Speaker – David McConnell, Professor Emeritus, MEAS Department, NCState University,  (hosted by MEAS Seminar Committee), in person and via Zoom.

Seminar Title – Learning about Teaching: From Novice to Expert as a Geoscience Instructor

Abstract – I will discuss my personal journey from an uninformed but enthusiastic instructor to an experienced professor striving to incorporate the most effective teaching strategies into his courses. Along the way, I refined my teaching in different settings (labs, lectures), formats (face-to-face, online), and class sizes (small grad classes vs. large intro courses) using data from the work of my research group and findings from others across the field of STEM education. I will discuss which strategies are the most likely to consistently enhance learning and what I would do differently if I were considering starting a career in higher education (or perhaps making some mid-career changes).