T154 Teaching Field Geology without the Field: Providing a Robust Capstone Experience through Digital Resources I

Wednesday, 28 October 2020
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Meeting Rooms

HOW WELL DID IT WORK? THE TRANSITION TO ONLINE FIELD CAMPS IN THE SUMMER OF COVID-19

Paper number: T154-2
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 1:45 PM – 2:00 PM

Authors

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic presented many curricular challenges to Geoscience programs, including how to meet student needs for summer field-based capstone experiences when field work was not possible. Converting these field-based capstone experiences to safe and accessible online courses is a massive undertaking, but support from the NSF RAPID program allowed the community to come together and collaborate on the development of programs to meet student needs, which facilitated a distribution of workload across instructors and led to the development of a community agreement of the skills, competencies, and experiences that would meet the needs of graduating students, prospective employers, and graduate programs. One of the first steps of this effort was to convene a group of approximately 30 field camp instructors for a one-day online workshop with the goal of developing a community consensus on program learning outcomes that satisfy both field-based and online capstone experiences. This group developed a set of nine learning outcomes appropriate for both field-based and non-field-based geoscience capstone programs. Instructors and activity developers then used these learning outcomes to guide the creation of learning materials, and we developed an assessment plan to measure student gains.

A survey was developed using these nine learning outcomes, along with four attitudinal outcomes identified by workshop participants, as the theme. Students were provided with five to 16 statements tied to each outcome and asked to respond using a Likert scale from Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree. A recruitment e-mail was sent to instructors asking them to distribute this survey to students before and after their field camp. To date, more than 150 responses have been recorded. This summer’s field camp experience had a positive influence on student perceptions of their field camp skills and attitudes, helped students visualize a career as a geoscientist, and identify as more of a geoscience professional. It does not appear to have shifted their plans for education beyond the undergrad degree. It remains to be seen how these results compare to traditional field camp experiences. Preliminary results from a parallel instructor survey about their experiences, materials used, and perceptions of student learning will also be shared.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 52, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2020AM-356539

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