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Hello Anthony, I am really not sure if my manuscript is what you are looking for, but I am submitting it to you in the hopes that you can give me some feedback about whether it is appropriate for your special volume. Below is my abstract: yes, the paper mostly describes student surveys with quantitative results, but the aspects they are self-reporting on are qualitative in the sense that they are trying to measure their own self-confidence on several tasks. Any more specific feedback you can give me about what you are looking for would be greatly appreciated. Thanks very much, --Christa -------- Accelerating Student Learning About Climate Change with Graded Debates Instead of Examinations By E. Christa Farmer Assistant Professor, Hofstra University Geology Department 156 Gittleson Hall, Hempstead, NY 11549-1140 phone: 516-463-5566; fax: 516-463-5120; email: [log in to unmask] Submitted to Anthony Feig and Alison Stokes, editors, in response to their Call for Papers for a Geological Society of America Special Paper on “Qualitative Inquiry in Geoscience Education.” Abstract: Introductory college science courses often seem to overwhelm students with an onslaught of information to be memorized. In a special seminar on climate change for first-year college students, I set out to help students learn how to access, summarize, and evaluate scientific information rather than simply memorize it. I was hoping that this approach of emphasizing higher-order skills in Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive development would give them tools for understanding new scientific information that they could continue to utilize in their lives whether they went on to study more science or (more typically) not. Inspired by a discussion with a colleague in the Political Science department, I decided to set up a curriculum for my new course that included graded classroom debates in conjunction with quantitative problem sets. The debate format included an individual written assignment of a “position paper,” and tightly constrained roles for each student in the classroom debate including two “Proponents” for each side, five “Questioners,” one “Conciliator,” and two “Supporters” for each side. This adoption of graded debates as a collaborative learning exercise instead of traditional individual written exams seems to have enhanced student learning. Pre- and post-course surveys about student confidence in their ability to perform tasks involved in scientific inquiry document significant increases in skills utilized in debates. Skills showing improvement include interpreting tables and graphs, extracting main points from scientific articles, and determining valid scientific evidence about climate change. Students’ post-course survey responses consistently identify group activities, including graded debates, as the most effective course components. As the instructor, I also observed greater student engagement during class time than in similar introductory classes in which students were given traditional individual written exams. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ E. Christa Farmer, Ph.D. Hofstra University Geology Department 145 Gittleson Hall Hempstead, NY 11549 516-463-5566 [log in to unmask] >>> Anthony Feig <[log in to unmask]> 03/03/09 4:58 PM >>> Greetings Friends, I am writing to advise you all that contributors and manuscripts are still being solicited for a GSA Special Papers volume titled, "Qualitative Inquiry in Geoscience Education Research." This message is to remind potential contributors that the deadline for abstract submission to this volume is 28 March 2009. We would love to have your abstract! This is a special opportunity for the geoscience education community to participate in describing their applications of qualitative methods to geoscience education/ geocognition research, as well as complete qualitative studies. This volume will be the first of its kind, and we hope it will become a key reference in the liteComplete information and instructions in PDF format can be downloaded here. (http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/files/extranet/docs/CTL/GSA-SP_call_for_papers.pdf ) Best wishes, Anthony D. Feig (Central Michigan University) and Alison Stokes (University of Plymouth) Anthony D. Feig Assistant Professor of Geology & Science Education Department of Geology Central Michigan University Mt. Pleasant MI 48859 989.774.1249 [log in to unmask]