Incorporating active learning strategies into introductory STEM courses has been shown to improve student outcomes, however, these activities take class time to execute. The question of how to implement these effective strategies without sacrificing a significant volume of content coverage has led to the development of a "flipped" model…

Responding to the need for recruitment and retention of a diverse geoscience population, we developed a capstone homework assignment for use in introductory-level geoscience courses. In this article we present "Geologic Issues: Community Impacts and Science Communication," a place- and problem-based assignment designed using research on…

We investigated the effect of modeling and visualization resources on upper-division, undergraduate and graduate students' performance on an open-ended assessment of their understanding of physical hydrology. The students were enrolled in one of five sections of a physical hydrology course. In two of the sections, students completed homework…

This article describes a one-week introduction to stochastic groundwater modeling, intended for the end of a first course on groundwater hydrology, or the beginning of a second course on stochastic hydrogeology or groundwater modeling. The motivation for this work is to strengthen groundwater education, which has been identified among the factors…

Interactive engagement pedagogies that emerge from a constructivist model of teaching and learning are often a challenge to implement in larger classes for a number of reasons including the physical layout of the classroom (e.g. fixed chairs in an amphitheater-style room), the logistics of organizing a large number of students into small…

Calibrated Peer Review™ (CPR), a web-based instructional tool developed as part of the National Science Foundation reform initiatives in undergraduate science education, allows instructors to incorporate multiple writing assignments in large courses without overwhelming the instructor. This study reports successful implementation of CPR in a…