Online Geoscience

Complimenting the geoscience examples reviewed in the Online Science Strategies section of this book, our focus in Chapter 11 is to present a more discipline-centered review of representative published examples from the geosciences. Our review takes account of courses, virtual fieldtrips, virtual laboratories, collaboration, virtual science museums and the relationship of the emerging cyberinfrastructure to the geosciences. Our goal is to provide the reader with a diversity of models and resources to consider in the development of new online or blended geoscience courses or to support the systematic improvement of existing ones. Additionally, our impetus here is to highlight the particular design requirements to achieve learning outcomes in an online science course, such as the design of practical work. Our discussion begins with a review of recent trends in undergraduate geoscience education.

Controversies and Concurrence in Science Education

The practical application of theory, or praxis, in science education is arguably less straightforward today than it has been in preceding generations. While formal education and learning theories have been promulgated for close to 100 years, the changing disposition and balance of academia, and the consequent dissemination of questionable and unverifiable social theories, have led to a more ambiguous discussion and application of au courant learning theories to science education. Much of what the authors consider the detrimental entanglement in academia of definitions and educational theories about science occurs at the confluence of different professional attitudes and motivation. Scientists are generally complacent in terms of championing and defending their own core philosophy and epistemology, and a scientist’s professional rewards and efforts rarely consist of debunking critics in the so-called other ‘ways of knowing’ (see the Science Wars website and the Sokal Affair for a droll exception at http://members.tripod.com/ScienceWars/). The defense of scientific reasoning is not what scientists focus on by training; thus, this is an area that almost certainly needs more systematic attention and treatment in science curricula. By contrast, science’s detractors in the humanities, social sciences and even education, find professional incentive and marketable topic in assailing the science colossus. Most notably, postmodernism with its socially relativistic and radical constructivist theories, replete with the denial of objective truth, have attempted to undermine science, or as Fishman (1996) noted, are attempting to put science on an “indefinite furlough” (p. 95). Like it or not, the science community is at war with nihilistic ideologies and one of the battle grounds is pedagogy, a deliberation that extends to online science learning environments.

Online Mathematics and Physical Science (Mathematics, Astronomy, Chemistry and Physics)

Our focus in this chapter is to present a more discipline-centered review of representative and sound practices published examples from math and the physical sciences. This builds on to the previous chapters on Contemporary Approaches and Promising Technologies and Strategies and compliments the mathematics and physical science examples reviewed earlier. We group the examples into the chief areas: courses, simulations, virtual laboratories, collaborations, virtual science museums and digital libraries. Our goal is to provide the reader with a surveyed appreciation of the many recent innovations in online mathematics, physics, astronomy and chemistry.

Knowledge Transfer and Collaboration Structures for Online Science

Technological innovations in the area of digital media have opened up the possibility for a great number of inventive ways to share and transfer knowledge in online science learning environments. Knowledge transfer may involve interaction between a learner and learning resources such as ‘learning objects’, or conversely knowledge transfer and sharing may be social, that is to say between individuals and/or groups. The types of knowledge transfer that can now be hybridized in educational settings are delineated by Puntschart (2005) as follows: 1) technology-enhanced versus face to face, 2) asynchronous versus synchronous, 3) voluntary versus obligatory, 4) self-directed versus externally controlled, 5) learning object transfer versus person to person, and 6) open versus closed communities. Such a wide variety of interaction options gives way to a variety of communication and collaboration approaches in online science education. Many of these options prospectively support more individualized learning. For example, learning scenarios are now possible where a science student conducts online remote experiments sponsored by another institution in the dead of night in the absence of an instructor. Moreover, a student may opt out of attending an onsite class session in favor of a streaming video lecture where they still contribute to the discussion through an m-learning device. Alternatively, a student may pursue learning at his or her own pace and learning style by reviewing relevant digital library learning objects on a science subject.

Online Life Sciences

In some ways, the life sciences have surpassed other fields in adoption of instructional technologies, although coverage is by no means uniform. In many cases found, textbooks are posted in traditional, linear format, slides accompany simple audio taped lectures or lectures are videotaped with slides as background. While useful, these resources differ substantially from those that address the best practices described in earlier chapters. Several better sites that used to offer free-use educational programs have now gone commercial, requiring purchase of their programs.

The Cutting Edge

The evolution of online education will continue to be coupled to and constrained by innovations in Communication and Information Technologies (CIT). Only a few years ago, web-based courses were characterized by slow data transmission, at 56 kbps with dial-up lines that dramatically limited the styles of communication and the amount of multimedia that could be incorporated directly through the internet to support learning. As a result, course development was regularly compromised by technical limitations. For online education, the ideal threshold in data transmission speed is that point at which an author’s course vision and creativity is unrestricted by the instructional hardware and software permitting the effortless incorporation of interactivity styles and multimedia. This ideal will be met at different times by particular course authors, institutions, and even between disciplines (e.g., English versus science).

A Didactic Model for the Development of Effective Online Science Courses

In our final chapter, we present a didactic model for online science instruction based upon best practices in both science education and online education coupled with insights from the diverse and substantial literature reviewed in previous chapters. Our goal is to present the reader a process flow through key course design steps bringing together original learning design structures with sensible paradigms from the literature. The general structure of our model is comparable to the three-part convention described by Hegarty-Hazel (1990) that includes planning, design and implementation phases.

Online Science

Distance learning modalities in the natural sciences range from simple notes and discussion online (e.g., PowerPoint and asynchronous discussion threads), to remarkably sophisticated multimedia applications that enable students to explore complex systems such as the human body (e.g. The Visible Human Project, National Library of Medicine). In medical and engineering fields, the vanguard for testing the feasibility of learning technologies in online science, students both with time constraints or those far from educational institutions all benefit from sharing resources such as remote laboratories and virtual fieldtrips, resources that are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

The Role of Practical Work in Online Science

There are many educational strategies to achieve learning objectives to prepare students to adapt and survive more effectively in life. Many of these approaches involve, to some degree, practical learning experiences structured to emulate meaningful situations, tasks, and the problem solving required of the real world. In science, educators have long held and place particular importance in the idea that hands-on experiential activities are a fundamental tenet of learning. The portion of scientific instruction devoted to learn by ‘doing’ is called ‘practical work’. In this chapter, we explore the concept of practical work in science instruction, including categories of practical work, the historical basis and development of practical work, its purpose and value, controversies concerning practical work’s utility in science instruction, the importance of practical work in online science instruction, and the design of practical work learning environments. This chapter builds a rationale for the broad value and integral importance of practical work in science education at both the K-12 and university level and as such the necessity for its intentional implementation in online science learning environments. In this way, the practical work discussion of Chapter 5 provides the underpinnings to later chapters that review current and emerging forms and technologies to support online practical work.

Virtual School Science

In this chapter, we examine the character and extent of science learning at virtual schools and explore the current deliberations concerning the interconnections and coordination of efforts of online science learning at the critical school-to-college interface. We discuss selected pedagogical approaches popular in virtual school science instruction and express the pronounced correspondence between online technological efforts of schools and those elaborated in later chapters for colleges and universities.