Barbara Tewksbury, the Hamilton College Stephen Harper Kirner Professor of Geology, is heading a workshop for professors of undergraduate geoscience from July 28 to August 3 on the Hamilton campus.
The workshop is part of the program "On the Cutting Edge: Workshops for Geoscience Faculty," supported by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers and DLESE with funding provided by a $4.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation. The program is designed to help geoscience faculty better understand how to teach effectively. The workshop is the first part of a five-year project, titled "On the Cutting Edge," which is designed to improve the quality of undergraduate geoscience education. Hamilton has been awarded more than $70,000 from the grant for 2002, and will receive additional funding each year for the next five years.
The conference has attracted faculty participants from Massachusetts to California and is intended to create a stimulating and resource-filled environment where professors can begin to design or re-design an "effective and innovative undergraduate course in the geosciences," explains Tewksbury, "This ambitious project will create professional development opportunities for college and university geoscience faculty members."
The workshop, open only to professors of undergraduate geoscience at 2-year or 4-year colleges and universities, is focused on helping professors design a course at the introductory or upper level, explore teaching and assessment techniques aimed at improving student learning, and develop ways of including real-world data and research in activities and assignments. The workshop encourages participants to partake in follow up activities that are designed to test the effectiveness of the workshop and success of the new course designs.
The participants in the workshop were chosen for their wide range of experiences, specialties and educational environments in order to expose the participants to as many varied experiences and backgrounds as is possible. "Geoscience is in the midst of rapid change," says Tewksbury. "Research on learning provides new guidance for how faculty teach, the revolution in understanding the Earth system changes what faculty teach, and information technology provides unprecedented support for development of learning resources."
A member of the Hamilton College faculty since 1978, Tewksbury earned her Ph.D. in geology from the University of Colorado. Specializing in structural and planetary geology and plate tectonics, Tewksbury has published papers in journals including the Journal of Structural Geology, Geological Society of America Bulletin, and Journal of Geoscience Education. She was awarded the New York State Professor of the Year Award by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Tewksbury's current research involves the investigation of deformation in Proterozoic metamorphic rocks of the Grenville Province in northern New York State.
