18th Symposium on Education

P1.2

“Implementing Online Ocean Studies in a traditional, lecture-only classroom using a “Lecture Tutorial” format

David J. Ludwikoski, The Community College of Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD

The current trend in science education in the college setting has been to move the format away from the straight lecture to a more activity-oriented, hands-on approach emphasizing the use of critical thinking skills as opposed to memorization. The online “real-time” component of the AMS Ocean Studies course is designed to follow this method. In his astronomy courses, the author uses the “Lecture Tutorial” approach pioneered by Adams, Prather and Slater, et al. (2004) of the Center for Astronomy Education (CAE) at the University of Arizona. This method emphasizes short (20 minute) lectures followed by pairs of students working to focus on key concepts using a lecture tutorial workbook. In adapting the Online Ocean Studies course to a traditional, face-to-face “lecture-only” classroom setting, (without a formal lab) the author proposes to structure the course in much the same way, using short lectures focusing on key concepts that are emphasized in the Investigations Manual that accompanies the OOS textbook. To incorporate the online “real-time” component, the author also proposes that, in a course that meets twice-weekly, to use the paper copy Investigations Manual during one traditional classroom meeting, and then have the students meet in a computer lab for the second meeting to investigate that day's topic online using the “real-time” data added to the system by AMS staff only hours earlier. The poster is intended to be a progress report describing the successes and failures of the course, along with future recommendations for improvement.

Poster Session 1, Educational Initiatives Poster Session
Monday, 12 January 2009, 2:30 PM-4:00 PM, Hall 5

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