: 0800h
AN: ED21B-0064    [Abstracts]
TI: DLESE Teaching Box Pilot Project: Developing a Replicable Model for Collaboratively Creating Innovative Instructional Sequences Using Exemplary Resources in the Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE)
AU: * Weingroff, M
EM: marianne@ucar.edu
AF: Digital Library for Earth System Education (DLESE) / University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), PO Box 3000, Boulder, CO 80307 United States
AB: Before the advent of digital libraries, it was difficult for teachers to find suitable high-quality resources to use in their teaching. Digital libraries such as DLESE have eased the task by making high quality resources more easily accessible and providing search mechanisms that allow teachers to 'fine tune' the criteria over which they search. Searches tend to return lists of resources with some contextualizing information. However, teachers who are teaching 'out of discipline' or who have minimal training in science often need additional support to know how to use and sequence them. The Teaching Box Pilot Project was developed to address these concerns, bringing together educators, scientists, and instructional designers in a partnership to build an online framework to fully support innovative units of instruction about the Earth system. Each box integrates DLESE resources and activities, teaching tips, standards, concepts, teaching outcomes, reviews, and assessment information. Online templates and best practice guidelines are being developed that will enable teachers to create their own boxes or customize existing ones. Two boxes have been developed so far, one on weather for high school students, and one on the evidence for plate tectonics for middle schoolers. The project has met with significant enthusiasm and interest, and we hope to expand it by involving individual teachers, school systems, pre-service programs, and universities in the development and use of teaching boxes. A key ingredient in the project's success has been the close collaboration between the partners, each of whom has brought unique experiences, perspectives, knowledge, and skills to the project. This first effort involved teachers in the San Francisco Bay area, the University of California Museum of Paleontology, San Francisco State University, U.S. Geological Survey, and DLESE. This poster will allow participants to explore one of the teaching boxes. We will discuss how the boxes were developed, the conditions that engendered successful collaboration and high-quality results, lessons learned, and potential adaptations for networks of user communities, for example, in ocean education or seismology.
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
SC: Education and Human Resourcese [ED]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting