Active Learning Strategies for Large Geoscience Classes

1. Active Learning Strategies for Large Geoscience Classes Dr. John A. Knox Associate Professor of Geography University of Georgia

2. Today’s objective • DO active learning, don’t just talk about it • (often said, less often done) • Four different “active” learning strategies/modules: • Subject-related music • Earthball questions • Reseating exercise • Forces playacting • Fact-or-Fiction Fridays • Collision-coalescence • Watersheds exercise • Richardson’s Forecast Factory • Discuss ideas for your own classes!

3. My Uses of Music in the Classroom • Passive, recorded, just prior to class (all semester long) • Passive, recorded, integrated into curriculum • Passive, live, during class period • Active, live, during class period • Active, live, at class party at end of semester

4. Music: Why large vs. small class Passive: sets tone for class, addresses topic for lecture, defines classroom space, employs speaker systems, is minimally disruptive to other classes because of physical isolation of many large lecture halls on college campuses Active: more musicians to recruit from, creates concert-like setting, unique way to interact with students

5. Second day of class: Earthball • Big space, lots of people. • What happens at baseball games when people are bored? • Beach balls. • Rules: Bat a inflated globe around, Q&A when caught. • (Have them hide drinks and laptops first.) • Risks: casualties (people and projectors) • Benefits: reviewing reading assignment; seeing the room as a fun space, and randomizing the question process. Involves the whole room. • Large > small class: Smaller class, smaller space, and just kind of dumb—why not ask a 10-person class directly?

6. Third day of class: Reseating Exercise

7. Reseating Exercise Rationales • Benefits: reimagining the space; kinesthetic learning; tactile sense of increased density; “mixer,” creating new socializing opportunities in the classroom • Risks: minimal. Doesn’t take long, minor annoyance to get up and down. Does not leave out differently abled students. Student re-reseat afterward, as they wish. Takes longer to reseat and re-reseat with 300 students. • Large > small classes: really lame with just 10 students. Works best with large, relatively full classrooms.

8. Midway through semester: Forces playacting Winds blow counterclockwise around a low in the Northern Hemisphere… but why? ROLE-PLAYING WITH ATMOSPHERIC FORCES Image from Room 811, AO&SS Building, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994

9. Forces Playacting Rationales • Benefits: reimagining the classroom space, again; kinesthetic learning for those up front; gives students in tiered classroom a useful ‘from above’ view of the processes; extremely popular with students because of difficulty with topic • Risks: not active for everyone; chance of fouling things up in front of everyone and adding to confusion • Large > small classes: if just 10 students, then everyone’s doing it, no one’s viewing it from above!

10. Thank you! Let’s talk about your classes. Contact me at johnknox@uga.edu

11. A little relevant background about me Background: B.S. in Mathematics, UAB, 1988 (Physics and English minors) Ph.D. in Atmospheric Sciences, UW-Madison, 1996 (Teaching Fellow) Post-Doctoral Fellow, Columbia University, 1996-98 Assistant Professor, Valparaiso University 1998-2000 Lecturer/Associate Research Scientist/Assistant Professor/Associate Professor, UGA, 2001-present Large courses (88-300 students) taught at UGA: GEOG 1111 Introduction to Physical Geography (11 sections) GEOG 1112 Introduction to Weather and Climate (16 sections) Teaching honors and awards: The Princeton Review, Best 300 Professors, 2012 Richard B. Russell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching, 2013 CASE/Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Georgia Professor of the Year, 2014

12. Why Music in My Introductory Classes? • 376 UGA students surveyed in Fall 2005, Spring 2006: “Are you in a rock band?” Yes No, but I play Like TOTAL an instrument music Meteor 6.1% 15.6% 7.3% 29.0% Physical 5.1% 21.3% 10.2% 36.6% Geog ALL INTRO: 5.6% 18.6% 8.8% 33.0% 24.2%, consistent with Gallup Poll results

13. Integrating Music Into the Curriculum • Entire lecture and chapter of textbook (right) on Gordon Lightfoot’s “Edmund Fitzgerald” and mid-latitude cyclone: “in the face of a hurricane west wind” • Iron Maiden’s faithful “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” kicks off atmospheric moisture: “water, water everywhere…” • They Might Be Giants’ “Ana Ng” motivates discussion of air flow in different hemispheres: “water spirals the wrong way out the sink” • Randy Newman’s “Louisiana 1927” conveys the horror of floods: “they’re tryin’ to wash us away”

14. My Introductory Meteorology Playlist Each lecture paired with music relating to subject… Pop, rock, jazz, country and classical music all employed… Most music played over lecture room sound system 3-5 minutes prior to beginning of class time… Where possible, songs chosen that contain actual weather-related content

15. Live Music • 1984-86: I was keyboardist for regionally performing band that later opened for The Bangles • Oct. 2005: 19 years later, frontman came to UGA; we did two weather-related songs in class • Joined by Athens’s The Jesters’ saxophonist Donny Whitehead (in Sixties, toured with Marvin Gaye) • Fall 2009: GEOG 1111 house band “Big Fitz and the Mid-Latitude Cyclones” formed with students from class (drummer now with Dank Sinatra)

16. Throughout semester: Fact-or-Fiction Fridays

17. Fact-or-Fiction Friday Answer

18. Fact-or-Fiction Friday Answer

19. Fact-or-Fiction Friday Rationales • Benefits: small-group discussion; ability to dispel misconceptions effectively; used to introduce advanced material in a fun way; can be used as attendance check; increases attendance on Fridays; memorable nature of rituals • Risks: eats up some class time; attendance grading tedious • 100 vs. 10: can be done in both, but more energetic in larger classes

20. Midway through semester: Precipitation formation via collision-coalescence How does a raindrop form? Playacting and a video game, too http://www.mooarcade.com/games/play-5702-Bubbles.html

21. Collision-Coalescence Rationales • Benefits: reimagines the space as a cloud; emphasizes a key process that otherwise is a little obscure; uses “overhead view” of tiered classroom effectively; encourages appreciation of diversity (need both small and large!); integrates well with video game • Risks: TELL THE BIG DROP NOT TO COLLIDE TOO HARD! • 100 vs. 10: if 10, then half the class is standing up, nobody’s watching from above!

22. Later in semester: Watersheds exercise How does rain get to the river? What else goes with it? By Amber Ignatius, Fall 2013 GEOG 1111 TA

23. Watersheds Exercise Rationales • Benefits: reimagines the space as watersheds; uses slope of tiered classrooms effectively; uses division of classrooms by aisles effectively • Risks: minimally active, but this is appropriate later in the semester • 100 vs. 10: doesn’t work in a small, non-tiered classroom

24. The Big One: The Forecast Factory 1911: British polymath Lewis Fry Richardson (right) has a vision that inspires him to do the first-ever numerical weather forecast, by hand, in WWI France… “Imagine a large hall like a theatre, except that the circles and galleries go right round through the space usually occupied by the stage. The walls of this chamber are painted to form a map of the globe… From the floor of the pit a tall pillar rises to half the height of the hall. It carries a large pulpit on its top. In this sits the man in charge of the whole theatre… he is like the conductor of an orchestra in which the instruments are slide-rules and calculating machines… Richardson used approximate numerical methods to solve the forecast equations for the atmosphere for the very first time

25. What We Do • Use Richardson’s original “fantasy” as the basis for teaching modern numerical weather forecasting as a four-act “play” • The scientific details are undergraduate- and even graduate-level, but the Forecast Factory fantasy can be grasped by most ages • The “fantasy” aspects allow us to be creative/whimsical in how we convey the subject matter • Realize multiple educational objectives (next page)

26. Educational Objectives • Enhance comprehension and retention through an active learning format • Excite and involve students who find passive lectures stifling • College level: Take advantage of the underused space in theater-like lecture halls • College level: Convert the disadvantage of large class sizes into an advantage • Cover the entire weather forecasting process in one class session • Link modern weather forecasting to its historical roots • Emphasize the scientific nature of modern weather forecasting • Highlight the importance of observation in modern science • Portray the interconnection in science between observation, theory, and computing • Reinforce the importance of negative results or “failures” in advancing science

27. Overview of “Forecast Factory Play” INTRODUCTION TO RICHARDSON, ETC. CENTRAL CASTING (assigning roles to students) ACT ONE: OBSERVATIONS (input)BalloonsRadar, Satellite, Aircraft, BuoysTelecommunicators ACT TWO: DATA ANALYSIS AND ASSIMILATIONMap DrawingData Massaging (R&D)Input to Models ACT THREE: NUMERICAL MODELINGNumbercrunching to get a forecast ACT FOUR: YOUR LOCAL FORECAST (output)TelecommunicatorsPublic communicators In real life:It happens all at once, all the time!Mostly with computers, not people.

28. Central Casting Dramatis personae Pick a Role How Many? Special Skills TV Weatherperson 1 Superior speaking skills TV Off-Camera Experts 2 Think this is really stupid NCEP Data Initializers 2 Like to be center of attention NCEP Data Interpolators 2 Sound like lawyer Commercial Aircraft 1 Runs around, arms out Weather Radar 1 Shines light in faces Weather Satellite 1 Runs around, looks at others Telecommunicators 8 Run around, deliver stuff Radiosonde Launchers 6 Hold on to balloons! NCEP Map Analyzers 4 Sit and look at maps NCEP Numbercrunchers 7 Look thoughtful NCEP R&D 2 Look very thoughtful Other Wx Observers 9 or 18 Pay attention!

29. Act I: WEATHER OBSERVATIONS, cont.Richardson: just 18 wind observations above groundToday: MILLIONS of observations daily, 1000x more data from 1997 to 2006! SURFACE (more in U.S. and Europe) UPPER AIR SATELLITES MORE SATELLITES

30. Act II: DATA ANALYSIS and ASSIMILATION • Run the data to NCEP! • Real life: data transmitted electronically • Big challenge: the “firehose” of data Act III: NUMERICAL MODELING • Deliver the data to the model! • Real life: data sent electronically • Solve the equations! • Today: electronic solutions on supercomputers • Pass the solutions to next row! (below right)

31. Act IV: YOUR LOCAL FORECAST • Deliver the data to the National Weather Service, private-sector forecasters, the public! (right) • Real life: data transmitted electronically • Forecasts get tweaked, however • Forecasts get translated from numbers into words that ordinary people can understand (right) • Behind-the-scenes experts may cringe • Ham it up!

32. Student Feedback “I loved performing the forecast as a play because it helped me visualize each step of the weather-forecasting procedure. That helped me to remember the procedure. I now have a much better idea of how raw data becomes my evening forecast.” [emphasis in original] “It helped me because, before, the process just seemed an unintelligible mass of garbage. Now, I understand what goes on, and in the right order.” “The Forecast Factory was much easier to understand when it was performed as a play. A lecture would have put me to sleep.” “I loved it because I love acting and improv is a part of acting so I got to see weather through a perspective [that] never seemed possible.” “It was very entertaining, making me wonder what was next. The room was set up in a perfect way. I saw that the ‘computer’ was set up in the middle of the room and the continents all the way around.” “[The Forecast Factory] took us through the process step by step, slowly so we could get a close look at each point.” … • Selected comments from over 80 students at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison:

33. Student Feedback, cont. • From over 80 students at the Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison:

34. Some Possible Extensions • Global climate modeling • Similar to weather forecasting models, except more spheres and longer timescales involved • Role-playing: students could play atmospheric gases interacting with heat and light • Space exploration • Interplay between science and engineering analogous to the synergism between observations and models in forecasting • Your ideas?

35. Richardson Forecast Factory Rationales • Benefits: reimagines the space as world, supercomputer, and TV station; makes tangible many intangible, mathematically complex ideas; involves most of class at one time or another • Risks: time-intensive and prop-intensive for instructor; requires enough space for people to move around easily • 100 vs. 10: won’t work with 10