A tectonic geomorphology jigsaw Reading and debating primary

A tectonic geomorphology jigsaw Reading and debating primary literature for undergraduate students Amanda Schmidt, Oberlin College

Problems with undergraduates and reading primary literature

Problems with undergraduates and reading primary literature • Don’t engage in discussion of strengths/weaknesses • Likely to gloss over or ignore parts they don’t understand • Hard time dissecting papers • Hard time placing individual papers in context of field in general • Tend to just look at papers as “what and why”

Paper reading jigsaw on landscape evolution using papers from the 11 December 2003 issue of Nature

Learning Goals Topical: • Analysis of feedbacks in landscape evolution • Synthesis and evaluation of multiple hypotheses regarding landscape evolution Higher order: • Critically read primary literature • Explain/present primary literature to peers • Compare and evaluate multiple papers • Synthesize and evaluate multiple hypotheses into new ones

Assessment Formative: Listening to student discussions, giving feedback as appropriate Summative: I don’t do anything, but you could easily assign a response paper after the activity

Timing • 1 x 80 -min class or 2 x 50 -min classes • MAYBE 1 x 50 -min class with more outside work

How the activity works – part 1 • As homework before the class all students read the Molnar piece and each student is assigned to read one of the three other papers. 1/3 of the class reads each paper.

How the activity works – part 2 • In class, start with a short description of what is going to happen (5 min) • Have the class assemble in groups that all read the same paper. Depending on the class size, you may need to have 2 groups per paper to enable everyone to participate fully (2 -3 min) • In groups, students become experts on their paper – the goals, methods, and conclusions. Encourage them to ask critical questions about the paper and to identify possible holes in the arguments (~20 min) • I walk around and make sure groups stay on track and answer questions.

How the activity works – part 3 • After students become experts on their papers, rearrange groups into groups of 3 where each student is an expert on a different paper (2 -3 min) • Introduce the next part of the activity (5 min) • In their new groups, students each present the goals, methods, and conclusions of the paper they are responsible for and others ask them questions (~15 min)

How the activity works – part 4 • After everyone has presented their paper, groups try to hash out what similarities and differences there are between their papers. (~10 min) – Are there any broader conclusions they can draw? – Is one paper right and the others wrong? – What can they conclude about landscape evolution?

How the activity works – part 5 • Now have everyone come back together as a class. Each group reports on their discussion (~ 10 min) • As a final wrap up, I give a brief overview of more recent work that has been done reconciling tectonics vs rainfall in driving landscape evolution. Some possible papers that do that are Henck et al. 2011 (EPSL) and Portenga and Bierman 2011 (GSA Today) (~10 min)