NOTES TO FACULTY

"Citizen's argument" imitates what citizens do in town meetings or similar venues. Students are given either the Minnich or the Likens/Bormann data and asked to assume a role (such as environmentalist or worried house owner near national park). You can assign the roles or let the students invent their own. In a 2 minute speech — which they read — they present their point of view using the data from their study as support plus information from the web or other sources. They must use the data though. Students can work in pairs or small groups on their speeches (in or outside of class). Depending on the class size you can ask each group to present their speech or randomly choose some from both data set groups.

The dramatic fires of fall 2003 in California were well advertised, and therefore some of your students will likely remember this event, especially if they have ties to CA. Listed here are several links to sites documenting these fires. In addition, for some of Minnich's critics (see San Diego University link) such as Jon Keeley, this fire was an opportunity to promote their opposing points of view.

• http://map.sdsu.edu/fire2003/firehistory.htm (San Diego University)


• http://www.werc.usgs.gov/fire/firerelated.html — USGC fact sheets and publication briefs


• http://fire.textamerica.com — people's photographs of the CA fires, 2003


• http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2582283/detail.html — NBC new brief

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Student Assessment: Oral presentation of the Citizen's arguments.

      In addition to grading each student's oral presentation, or for individual assessment when groups present together, ask each student to submit their own written version of their argument.


EVALUATING AN ISSUE: How do you know whether it is working?

      On-going (also called formative) evaluation of the approaches your are using is critical to the success of student-active teaching. Why try out new ideas if you don't know whether or not they are working? This is a brief overview of formative evaluation. For more information, go to the Formative Evaluation essay in the Teaching Section.

Course Goals:

      Formative evaluation only works if you have clearly described your course goals - because the purpose of the evaluation is to assess whether a particular technique is helping students reach these goals. For instance, most of us have "learn important ecological concepts and information" as a course goal. If I reviewed the nitrogen cycle in a class, for evaluation I might ask students to sketch out a nitrogen cycle for a particular habitat or system. Each student could work alone in class. Alternatively, I might ask students to work in groups of 3 and give each group a different situation (e.g. a pond receiving nitrate from septic systems, an organic agricultural field, an agricultural field receiving synthetic fertilizer). The students could draw their flows on a large sheet of paper (or an overhead transparency) and present this to the rest of the class.

The Minute Paper:

      Minute papers are very useful evaluative tools. If done well they give you good feedback quickly. Minute papers are done at the end of a class. The students are asked to respond anonymously to a short question that you ask. They take a minute or so to write their response in a 3x5 card or a piece of paper. You collect these and learn from common themes. In the next class it is important that you refer to one or two of these points so that students recognize that their input matters to you. The UW - FLAG site (www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/cl1/flag/) gives a good deal of information about using minute papers including their limitations, how to phrase your question, step-by-step instructions, modifications, and the theory and research behind their use.