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Series:   Elements of Paleontology

Integrating Active Learning into Paleontology Classes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2018

Alison N. Olcott
Alison N. Olcott
Affiliation:
University of Kansas

Summary

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.
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Keywords

paleontologyactive learningpedagogy
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements of Paleontology
Online ISBN: 9781108681698
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 15 November 2018

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