Students Evidence-Based Problem Solving Strategies

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I believe the purpose of teaching is to ensure that students understand foundational concepts, to develop students’ evidence-based problem solving strategies, and to enable students’ critical thinking in a professional manner, while aiming to develop their skills in the long-term. As an environmental scientist and a teacher, I view the classroom-laboratory-field setting as one of the best places to guide students to understand scientific concepts of the Earth System. It is also a suitable setting for students to establish an understanding of the connection between themselves and their surrounding environments. These types of settings stimulate students’ curiosity for science, creative thinking, as well as a capacity for problem solving strategies …show more content…
A tactile approach makes sense of what students are studying rather than listening to lectures and reading textbooks. My understanding of laboratory investigations is a purposeful-inquiry process. A process that can offer students important opportunities to link scientific concepts and theories discussed in the classroom, textbooks and papers with observations of phenomena and data. The observational evidence supports explanations and assertions about relationships, examines the nature of scientific argumentation in general, and helps in constructing meaningful science concepts. During my teaching assistantships in two earth sciences courses, “Planet Earth” and “Environmental Geology”, I lectured and conducted labs. I feel the laboratory offers unique opportunities for students and their teachers, generating more interactions, and allows students and teachers to engage in collaborative inquiry and to function as a classroom community of scientists. Under the guidance of a teacher, students get to work cooperatively in small groups to investigate scientific phenomena and relationships. Experiences like these help to develop students into greater critical thinkers while boosting understanding, which can ultimately promote positive social interactions and a healthy learning environment conducive to meaningful inquiry and collaborative …show more content…
For non-science major students, they are able to convey Earth system concepts in everyday language and are able to understand environmental issues. For science major students, they are able to further use knowledge and skills to analyze the real world environmental issues. My assignments always include homework, quiz, test, group project and presentation. I believe doing homework and homework discussion section is a process that help students to construct a conceptual framework through thinking, discussion and writing. The comments and feedback on homework and quiz can help students see what they should restudy. Teachers should get to know how to adjust lectures and where they should repeat and give explanations more in the class. Group project and presentation is essential in my class, which would allow students to ask questions, to design a way of answering these questions, and to open up and share their knowledge with others. In addition, group project develops students’ ability of collaboration with their peers as well as enable collaborative social relationships and classroom presentations and term paper writing that addresses environmental statement advance a clear