GEOL

STEM Active Learning Academy

Anonymous — Sun, 30 Jul 2023 23:03:02 +0000

STEM Active Learning Academy Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 07/30/2023 - 17:03

Leilani Arthurs , Department of Geological Sciences

We are happy to announce the Active Learning Academy will continue for another year! This program is NSF-funded, faculty-driven, and supported by ASSETT and the CTL. The Active Learning Academy offers STEM faculty professional development (PD) opportunities to learn and apply research-based instructional strategies and course design principles to an undergraduate STEM course of their choosing. These strategies and principles are straightforward to implement and known to enhance student learning. They are also aligned with CU Boulder's current efforts to have a “common student-centered approach to learning [PDF]” and to be a “T1 at the R1” [PDF].

The academy offers a series of three semester-long PD programs that build from one to the next: Learning by Design, Follow-up Mentoring, and Course Re/Design. Participants who successfully complete the first program are eligible but not required to participate in the second program. Those who successfully complete the first and second program are eligible but not required to complete the third program. Faculty who complete any of these programs can claim them in their annual performance. They will also receive additional recognition in the form of a faculty development award, a certificate, and a letter for their reappointment, promotion, and tenure file.

The programs offered through the Active Learning Academy are currently scheduled as follows:

Learning by Design: Fall 2024
Eight meetings per semester, once every other week
Award: $1500

Follow-up Peer Mentoring: Spring 2025
Two meetings per academic year (kick-off and wrap-up) and five meetings with a peer mentor
Award: $500

Course Re/Design: Summer/Fall 2025
One symposium presentation and numerous meetings to (re)design a course
Award: $1500 (two awards per cycle)

Tenure-stream and teaching professor ranks are eligible to participate. We are currently accepting applications for the fall 2023 Learning by Design cohort. The first program meeting will be held during the third week of instruction. Lunch will be provided at all meetings.

Space is limited! Cohort size is limited to 8. Preference will be given to pairs of faculty members from the same department who partner to complete Learning by Design together.

Submit your application by May 28, 2024. Send questions to Amanda.McAndrew@colorado.edu, Karen.Crouch@colorado.edu, Kalpana.Gupta@colorado.edu, or Leilani.Arthurs@colorado.edu

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Professor Greg Tucker Used ASSETT Development Award Funding To Create an Animation about River Evolution

Anonymous — Tue, 01 Jul 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Professor Greg Tucker Used ASSETT Development Award Funding To Create an Animation about River Evolution Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 07/01/2014 - 00:00

The state and national borders that had been historically dictated by a river's path may come into question when that river changes direction. CU Boulder Geology Professor Dr. Greg Tucker understands this issue all too well. Tucker explains that, "Rivers and streams often appear to be fixed and more or less permanent features of the natural landscape. Yet as the recent [September 2013] flooding in Boulder illustrates, they are often quite dynamic." Indeed, as a drive up US 36 will quickly tell you, the St. Vrain River now runs in different places than it did just a year ago before the Fall 2013 flooding, which left a lasting impact on the surrounding community.

In 2013, Tucker received an ASSETT Development Award to create an animation about a changing river system. "I used the ... award to hire a professional scientific illustrator to work with me to create a short animated movie depicting river meandering." The illustrator is Dr. Cheryl McCutchan of AnimatedScience.com. McCutchan made the river animation in Adobe Flash. Watch it here:

[video:https://youtu.be/giimXp1dx5U]

Tucker says, "The animation illustrates the way a river can carve a floodplain by eroding and widening the valley through time." The white along the river in the animation represents, "... Point bars ... fresh sediment ... that grow outward over time," he says. The darker green along the river represents the older flood plain. Tucker explains that, "The meandering process leads to fascinating patterns in river valleys, with the channel following a convoluted path that winds back and forth across its valley, and with striking features such as long, curving lakes known as oxbow lakes." Oxbow lakes form when a river floods and changes to a straighter direction, leaving fresh new shoreline between the new straighter river and the former curve of the river, now an isolated lake in the shape of the letter U, or an oxbow.

Why Use Animation, and How?

Tucker and McCutchan explain that animation can better illustrate changes to a landscape over time than would just looking at static images in a textbook. Tucker says, "By creating an animated movie of a hypothetical meandering stream as it evolves over time, creates channel cutoffs, and forms oxbow lakes, we provide students with a means of visualizing the dynamics at play." McCutchan agrees:

Illustrations that show three points in the formation of a stream meander or ox bow lake don't give students a sense of how these structures form. Our goal was to animate the evolution of a stream channel over several millennia as the channel widened ....

However, the animation was not created overnight. Tucker says that the process took about a year to complete. He found a computer simulation that a Post-Doctoral student had written several years prior. Tucker shared the simulation with McCutchan to give her specific information about exactly what happens when a river changes course. Tucker says:

Starting with these images, together with photographs, maps, and satellite images of real meandering rivers, [McCutchan] used the Adobe flash animation program to create a series of animation frames that show a river in the context of its valley and floodplain.

McCutchan explains that she chose Flash intentionally because it can create transition between a few frames to convey the illusion of continuous flow of movement: "Flash is an incredibly powerful program that allows the animator to draw only a few key frames. Flash then interpolates how the objects change between those two scenes ..."

Tucker ultimately intended to show the animation to his Introductory Geology students because, "One of the challenges in teaching Introductory Geology is helping people appreciate that the Earth is always changing," but that changing process is often, "slow and intermittent," over hundreds or thousands of years. He wants his students to walk away from his Introductory Geology course with some practical knowledge about changing landscapes and, "Have them leave the course appreciating that change is normal in river systems, so that when they go out and buy a house, they appreciate what it means to be on a floodplain."

Tucker plans to share this animation on the Community Surface Dynamics Modeling System, CSDMS, which is a National Science Foundation-funded site that offers share-able scientific images and animations to the public. After all, he says, "As a scientific community, we should be sharing [information]."

Next, McCutchan and Tucker are planning to collaborate on a second animation that would use a cross sectional view to show how river sediment changes over time.

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Mojzsis Piques Students' Interest With Technology

Anonymous — Tue, 20 May 2014 06:00:00 +0000

Mojzsis Piques Students' Interest With Technology Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/20/2014 - 00:00

"I wake up in the morning, and I can't wait to come to work," says Dr. Stephen Mojzsis of the Geological Sciences Department at CU Boulder. Mojzsis takes interest in his students and now even collaborates on the research level with some former students from past introductory geology courses. Mojzsis researches the age and origin of our solar system's elements. He takes his passion for his research with him into the classroom each day. Mojzsis says, "My research feeds into my teaching...I think the most effective professors are those who can weave into their curricula the excitement they feel in their research endeavors."

At the same time, Mojzsis strives to keep his lecture material relevant to students. He says that he considers that in a single introductory geology course, he may be teaching freshman through seniors who may or may not be majoring in the sciences. Regardless, Mojzsis wants to challenge students to understand why various natural phenomena occur, rather than just observing them on the news. To do so, he may incorporate discussion of current meteorological events into lecture material. "If I've even reached ten students, I feel like I've made a difference," he says.

Keeping Students Awake

Additionally, Mojzsis strives to pique students' interest every few minutes throughout a lecture to help students stay focused during mid afternoon class periods. He incorporates demonstrations, real life accounts, and even jokes. For example, Mojzsis may bring a geiger counter into the classroom to demonstrate the varying radioactivity occuring throughout different elements in an ordinary classroom. Later, he may have the entire class flip coins to illustrate how scientists use powers of ten when measuring radioactive decay of isotopes to approximate ages of rocks. Other times, Mojzsis may even just say something extra loudly or clap his hands. Further, Mojzsis creates his own short animated GIFs to better illustrate various natural phenomena.

Students nominated Mojzsis for the Fall 2013 ASSETT Teaching with Technology Award for his efforts. One student wrote:

Professor Mojzsis's PowerPoints were amazing. His lectures were always perfectly in sync with them. They were clever, thoughtfully laid out, interesting, and hilarious. He always included great things to keep our attention, and jokes were cleverly inserted every few slides. His PowerPoints made me go to class on the days when I didn't want to get out of bed.

The statement is particularly remarkable considering that Mojzsis doesn't mandate attendance and that he uploads his powerpoints online before classes. In response, Mojzsis says, "I was so happy to receive this award because I love to use technology...I love being on the faculty here."

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