Editorial: Thinking and Learning in the Geosciences

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Nir Orion¹, Roger Trend² 

¹Science Teaching Department, Weizmann Institute of Science; nir.orion@weizmann.ac.il

²University of Oxford, Department of Education, 15 Norham Gardens, Oxford, Oxon OX2 6PY, United Kingdom; roger.trend@education.ox.ac.uk

Educational systems are complicated, comprising many components, but one central concern of any system involves the fostering of student thinking and learning. One of the main challenges of science education is to develop thinking skills among learners in order to strengthen their scientific understanding: this should be an empowering and liberating process for both students and teachers. Steps towards the achievement of this goal include the identification of the meaning of learning and the development of appropriate curriculum materials and teaching strategies that address learning characteristics across various populations of learners. Learning is an innate skill and, like any other natural skill, the ability of each individual to develop it depends on both internal (e.g. genetics) and external (e.g. cultural) influences. The educational process requires teachers to unravel and mediate the meaning of learning and to tailor their teaching to that which will best exploit the learning characteristics of the students.
 

This Special Issue focuses on thinking, learning and teaching in the context of Earth sciences education. The Earth science education community has made significant progress during the last decade in its ability to identify the unique thinking skills and abilities associated with Earth science and how to implement effective teaching strategies for the development of such skills and abilities. This Special Issue relates to both schools and higher education, with many ideas and examples having wide application. Articles highlight some of the unique contributions of the Earth sciences in the development of cognitive skills such as dynamic thinking; system thinking; spatial thinking; temporal thinking; conceptual barriers for understanding (e.g. rock formation); cognitive and behavioural processes involved in situated mapmaking and several more broader pedagogical issues such as argumentation pedagogy; analogical thinking; prior knowledge and alternative conceptions; teaching strategies to promote conceptual change and teacher-centered perception of higher education teachers. The studies presented here are based on a wide range of methods and research tools. They illustrate and advance the significant progress in Earth science education made within the last decade in its move towards an education which is more research-based. 

Using post-glacial coastline evolution as the main example, Trend offers a commentary on argumentation, a distinctive ‘thinking skills’ approach which has not yet received much attention across geoscience education. After reviewing pertinent issues and providing a brief outline of argumentation in science education, he emphasises the importance of epistemological understanding on the part of both teachers and students. Both cognitive and affective abilities need to be exploited and enhanced as geoscience learning is fostered by attending to the logical thinking skills needed for effective argumentation.

In the first of two Curriculum and Instruction papers, Clark et al focus on systems thinking, comparing the disjointed perceptions of the various spheres held by novices with the integrative nature of experts’ understanding of our planet. By requiring students to make explicit the differences between matter and process and by providing a logical means of analysing causal relationships, they offer a new pedagogical approach which can be implemented in many different contexts. Their innovative instructional system incorporates a range of critical thinking skills, including logic, verbal and nonverbal reasoning, integration, synthesis and skill transfer. In the second Curriculum and Instruction paper, Titus and Horsman also offer a distinctive approach to fostering key thinking skills in geoscience, although their focus is restricted to 3D spatial visualization reasoning. They describe several smallscale pretest/posttest systematic enquiries which indicate differences in aptitude between geoscience majors and nonmajors. Like other authors in this Special Issue, they identify baseline assessment of perceptions and cognitive skills as an important springboard for subsequent tuition

Sibley’s theoretical research paper provides an account of an allpervasive intellectual activity: thinking and learning through models, analogies and analogs. He analyses the relevant thinking processes not only in the context of geoscience but also in relation to wider scientific literacy and, indeed, much human reasoning from the very earliest of ages. Making careful reference to the role of expert judgement, Sibley demonstrates that all geoscientific models are, in fact, relational analogies. He shows how this provides educators with a 5part framework for the development of analogical reasoning, each part comprising a distinct cognitive process.

Markley et al. characterize the relationships between faculty's conceptions of teaching and learning on their own teaching practices. Through observations and interviews they indicate a contradiction between learning practices viewed by university faculties as effective and the teachercentered methods that they utilize in their classes. This finding might suggest that any reform in undergraduate Earth science education should include a massive professional development of teachers.

A deep understanding of Earth involves the study of complex Earth systems. The research-based article of Clary et al. suggests that an inclusion of concept statements when teaching application of a complex Earth system or process may facilitate students' geoscience cognition in design and/or informal educational settings. 

Rock formation is one of the key concepts of geoscience. Using a mixed methods study, Kortz and Murray identify seven conceptual barriers that prevent college students from understanding rock formation. These concepts are: deep time; changing Earth; large spatial scale; bedrock; materials; atomic scale; and pressure. It is suggested these conceptual barriers are not unique to rock formation and therefore teachers and curriculum developers should focus on providing the students with tools to overcome these barriers.

The final paper brings together many of the key ‘thinking and learning’ ideas addressed in earlier ones, including expert judgement, 2D/3D visualization, spatial reasoning and learning in authentic settings. Emphasising the importance of metacognition in field mapping educational contexts, they refine and exemplify the concept of ‘geocognition’. The mixed methods approach in the empirical study, carefully articulated and justified, is used to explore differences between expert and novice field mapping, cognition and behaviour. It is an appropriate paper to conclude this collection because it reminds us that humans are complex and idiosyncratic, responsive to diverse stimuli and capable of interpreting the world in their own distinctive ways. Geoscience educators have to respond to this situation by helping students to learn by thinking: Every paper in this Special Issue shows how this can be done.