Global Consciousness (GC) Report

Date report was submitted / 02-10-2017
Discipline / Geology
Course(s) where GC was assessed / Quarter /year assessed / # of students assessed / Teaching and learning activities: For each course, list the most significant teaching and learning activities used by discipline faculty to facilitate the learning of global consciousness in their classes. / Names of graded assignments: For each course, list the graded assignment – research paper, editorial, presentation, grant proposal, marketing or business plan, poster, literature review, position paper, exam, lab, project – that assesses GC at its highest level.
GEOL 140 / Fall 2016 / 19 / This course is an examination of how humans impact earth and how they in turn are impacted by earth through different hazards. A large portion of the class content is spent on water, including surface flow, groundwater and the implications for flooding, coastal processes and erosion, as well as mass wasting risks and the hazards we increase as a result of climate change. Many of these hazards are both local and global, so specific examples are provided for both scales. / Students were asked to graph the population growth of the world since they were born, and then asked to reflect on the implications from an environmental and hazards perspective based on the size of the population and the current trends of population growth.
GEOL 110 / Winter 2017 / 21 / This course spends a large amount of time understanding the complexity of systems on Earth, and then analyzing how humans are interfering and/or impacted by these systems. Throughout the course, students are asked to reflect on how practices can impact these systems, to better understand the difference between biological cycles and geological cycles, the implications of crossing over between those time frames, and then thinking about their own practices. Students do research on water quality, soil quality, farming practices, groundwater usage (and abuse), and climate change. Most of the work is focused on US practices, but when appropriate, we try to also contextualize it in larger global implications. / Students were asked to fill out two separate carbon footprint calculators, compare the results for reliability, what it implicated for their own practices, how they could influence friends and family for practices and how their numbers compared to the US and the world as a whole.
Results broken down by GC indicator: Based on the results of your evaluation of student work using the GC rubric, indicate the number of students overall who demonstrated each level of proficiency for each indicator. / Indicator is not assessable in some or all above assignments (NA) – if NA, indicate how many students were not assessed and briefly explain why the indicator is not assessable / Level of proficiency – insert raw numbers only
and assess each indicator separately
Mastery
(4) / Advanced
(3) / Developing
(2) / Beginning
(1) / Pre-beginning
(0) / Total
  1. Self-awareness
/ 19 / 3 / 7 / 8 / 2 / 1 / 21
  1. Cultural diversity
/ 40
  1. Social perspectives
/ 5 / 7 / 17 / 10 / 1 / 40
  1. Global inter-dependence
/ 21 / 4 / 9 / 4 / 2 / 0 / 19
Analysis of results: Please (1) identify and report trends, successes, and areas of potential concern, based on your data gathering; (2) use percentages when reporting on the trends, successes, and concerns; (3) take time to describe the trends in student proficiency you see, but may not be evident to an outsider looking at your data. Please be thorough in your descriptions.
  1. Self-awareness
/ This was primarily assessed in Geol 110, and approximately 71% of the students were at a developing or advanced level by the end of this course based on the assessment used. The assignment asks students to reflect on their own practices and how they might be able to influence friends and family on their carbon footprint. Students were able to identify and/or explore how their practices and their sphere of influence could change to have a greater impact on the global footprint. While ideally, I’d like for all of my students to get to a mastery level, I’m not sure this class examines the full spectrum of biases and values in natural systems to truly expect a higher level. However, something to consider for the future is how I could make adjustments within the curriculum to have them more reflective of how these variables ultimately play a role in the decisions we make.
  1. Cultural diversity
/ This was not assessed in any geology classes
  1. Social perspectives
/ This was assessed in both Geol 110 and 140. In Geol 140, 63% demonstrated developing or beginning stages, but the assessment didn’t really ask them to do more than describe how population is impacted by geologic phenomena. Perhaps in the future, if I ask them to consider multiple perspectives by changing the way I frame the question could impact the outcome of this variable. In Geol 110, 71% of the students demonstrated developing or beginning stages of social perspectives. Again, I may need to consider how to frame the question differently. Students were asked to compare their carbon footprint to others in the US and in the world and why they thought they were different. Most students were able to identify/explain that others outside of the US (and within) engaged in different practices, but didn’t specify more details or consider a diverse array of perspectives.
  1. Global inter-dependence
/ Global interdependence is an important topic in my natural hazards class (as it is in my environmental geology class, however, I didn’t assess them in this specific component this time around). I was pleased to see that 68% of my students were either mastery or advanced in this topic. I can help to bring this value up in the future by specifically asking students for examples in the assignment itself when considering the role of population within the larger geoscience systems.
Next steps to improve student learning in global consciousness / My improvements are present within the sections above—essentially, I need to be more explicit with how I pull these out of my students, but also think about what this may look like in the larger frame of how I situate my examples in the class and the ways I set them up to think about these problems.
Faculty who contributed to this report / Kaatje Kraft
Suggestions for improving this report or process (if any) / I think providing time for those assigned the pip/dip cycle during PD Day would be an extremely helpful way to assure this isn’t done in a vacuum (as the only full time faculty in my discipline, it’s very difficult to know if I’m approaching this in an appropriate manner). And to make these rubrics more meaningful, there should be some sense of conversation and calibration across the different people using the rubric so that the results are more meaningful.