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To motivate student learning, the affective domain—emotion, attitude, and motivation—must be engaged. We propose a model that is specific to the geosciences with theoretical components of motivation and emotion from the field of educational psychology, and a term we are proposing, “connections with Earth” based on research in the fields of environmental education and art education. When all three of these components (motivation, emotion, and connections with Earth) are combined in the classroom, students may experience greater interest in and connection to the content. This interest and connection may lead to greater motivation to learn and value the content. We use our model to evaluate three practices in geoscience education and show that their demonstrated success in achieving student learning lies in the attention to students’ affective needs as well as to delivery of content. We propose a future research agenda using currently developed, validated instruments that can measure these motivational and attitudinal shifts to determine what practices work best for our students from both cognitive and affective perspectives. Although this was conducted in both Europe and the United States, the implications of this research may extend across cultures and nationalities. Additional research needs to be conducted to understand these implications. V C 2011 National Association of Geoscience Teachers. [DOI: 10.5408/1.3543934]

(2000). Building the Quantitative Skills of Students in Geoscience Courses. Journal of Geoscience Education: Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 409-412.

Cooperative-learning techniques are becoming increasingly popular strategies to improve learning and student performance. We have found that writing assignments complement and enhance these techniques at all levels of the geology curriculum. In large general-education sections of introductory geology, short writing assignments focus group work on specific problems or concepts and enhance student learning. In the geology curriculum, we use group activities called Class Research Modules (CRM), which are term-long research projects integrated into the content of the course. A series of writing assignments throughout the semester guides project development. The final product of a CRM consists of the written assignments assembled into a report or poster. In these projects, writing serves to organize and manage group effort, structure group activities, focus student attention, promote the exchange of ideas and constructive criticism, and enhance understanding. Writing assignments also help track individual cont...