Webinars - Detail

Geoscience classrooms have been challenged by the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19. Importantly, there is a need to create learning environments in upper-level Geophysics courses that attract students from diverse backgrounds and allow them to thrive.  We hypothesize that the production of high-quality teaching materials that utilize evidence-based pedagogy can create a more equitable and inclusive learning environment during the pandemic that can build student confidence and allow students from a variety of diverse backgrounds to succeed. Thus, a key objective of the project is to create more inclusive classrooms and broaden participation in geophysics, with a particular focus on increasing the number of students from underrepresented groups that make the transition from undergraduate to graduate school. To that end, we present three multi-modal modules developed for upper-level Geophysics Courses, primarily Seismology and Geodynamics. Content developed includes detailed derivations and homework solutions, lecture slides with detailed derivations, interactive multimedia PDFs linking to seismotectonic observations and 3D visualizations, a series of 16 lightboard lectures on background mathematics for seismology, 15 in-class real-time active learning exercises, and 13 interviews with seismologists.