Examples of Good Practice in Earth Science
Learning & Teaching:

Key Skills

Delivery and Assessment of Key Skills in the Earth Sciences Curriculum
Frances McEwen (Careers Advisor, University of London: Imperial College)

Delivery and Assessment of Key Skills in Geography
Brian Chalkley (Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Plymouth)

Key Skills in the Earth Sciences Curriculum
Neil Thomas (School of Geological Sciences, Kingston University)

A Problem Based Learning (P.B.L.) Exercise in Forensic Geology.
Chris Lee (School of Applied Sciences, University of Glamorgan)

Helping Earth Sciences Students to Develop Key Skills: a portfolio of curriculum exercises.
This page provides some information on the Portfolio, including the Foreword, Contents Page, Chapter Introductions, Sample Exercises and References.

Key Skills in HE Geoscience Education
In response to requests from colleagues who attended the ESSD Symposium on Assessment in Geosciences (Birmingham November 11-12th 1998), Neil Thomas has set up this page to outline the national framework for Key Skills. Many delegates identified KS as being an important Learning & Teaching issue for their departments as we move towards the new millennium.

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Delivery and Assessment of Key Skills in the Earth Sciences Curriculum

Frances McEwen (Careers Advisor, University of London: Imperial College)

Frances has been working with geology courses for four years and has been trying to shift the focus from teaching to learning (and, hence, from staff to students). This is the second year of working with an integrated Key Skills system. A team of 6 staff (the Undergraduate Director, 2 teaching staff, Frances and 2 library staff) meet once at the beginning of the academic year and once at the end to review the process / progress. One of the major issues which they have encountered is that students don't hear / understand things in the same way that we tell them in terms of Key Skills-speak.

Year One:
The students are taught didactically and are given time to reflect on their learning and time to practise what they are learning.

For example, the fieldwork is taught in the context of risk-assessment. The students are required to present their risk-assessment as a group (this presentation is assessed but not marked) and to produce a (marked) technical report.

Year Two:
It is ensured that the students have the opportunity to develop their Key Skills further and to practise the skills prior to marked-assessments.

For example, the students are required to produce a poster presentation which they assess using peer-assessment, the students are given models of good practise as guidelines for the production and assessment of the posters. Later on in the year the students submit a poster which is marked and should be of reasonable quality given the opportunity provided for practising the skill.

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Delivery and Assessment of Key Skills in Geography

Brian Chalkley (University of Plymouth)

The aims of the Geography Skills Curriculum at the University of Plymouth are:

• To improve students performance in Geography.
• To promote employability and vocational skills.

The skills curriculum includes four compulsory core modules with skills practice also embedded across the Geography curriculum.

Modules:

Nearly all of the content is taught by Geography staff with the aid of student services and mathematics staff as appropriate. A handbook is provided to support the programme.

Evaluation:

Successes
Improved student performance.
Well received by students.
Well received by TQA.
Now accepted by most colleagues.
Enhanced department reputation.

Failings:
Quality of students' English still disappointing
Limited range of skills covered.
Skills curriculum lacks progression and profiling.
Skills still not sufficiently practised, assessed or co-ordinated across the Geography curriculum.

Other comments:
The skills curriculum does not take up much extra staff time as it's delivered in modular form. The total loading is not too heavy as it often piggy-backs on something which is happening already.

It is recommended that if a department is interested in delivering skills embedded into existing modules then one member of staff needs to be released to oversee the programme (e.g. skills tutor).

Advantages: Bolt-on modules allow efficient, formal instruction and avoid duplication and/or omission. By having core modules students start to put pressure on staff to give them the opportunity to practise skills.

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Key Skills in the Earth Sciences Curriculum

Neil Thomas, School of Geological Sciences, Kingston University

Effective provision of Key Skills development can only really take place when there is a coherent strategy across the department. The following interactive exercises (shown in blue) can be used by individuals or departments to enhance discussions on developing a Key Skills curricula. No 'solutions' are given to the questions posed as these will be different for different departments, the aim of exercise is to generate discussions to which you should be able to brainstorm you own answers.

Aims

• To familiarise staff with the concept of Key Skills
• To help develop Key Skills at induction
• To help make Key Skills more explicit in curricula
• Suggest some approaches to embedding Key Skills

Introduction | Graduate Key Skills in your Department | Curriculum Areas for Key Skills in your Department
Key Skills at Induction | Assessment, feedback & recording of Key Skills
The Process of Key Skills Integration - a suggested model

Introduction
Key Skills: Definition and importance
There are many different lists of Key Skills around but, the focus for this paper is the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ) definition of 6 Key Skills areas:

1. Communication
2. Application of Number
3. Information Technology
4. Working with others
5. Improving own learning and performance
6. Problem solving

The most important reason for choosing this particular list as a focus, is that this is the Key Skills model which will be introduced into A levels as from September 1999.

The NCVQ list is further broken down into the following Key Skills elements:

KS AREA 1 : COMMUNICATION
Element 1 : Taking part in discussions
Element 2 : Producing written materials
Element 3 : Using images
Element 4 : Reading & responding to written materials

KS AREA 2 : APPLICATION OF NUMBER
Element 1 : Collecting & recording data
Element 2 : Solving (Tackling) problems (See Note 1)
Element 3 : Interpreting & presenting data (See Note 2)

KS AREA 3 : INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Element 1 : Preparing information
Element 2 : Processing information
Element 3 : Presenting information
Element 4 : Evaluating the use of IT (See Note 3)

KS AREA 4 : WORKING WITH OTHERS (See Note 4)
Element 1 : Identify collective goals and responsibilities
Element 2 : Work towards collective goals

KS AREA 5 : IMPROVING OWN LEARNING & PERFORMANCE
Element 1 : Identifying targets (goal setting)
Element 2 : Planning action
Element 3 : Following schedule to meet targets

KS AREA 6 : PROBLEM SOLVING
Element 1 : Identifying the problem
Element 2 : Identify alternative solutions & select appropriate solution

1. The use of the word problem here applied to mathematical questions and is only one of a number of generic problems covered by KS Area 6;
2. There is obvious overlap here with KS Areas 1 and 6;
3. Achieved by outcome & quality of presentation;
4. The elements in this KS Area are poorly defined and, as they stand, do not adequately cover the vast spectrum of activities for effective group/team working.

Why have Key Skills become more important and prominent?
A few reasons (in no specific order - source: Prof Brian Chalkely, Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Plymouth):

• Link between education and future GDP
• Rapid economic change: knowledge dates
• Demand of employers
• Expansion and rising costs of HE
• Enterprise in HE
• Teaching Quality Assessment
• Student consumerism and debt
• Widening access
• Failure of school education
• Dearing

Additionally, if we are to deliver a broad balance of educational experience then this must include Key Skills. The delivery of Key Skills may be by 'bolt-one' modules or be embedded into the Geoscience curriculum. Experience has shown that bolt-on modules aren't necessarily the best answer, however, it is up to individuals departments to choose their most effective means of Key Skills delivery. However, Geoscience has a learning and teaching environment which offers many opportunities to develop Key Skills (e.g. particularly fieldwork).

Graduate Key Skills in your Department
In order to get a feel for the Key Skills profile of a typical graduate in your department, prioritise the Key Skills expected of graduates in geology related courses by rating each KS element 0, 1 or 3 (not important, moderately important, very important).

Curriculum Areas for Key Skills in your Department
What are the Opportunities and Constraints for Course Delivery of Key Skills?
What are the Opportunities and Constraints for Assessment and Feedback of Key Skills?

Where next?
These opportunities and constraints for course delivery and assessment / feedback of Key Skills are the crux of the whole issue and aid the identification of core areas for explicitly embedding Key Skills.

The next step is to link these opportunities and constraints to the Key Skills priorities identified above and to think about progression:

Key Skills at Inducation
How do we want students to progress in both Key Skills and subject knowledge / understanding and how best can we initiate the process?

The Learning Pyramid at University
A useful model, developed by Dr Peter Hawkins of the Graduate into Employment Unit of the University of Liverpool and based on Kolb's learning cycle (Kolb et al, 1984), demonstrates the different levels to which students aspire in their HE studies:

Some students are happy to drift through their degree and just EXPERIENCE the studies. Other students develop more of an interest and RECORD their learning experiences. With further motivation, students REFLECT on their learning experiences. This is the stage that many of our students reach but fail to jump over the hurdle that encourages them to APPLY their knowledge and experiences to their career and personal development. The very top of the pyramid (usually the most highly motivated and conscientious students) learn how to TRANSFER their learning experiences to any environment they encounter in the future.

The top of the pyramid is the Holy Grail! This is what modern students should aspire to if they are to become lifelong independent learners.

In order to aid students to reach the top of the pyramid we need to engage them as soon as they enter Higher Education. Key Skills are an ideal vehicle for introducing the concepts of experiencing, recording, reflecting, applying and transferring knowledge and skills, particularly early on when subject knowledge is limited.

Models for Induction

• Introduce the concept of Key Skills
  From 1999 / 2000 there will be a Key Skills qualification at A level. This will be a separate qualification but will feed into the subject areas. The consequence of this is that there will be increasing student expectation of Key Skills development and progression at Higher Education level.

• Illustrate difference between learning at school/college/work to learning at University
  

• Basic degree management
  Case studies may be used to illustrate the concept of balancing study and social demands. Students may then devise their own top 10 do's and don'ts of degree management.

• Basic Study Skills
  • Time management
  • Listening
  • Written communication

  A simple time management model - this structure helps students to cope with those tasks that are known such that they are able to cope with the unexpected:

  URGENT, IMPORTANT	NOT IMPORTANT, URGENT
  IMPORTANT, NOT URGENT	NOT IMPORTANT, NOT URGENT

  Resulting plan of activities (academic, social, work etc.) for next week
  Place activities in order of priority for each day.

  Monday Wednesday Friday Sunday

  Tuesday Thursday Saturday

• Baseline Assessment
  It is useful to know where students are in terms of Key Skills awareness / development on entry to Higher Education. This is also very important for MSc students who need to get up to speed much more quickly.

Assessment, feedback & recording of Key Skills
Students tend not to value the learning process if there is no assessment. Assessment is also valuable to aid students in mapping their progress. It can be useful to think of assessment as a cyclical process based around evaluation:

Key Skills Assessment Myths

It is difficult / impossible to assess:

• Self auditing
• Time management
• Teamwork
• Interpersonal Skills
• Career management

In fact, anything can be assessed if you think about what, who, how and when you assess. For example, self-auditing can be assessed by looking at the student's CV and time management can be assessed by simply observing whether the student meets deadlines.

EVALUATION MODEL

WHAT is to be assessed? (PURPOSE)

• Process?
  e.g. self auditing, time management plans (in terms of personal development this is perhaps the most important issue - however, the students need feedback to optimise their development). Process evaluation may not necessarily contribute to the final grade but it is very important for the students development.

• Product?
  e.g. any form of written report

• Process + Product?
  e.g. poster presentation, group project

WHO will assess? (MODE)

Recording of Achievement
This is crucial for students to see and understand their achievements and progress. Once the student is aware of their developments in terms of Key Skills they will be more able to articulate this in their CVs without having to include an entire Key Skills record.

How student achievement in Key Skills is recorded depends on how academic marks are recorded and fed back to students. One means of recording skills is to require students to produce a portfolio, however, experience has shown that this method is not particularly successful. Perhaps a better means of recording Key Skills is via student transcripts.

RECORDING ACHIEVEMENT THROUGH STUDENT TRANSCRIPTS

Four possible ways:

1. Key Skills grades awarded for specific coursework items.

3. Grades awarded to each Key Skills area based on performance across modules (need overarching Key Skills 'guru').

4. Grades awarded to appropriate Key Skills areas in each module.

The Process of Key Skills Integration - a suggested model

The crucial issue is to make Key skills provision, development and progression EXPLICIT.

Where Next?
This exercise has started the process of developing Key Skills in the curriculum. Now it is time to put it into practice.

Finally, although we reiterate the importance of Key Skills in the curriculum we don't want / need a skills-based curricula. We are Geoscience educators first and foremost.

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An Exercise in Problem-Based Learning

Chris Lee, School of Applied Science, University of Glamorgan

Problem Based Learning (P.B.L.): What the problem?
P.B.L. started in the mid 19602 at McMaster University, Canada and now about 60 medical schools world-wide have adopted it as a whole or in part (e.g. Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Glasgow).

The approach is characterised by a collection of carefully constructed problems presented to a small group of students. The problems usually consist of descriptions of sets of observable phenomena or events that need explanation. Essential to the method is that the students' prior knowledge (in itself) is insufficient for them to understand the problem in depth. P.B.L. is stated as being an ideal learning method for the acquisition of knowledge and Key Skills. It is a process by which students learn through teamwork and self study.

So how is it done?
Students are divided into groups of six or eight and each group is given a problem to address. This problem may be in the form of:

• experimental data,
• a video extract,
• a newspaper / scientific article,
• a paper case history,
• or, in the case of medical schools, a patient.

Progression is through seven steps:

1. clarification of terms and concepts,
2. 'brainstorming' the nature of the problem,
3. assembly into problem areas,
4. definition of problems / issues,
5. formulation of learning questions,
6. acquisition of knowledge by self-directed learning (hours? Days?),
7. reporting back and solution.

"If I do not give them the facts, how will I be sure they get them?"
P.B.L. postulates that:

• Learning through problem solving is much more effective for creating in a student's mind a body of knowledge that is useable in the future than didactic (instructional) traditional methods of learning.
• In life / industry, problem solving skills are more important than factual memory recall alone.

Employable students need to devote time to practising and developing skills that will be beneficial to their future professions.

A Useful Reference
Norman, G.R. and H.G. Schmidt. 1992. The psychological basis of problem-based learning: a review of evidence. Academic Medicine Vol. 67, No.9 pp557-565.

A Problem Based Learning (P.B.L.) Exercise in Forensic Geology.

Introduction
The following is an exercise in which you apply your earth materials knowledge to a real world problem.

Background
You are an Earth Science graduate from South Wales and Monmouthshire Polytechnic (SWAMP) and, owing to your well developed key skills, you have been successfully recruit into the Police Force.

You are asked to assist in a case where a body has been found and murder is suspected. Physical evidence is collected from the location where the suspects claimed to have been at the estimated time of the murder.

Evidence
1. Victim
Found in an old safe that had been dumped in an old quarry hosted in mica-garnet schist (SPA). No fingerprints were found on the safe but a dusting of 'white powder' could be seen to cover some surfaces where it had 'spilled out' from the interior of the safe door (SPB = diatomaceous earth).

The pathologist's report on the body recorded that death had been caused by a blow to the back of the head that had fractured the skull and contents. Inside the wound a 2cm x 1cm irregular shaped 'marble like' dark brown/green crystalline fragment had been found. It was mostly highly polished but showed one broken edge where individual crystals could be seen. S.G. was determined as 3.72 (SPC = dunite).

Additional information was collected:

Suspect No.1
Claims to have been in the woods camping alone at the time of the murder.
Samples collected from:

Suspect No. 2
Claims to have been four-wheeling in the mountains at the time of the murder. Samples collected from:

Suspect No. 3
Claims to have been at the beach. Not only do you identify the samples collected from the suspect and the beach, cumulative frequency graphs are drawn, statistics compared together with shape, mineral composition and heavy minerals.
Samples collected from:

Suspect No. 4
Claims to have been working in the garden at the time of the murder. He shows you evidence of recently worked ground.
You collect samples from:

Suspect No. 5
Claims to have been at an ethnic art museum (currently showing Maouri sculptures, some said to have been fashioned from rocks formed under great heat and pressure).
Samples collected from:

No samples taken, but some sculptures show signs of recent wear.
Sellotape sample of 'dandruff' taken (SPL1 = diatomaceous earth)

Suspect No. 6
Claims to have spent time of murder cleaning house and car.
No samples to collect so analyse vacuum cleaner content.

Running the Exercise
More or less information may be given depending on the time available and / or level of students' knowledge. For example, if you wish to develop the students' note-taking skills then the brief could be read out (in the manner of a verbal police report). If you wish to develop the students' mineral identification skills then the samples could be provided as hand specimens / thin sections only (without the annotation).

Samples A-Z and A1 - N1 are hand specimens. Specimen B and C are microscope slides. Exhibit 1 and Exhibit 2 are photographs of a broken safe (used to keep documents safe from fire) and diatoms respectively.

Crime Analysis (Process of Elimination)
As victim knew all suspects it is feasible to find materials mixed in together for each of the suspects.

Suspect 1 and 3 are definitely innocent (no links).

Suspect 2 has only garnet in the pocket to link them to crime.

Suspect 4 presence of biotite (weak links).

Suspect 5 marble on shoes, in museum and victim's left hand. Scoria at museum and on victim's left foot. Specimen (C) identified as rock composed predominantly from olivine (Dunite? Mt Dun? New Zealand? Maouri?). Specimen B Diatomite (used as filler in fire proof safes).

Suspect 6 garnet-mica schist found in vacuum cleaner (in with 5?).

Scenario
Suspect killed victim in museum with Maouri statue. Body dragged out of museum by their right arm and leg (hence specimens in/on left hand and foot).

Carried in boot to quarry. Dragged out by left arm and foot (etc.etc.).

All evidence of quarry 'hoovered off' but diatomite 'dandruff' gives good link to safe.

Conclusion

Not so much Whodunit it? BUT WHO DUNITE?!

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