Ask CIT and library staff any question, or ask for demonstrations.  We are waiting to talk to you!  Possible topics include the Blackboard upgrade, copyright, Library Guides, library instruction for students, making grading easier, redesigning your course, getting started with blogs and using Blackboard effectively.

Despite innovations in remote sensing technology, on-site geological field work remains essential to mineral and petroleum exploration. Hence, relevant introductions to the earth sciences should allow students to learn and apply basic field skills and mapping technology. Unfortunately, large lecture-style introductory courses do not lend themselves easily to individual-based field work. In addition, many earth science programs have access to only limited local outcrop exposures, often of rocks with little structural complexity. The exercise presented here was designed as an assignment for students in EOS 11: Dynamic Earth (>120 students). It was facilitated in groups of ten students at a time over the course of a week. Wooden data stations (~60) and rock samples stand in for exposures (”virtual outcrops”). Students used hand-held GPS units to map the station’s distributions across the Duke campus and their spatial orientation relative to one another. Each data station provides information on the rock type and orientation (strike and dip) of the local “virtual” strata. Using this information, students constructed a geological map and cross-section through the Duke campus. The exercise not only teaches applied mapping, GPS, and data collection skills, but also requires students to critically evaluate inference making, scientific uncertainty, and hypothesis testing.

What makes some blogs successful and others not? Class blogging is a cool idea but often does not work. Students view it as a chore and students stop blogging when there is no response and the blog is not seen as relevant. On the other hand, there are successful and enjoyable class blogs. Jennifer will share her student perspective and talk about factors that keep students engaged, so that faculty can successfully use blogs in the classroom.

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PDF of presentation

In this presentation Reisinger will demonstrate how she has used the unique space of the Perkins LINK to rethink course design in two courses she taught during Spring 2009. In one example, Cultural and Literary Perspectives (FR 100), she illustrates how access to instructional technologies has facilitated student training, time management, and the implementation of new technologies. In another course, Business and Culture in the Francophone World (FR 109), she shows how the physical space of the LINK allows students to work on team projects and complete group activities in innovative ways that echo real-world experiences.

I have been teaching for over thirty years, always in a closed space, “alone” with my students. Teaching has always seemed like a “private” enterprise between me and the students. Using Classrooms 3 and 6 in the Link meant that our course went public: people outside could see us, and we could see them: the wonderful topic of Gothic Cathedrals, and the development of the student’s projects (they work in groups to design their own) could become visible and exciting also to outsiders.