This study aims to reveal science teachers' performances in designing TPACK-based argumentation practices for teaching geology. This study used a holistic single case study design where thirty-two science teachers participated in a professional development program. All materials such as videos, etc. used by the teachers and the Pedagogical…

The aim of this study is to explore how tertiary science students' use of metaphors in their popular science article writing may influence their understanding of subject matter. For this purpose, six popular articles written by students in physics or geology were analysed by means of a close textual analysis and a metaphor analysis. In addition,…

The geoscience community has begun to grapple with the whiteness of the community and the harm and erasure of Indigenous communities done by earth and environmental scientists. We have come to understand that to recruit and retain Indigenous students, geoscience education needs to be culturally responsive by explicitly centering Indigenous…

This study examines the epistemic disciplinary knowledge that students consider when addressing a real food emergency that requires their engagement in inquiry and argumentation practices. The study comprised two phases: (1) designing an experiment to study the emergency and (2) evaluating the real outcome of the emergency. The participants were…

A quantitative literacy course titled "Computational Geology" has been taught at the University of South Florida for over 20 years at the undergraduate level, largely by the same professor. Due to the extended course tenure, a unique opportunity presented itself to qualitatively study what the perceived broader impacts of the course were…

Learning naturalistic categories, which tend to have fuzzy boundaries and vary on many dimensions, can often be harder than learning well defined categories. One method for facilitating the category learning of naturalistic stimuli may be to provide explicit feature descriptions that highlight the characteristic features of each category. Although…

Teachers in Dorset and East Devon have the benefit of the Jurassic Coast on their doorstep to help them bring the 'rocks and fossils' content of the curriculum alive. Not only is the area breathtakingly beautiful, but it is also rich in educational resources. If schools are not in an area close enough to make a class visit possible, how can…

Concept maps make connections between ideas apparent, and thus would seem ideally suited to demonstrate learning. Yet, they are not widely used by instructors, particularly in large university classes. In this paper we review the strengths and rationale behind concept maps and provide examples we have used to structure content for one of our…

Gestures are physical manifestations of cognitive processes. Geology students often use gestures to describe geologic features and processes. The gestures allow students to convey 3- and 4-dimensional information about the rocks. Studying and characterizing these gestures can be useful in understanding students' learning processes; however,…

Most of the research on student understanding of evolution by natural selection has focused on undergraduate biology courses for science majors. However, the majority of undergraduates in the United States will not enroll in a biology course for majors. In this study, we identify the extent of natural selection understanding that students acquire…

Spatial skills, which represent the ability to mentally manipulate objects (Schneider & McGrew, 2012; Atit et al., 2020) have been shown to be correlated with entrance, persistence and success in STEM (Shea et al., 2001; Wai et al., 2009). Specifically, these skills have been shown to be necessary to geologists and geoscientists (Hegarty,…

Student-staff partnership, understood as the situation when students and staff work together on a project, contributing equally but in potentially different ways, is an innovation that is gaining traction on university campuses worldwide. This case study details my first foray into the partnership arena. I invited undergraduate students from the…

This article discusses how Google Earth represents an exciting opportunity to incorporate active learning in Earth science courses. Web-based Google Earth is easier to use than its initial incarnation that required users to download a large file in order to access the tool. Google Earth for Chrome can be used to engage students in activities that…

Students who enter introductory geology classes often have misconceptions about geoscience research, and they seldom have opportunities to gain authentic research experience in these classes. To improve student engagement in the class and understanding of geoscience research methods, a semester-long authentic inquiry research project was…

Online homework (OLH) assignments were added to the Introduction to Physical Geology class at Dickinson State University in the fall semester of 2014. Anticipated advantages included timely feedback and opportunities for students to correct mistakes made during homework completion. The same instructor taught all lecture and laboratory sections…