Capstone experiences are typically the culmination of an undergraduate program and allow students to integrate their content knowledge with communication and technical skills, many of which are desirable in the job market and graduate school. Learner-centered teaching fits well with a capstone course because it requires students to be more engaged…

Describes the learning log as a personal journal divided into five sections. The "Noting" section functions as a typical notebook. The "Creating" section is for students to express themselves. Students use the "Telling" section to answer examination questions and write other assignments. In the "Listening"…

Describes a method of teaching geology and scientific writing to nonscience students that combines active integration of lecture, reading, and laboratory materials with field observations into a writing assignment on a real scientific problem. The writing assignment is completed in stages: a prospectus, a detailed report outline, a bibliography, a…

Describes an approach to introductory geology that requires students to go into the field to make observations, collect and analyze data, synthesize those data, and hypothesize about inferred geologic relationships. The product of these laboratories is a paper that requires students to test their hypothesis using specific examples from the data.…

Explains how students can learn basic petrographic techniques by using a thin-section collection prepared from the rock units in a geological area under study. Each student defines a particular problem to investigate and is responsible for collecting samples in the field, making additional thin sections, and preparing formal written and oral…