51-5 Employing Student Centered Assessments to Reveal Students’ Learning Outcomes as They Develop Thin Section Analysis Skills

Session: Geoscience Education Research: Methods, Frameworks, and Results from Emerging Scholars

Presenting Author:

Authors:

Abstract:

Polarizing light microscopy (PLM) is a core component of undergraduate geology education (e.g., Winchell and Winchell, 1929; Nesse, 2004; Dyar et al 2009). It provides a unique perspective of rocks and insight to the processes which formed them. Geology investigators (e.g., O’Brien, 1978; Singh, 1983; Gunter, 2004; Reinhardt, 2004) offered their perceptions about PLM’s value to geology education with one common theme: PLMs motivate students and help them develop science literacy. Yet developing PLM skills is challenging because students must master new vocabulary; develop an inventory of mental images, cross-referenced with appropriate optical properties; and develop connections between what they view through the microscope and geological locations and processes. Dozens of teaching resources, and numerous studies about improving PLM instruction exist (e.g. Gunter 2004; Perkins 2007; King, 2006; Tetley and Dazcko 2014). However, none of these assess learning measured against objectives through student-centered approaches. In this presentation, I will 1) explain the synergies of three student-centered data collection techniques (Creative Exercises (Lewis et. al, 2010;2011); Thinking-aloud protocols (van Someren, et. al, 1994); and semi-structured interviews) reveal student reasoning; 2) demonstrate how hybrid deductive-inductive data analysis (e.g., Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2006; Proudfoot, 2022; Swain, 2018), facilitated with visual displays of graphs analyzed by following the thread (Moran-Ellis et al., 2006 as cited in Dupin & Borglin, 2020) show the ways students form connections between different skills and fundamental geological knowledge. I argue these techniques might apply when assessing skills-based knowledge in other domains, especially those with visual cognition or semiotic components.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

© Copyright 2025 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved.