Abstract
General education science courses strive to promote scientific literacy and the development of scientific process skills. However, research shows that many general education courses are still designed to stress content mastery. In this study, the number of topics in five semester-long introductory atmospheric science courses was reduced to increase time for the development of scientific process skills, a critical component of scientific literacy. The Atmospheric and Climate Science Literacy Frameworks and a general science education skills rubric were used to guide the course redesign and development of course activities. Details of the course structure and sample course activities are described. A pre-post-test was developed to evaluate attainment of five scientific process skills and the efficacy of the course redesign. Preliminary validity and reliability studies suggest that the majority of the assessment questions are reliable, though further validation of the assessment is required.
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Recommended Citation
Kopacz, Dawn M. and Handlos, Zachary J.
(2021)
"Less is More: Course Redesign and the Development of an Atmospheric Science Process Skills Assessment,"
International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning:
Vol. 15:
No.
2, Article 12.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2021.150212
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