On November 16th, 2021, I observed Prof. James Scoates teach a lesson in EOSC 220 – Mineralogy, a 3-credit, second-year geoscience course. The lecture portion of class occurs on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm in ESB 1012; there is also a weekly 3-hour lab component that takes place (different lab sections occur on various days and times), however, I will not be observing labs. The layout of the lecture hall is instructor focused, with desks all facing the front of the room where there is a podium, a wall of whiteboards, and two projector screens. In this lesson, students were learning about the fundamentals of carbonate, phosphate, and sulphate minerals and their role in geologic processes.
James’s lesson was worksheet-driven, where he had the bulk of the activities on worksheets that he and his TA’s handed out at the beginning of class. He started off the lesson by telling the students that they will be doing a jigsaw activity and proceeded to explain to them how it works. As he describes the logistics of the activity, he shows the steps on the projector screen so that students can follow along. Explaining the logistics of an activity to the students rather than throwing them into the activity absolutely minimized confusion, as none of the students had questions after he explained it, and the transition going into the activity was very smooth.
Since the activity was dominantly worksheet driven, James acted as a facilitator more than a traditional instructor. He did this by not lecturing at all, and instead, dictating the transitions between parts of the activities, letting students know when it was time to read vs. time to chat loudly, letting students know when to form pairs and when to merge pairs into groups of four, helping students find groups, constantly circulating the room to help students with their questions, and facilitating the end of class discussion. This approach to teaching is learner-centred, and it is clear from this teaching style that James values active and group learning.
There were three different versions of the worksheet (i.e., carbonate, phosphate, sulphate), all with the same layout. Each worksheet started off by identifying what that group of minerals is, then lead into another section on where they form, geologic processes they are linked to, their relevance in society, and questions that remained unanswered about these minerals. The backside of the worksheet had notes sections for when groups would merge to teach each other about what they had just learnt. The information on these worksheets was complimented by question prompts displayed on one of two of the slides (where activity instructions remained fixed on the other) to get students thinking about how each group minerals compare, how they are related, and what geologic processes they are associated with. The layout of these worksheets enabled students to take charge of their own learning, by getting them to actively engage with the material (i.e., reading, discussing, reflecting, researching) during class time, in comparison to lecturing, which is passive and far less engaging.
As mentioned in the previous paragraph, James would put up prompting questions on one of the two projector screens at certain points of the activity to encourage students to think about the bigger picture of the concepts that the students were learning about. About 10 minutes before the class ended, James got all the students to wrap up their small group conversations and asked them to share their thoughts about the prompts on the projector screen. Students who would raise their hands were given a microphone so that when they shared their answers, the entire classroom could hear them. While students would explain their thoughts, James would show images of the geologic processes that the students were talking about on one of the two projector screens (i.e., the plate tectonic cycle). James had these supplementary slides prepared and knew that having these visual aids would help students visualize how the concepts they had just learnt about connect to bigger picture ideas in geology.
Once a student finished answering a question, James would validate their answer and summarize what was just said, plus fill in any important gaps of information if needed for students to fully understand the relevance of what was being discussed. Giving students the opportunity to apply their newly learnt knowledge by prompting them to think about how it connects to different geological processes (that they are likely learning about in other classes) shows that James values both experiential learning and the far transfer of knowledge. The impact of this is that students get to see examples of the application and importance of the content that they are learning about in real-time. Getting students to share what they have learnt not only from the worksheet but how they have connected what they have learnt to bigger picture ideas in geology through classroom discussion shows that James values formative assessment, as he is able to assess if the students met the learning objective for the lesson.
I had a discussion with James after his lesson where I asked him questions about decisions he made when creating his lesson, his journey from transitioning from passive to active learning, and his experience transitioning from virtual space to in-person.
James incorporates active learning in all his lessons, which are typically worksheet driven (like the lesson I observed); these worksheets serve as material for students to read, reflect, and discuss on. James used to collect these worksheets, but doesn’t anymore, as collecting and checking over them was far too much work and didn’t really benefit the students in any way; instead, these serve as their notes. Using worksheets, students get to learn by reading and discussing in groups, working together to think how newly learnt concepts apply to big picture ideas in geology. James assesses students in a formative fashion during class through discussions, by asking groups to share with the class what they have concluded after working through the worksheet together. Summative assessments are done via low-stakes quizzes and higher-stakes exams.
James discusses his pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), and how he has developed and refined it over his years of teaching. One of the main practices he does to continue growing his PCK is that after every lesson he teaches, he goes into his notes about the lesson he just taught and annotates his notes on what did and didn’t work and how the lesson should be refined for next time he teaches it. James uses PowerPoint slides as a supplement to his lessons (e.g., for displaying instructions, question prompts, etc.), so he keeps these notes on a hidden slide in each lesson, that way he more-or-less keeps everything in one place.
James managed to keep the students engaged throughout the term, with virtually no lecturing. He said there was resistance at the beginning, as students wanted to have lessons recorded, so to have students “buy-in” to not having them recorded, he discussed the science behind active learning with the class and they stopped resisting. He said he doesn’t like recording lessons as students don’t actually learn anything since they just skim recordings for key information and memorize it. On a side note, he said his third- and fourth-year students in other courses he is teaching are more enthusiastic about engaging in his lessons than in previous years.