Integrating Active Learning into Paleontology Classes

Alison N. Olcott

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781108754040
• Topic: Physical Sciences
• Subtopic: Geology & Earth Sciences

The educational benefits of replacing in-class lectures with hands-on activities are clear. Such active learning is a natural fit for paleontology, which can provide opportunities for examining fossils, analyzing data and writing. Additionally, there are a number of topics in the field that are exciting to geology majors and non-majors alike: very few can resist the lure of dinosaurs, huge meteor impacts, vicious Cretaceous sharks or a giant Pleistocene land mammal. However, it can seem difficult to introduce these techniques into a large general education class full of non-majors: paleontological specimens provide a natural starting point for hands-on classroom activities, but in a large class it is not always practical or possible to provide enough fossil material for all students. The Element introduces different types of active learning approaches, and then explains how they have been applied to a large introductory paleontology class for non-majors.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Integrating Active Learning into Paleontology Classes
• Appendix 1 An in-class activity where the students have to map the locality data of marine and terrestrial Cretaceous organisms downloaded from the Paleobiology Database, allowing them to explore how fossils can be used to reconstruct the Western Interior Seaway. This activity is done in class in groups on the day they are introduced to the Cretaceous.
• Appendix 2 An activity used at the beginning of the semester that requires students, working first by themselves and then in their teams, to interpret data downloaded from the Paleobiology Database by first reading the graph and then creating hypotheses that could explain the data. This exercise was designed to help students realize that, generally, there are many more marine fossils than terrestrial fossils, as a segue into learning about fossilization pathways, although students often create additional hypotheses, opening up new and unexpected avenues of discussion.
• References
• Acknowledgments