HR: 0800h
AN: ED51B-0411    [Abstracts]
TI: Inquiry-Based Learning in an Intermediate-Level Undergraduate Neotectonics Course
AU: * Reinen, L A
EM: lreinen@pomona.edu
AF: Geology Department, Pomona College, 185 East Sixth Street, Claremont, CA 91711, United States
AB: Integrating student-conducted research into the curriculum can provide students with many educational benefits. Documented benefits include, among others, increased communication skills, the ability to work as part of a research team, and enhanced self-confidence in individual problem-solving skills (e.g., Kardash, J. Ed. Psych., 2000; Seymour, et al., Science Education, 2004). As part of a larger departmental goal of integrating student- conducted research into all levels of the Pomona College Geology Department curriculum (e.g., Reinen, et al., CUR-Q, 2006), I have recently developed an intermediate-level Neotectonics course with a strong component of inquiry-based learning. This course was offered for the first time during the spring semester 2007, and will continue to be offered each year. In a series of guided inquiries throughout the course, students investigate recent seismicity and tectonic geomorphology in Southern California. With each subsequent assignment, student contributions to the research direction increases (e.g., data used, area studied, question addressed, methods used), culminating in team proposals and research projects investigating specific student-generated questions of regional tectonics. Students collect data for these investigations from several sources: (1) databases available online (e.g., IRIS, Harvard earthquake catalog), (2) desktop experiments (e.g., the "earthquake machine"), (3) topographic maps, and (4) field observations. The objective of this paper is to present initial results from this teaching experiment and examples of the projects which have been executed, including the preparation students received to be able to use the available data. Discussion and suggestions (particularly about effective means of conducting a rigorous long-term assessment) are strongly encouraged.
DE: 0810 Post-secondary education
DE: 0820 Curriculum and laboratory design
DE: 0825 Teaching methods
DE: 0845 Instructional tools
SC: Education and Human Resources [ED]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting