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The geoscience education research (GER) community has produced a collaborative research framework that summarizes guiding questions for future research to inform and improve undergraduate geoscienc...

Graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) are responsible for direct instruction of geoscience undergraduate students at an array of universities and have a major effect on the knowledge, beliefs, and practices of their students. GTAs benefit from in-department training in both beliefs and practices that align with the existing literature on teaching and learning in the discipline, and such training can have long-standing effects when GTAs transition into faculty roles. However, the most recent review, in 2003, revealed little literature examining outcomes of geoscience GTA training programs. Using the framework of the GER Strength of Evidence Pyramid, this article outlines the development and application of a rubric to allow the user to analyze the existing geoscience GTA training literature and provide example study designs at each level of strength. Extending back to 1980, we discovered a total of three peer-reviewed articles describing and empirically evaluating the effect of GTA training programs in the geosciences. Thus, this article also draws from other science disciplines to provide examples for the levels of the rubric not currently represented in the geoscience literature, providing a set of contextually similar models that future designers of geoscience GTA training might draw on to maximize their strength of evidence, given specific institutional and programmatic constraints. Furthermore, we describe ways in which the use of the rubric provides a framework for characterizing the GTA training literature, which revealed areas of research and characteristics of rigor needed for future work.

Virtual globe programs such as Google Earth replicate real-world experiential learning of spatial and geographic concepts by allowing students to navigate across our planet without ever leaving campus. However, empirical evidence for the learning value of these technological tools and the experience students gain by exploration assignments framed within them remains to be quantified and compared by student demographics. This study examines the impact of a Google Earth-based exploration assignment on conceptual understanding in introductory geoscience courses at a research university in the US Midwest using predominantly traditional college-age students from a range of majors. Using repeated-measures ANOVA and paired-samples t tests, we test the significance of the activity using pretest and posttest scores on a subset of items from the Geoscience Concept Inventory, and the interactive effects of student gender and ethnicity on student score improvement. Analyses show that learning from the Google Earth exploration activity is highly significant overall and for all but one of the concept inventory items. Furthermore, we find no significant interactive effects of class format, student gender, or student ethnicity on the magnitude of the score increases. These results provide strong support for the use of experiential learning in virtual globe environments for students in introductory geoscience and perhaps other disciplines for which direct observation of our planet’s surface is conceptually relevant.

New research into the ways that students learn and apply their knowledge is changing teaching methods and undergraduate geoscience course content.

In response to calls for reformed teaching practices in college STEM labs and courses, and to support graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) in their general teaching responsibilities, other STEM disciplines have recently increased their focus on GTA training and preparation. However, current practices in GTA training in the geosciences and geoscience faculty values regarding GTA teaching preparation have not been documented. In this study, survey results are used to compile the roles of GTAs in geoscience departments as well as the types and extent of training in which they participate with respect to teaching professional development (PD). Responses indicate that most GTA training depends on the instructor supervising the course (57%), with more formal GTA training coming from university or departmental requirements. Survey results suggest that some barriers to implementing GTA training are similar to those found for faculty teaching PD, including time and funding, along with unsupportive departmental culture. Responses also indicate that although faculty generally rate teaching PD as important for their GTAs, those values do not correlate strongly with the amount of training their department currently provides.