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ocean, land, and life—an approach that   administrations, 3853 responses address   courses that span the disciplines in the
          has been advocated for more than 20   introductory courses. A second data set   geosciences, with the largest combined
          years (e.g., Ireton et al., 1996) but has   comes from participants in professional   numbers in Earth science, geology, and
          been slow to be adopted. The system   development opportunities (PD) led by   oceans (Table 1), which are among the
          includes humans, too: no longer, for   On the Cutting Edge (Manduca et al.,   courses current teachers most commonly
          example, will it be sufficient for students   2010), who uploaded syllabi to a digital   report having taken as undergraduates
          to describe the global distribution of   repository, where they are publicly avail-  (Banilower et al., 2013).
          resources. In the new standards, the PEs   able (SERC, 2002). The methods of analy-  The total number of students enrolled
          ask students to tie that distribution to   sis of these two data sets are described in   in the introductory courses represented in
          human activity and assess the impacts of   the GSA Data Repository (see footnote 1).  the survey responses ranges from a low
          resource extraction on the environment                                of 66,725 in 2004 to a high of 81,636 in
          (Table S1 [see footnote 1]).       RESULTS                            2009, followed by 68,170 in 2012 and
            Pedagogically, integrating the three                                70,198 in 2016. This represents about a
          dimensions requires that “students   Demographics                     third of students counted through depart-
          actively engage in scientific and engi-  The number of respondents who com-  mental responses to a survey describing
          neering practices in order to deepen their   pleted the survey describing an introduc-  2004–2005 enrollments (Martinez and
          understanding of cross-cutting concepts   tory course they teach has been ~1000 for   Baker, 2006), and perhaps 20%–25% of
          and disciplinary core ideas” (NRC,   the past three administrations (Table S3   enrollment in 2016.
          2012b, p. 217). The structure of this sen-  [see footnote 1]); responses come from all
          tence is purposeful: active engagement   institution types, as do the 152 syllabi   Survey Analysis
          in the practices comes first and leads to   uploaded between 2002 and 2016 (Table   In all four survey administrations,
          deeper understanding. The practices   S4 [see footnote 1). Although the distribu-  respondents were asked how frequently
          describe the use of data as the founda-  tion across institution types differs some-  they used specific teaching strategies in
          tion for developing explanations that    what, both fall within range of an earlier   the “lecture” portion of their introductory
          are modified and refined through active   report on introductory courses (Martinez   course (Fig. 1). A large majority use tradi-
          discourse (Table S2 [see footnote 1]).    and Baker, 2006). Both data sets include   tional lecture in every class, but the pro-
          In Earth science, the PEs shift the focus                             portion has decreased significantly over
          from identification and description of                                time. In parallel, the proportion of
          Earth materials and landforms to analyz-  TABLE 1. COURSE DISCIPLINES   instructors using small-group discussions
          ing geoscience data to construct explana-  Broad discipline   Survey   Total   and in-class exercises—considered
          tions, make decisions, and evaluate    Atmosphere   respondents   syllabi   active-learning strategies—in every class
                                                               291
                                                                         9
          solutions (Table S1 [see footnote 1]).   Earth science   218   12     and weekly has increased over time.
          Together, these changes led Wysession   Earth systems   74     3      Respondents employ these strategies
          (2014) to assert that “the NGSS provide   Environmental   312   9     regardless of the number of students in
                                                               152
                                                                         0
          America’s best opportunity yet in its   Geography   1375      77      their classes (Tables S5 and S6).
                                              Geology
          almost 240-year history to educate its   Hazards     168       9        A set of questions on the 2016 survey
          citizens about the complex and critical   Historical   333     4      asked respondents to indicate the fre-
          issues of Earth science.”           Oceans           294      25      quency with which their students engaged
            This is an exciting development for the   Other    543       3      in particular practices (Fig. 2). “Three or
          Earth-science community but one that
          will not be fully realized without deliber-
          ate effort from all components of the edu-  100%
          cational system. Because a powerful way
          that teachers learn to teach is by observa-                    *   *        *     Figure 1. Histogram showing
          tion, mimicking the teaching strategies   80%             *                       the frequency of use of teach-
          they have experienced as learners                       *                *        ing strategies over the four
                                                                                            survey administrations. Aster-
          (Windschitl and Stroupe, 2017), one key    *                           *          isks indicate statistically sig-
          leverage point for effecting change is the   60%  *   *                           nificant differences in propor-
          science courses that future teachers take.       *                                tions (p < 0.05) between survey
                                                                                            years; the significance is only
          In the geosciences, we have two rich data           *                             shown for a particular fre-
          sets that can be explored to assess the   40%  Frequency                          quency of use when there is a
                                                                                            difference between multiple
          extent to which introductory geoscience   of use          *                       years. Asterisks with bars indi-
          courses align with the vision of the      Never                             *     cate that there is no significant
                                                                                            difference between the two
          Framework. The National Geoscience   20%  Once         *                          years connected by the bars,
                                                    Several times
          Faculty Survey (NAGT, 2018) was admin-    Weekly    *     *             *    *    but there is a difference
                                                                                            between those two years and
          istered in 2004, 2009, 2012, and 2016.    Every class  *                 *        the others.
          The original survey was developed before            *                  *
          the Framework, but is based on the same   0%  04 09 12 16  04 09 12 16  04 09 12 16  04 09 12 16
                                                                                  In-class
          foundational documents. Over the four      Traditional  Small-group  Whole class  exercises
                                                              discussion
                                                      lecture
                                                                        discussion
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