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Creating A Computer-Enhanced Geology Learning Environment
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Discussion 1. Students and faculty discuss computer-dependent learning activities
As we stated elsewhere, although it is possible to teach those topics that make up the focus of Eric's classes without a computer, the concepts are illuminated considerably by the three-dimensional visualization programs and other computer-dependent activities that he incorporates. Shane discussed the advantage those activities have over paper and pencil explanations in fostering students' abilities to meaningfully understand complex geological concepts.
Shane: In my old school, visualizing things in three dimensions had to be done with paper, diagrams, and models. I found it very difficult to try and visualize things. In just one class at SDSU, I learned more than I did in probably a year and a half at my old school about how faults work in three dimensions. Geology is such a visual subject anyway that without being able to see things in three dimensions, move them around, and physically go into a data set and pull things apart, you are at a great disadvantage.
Seeing things in three dimensions is one of the hardest concepts to grasp for most geology students. Having the new technologies and being able to work with the programs in three dimensions increases the class's learning by one hundred fold. If, for instance, we were all given the same data set, and the same problems, everybody would interpret the data cube and devise their own model. Then we'd get back together. I guarantee that not a single one of the models would be the same. But each person who presented their little piece of the project would greatly increase the understanding of how things work in three dimensions.
Seismic cubes are shot in horizontal distance versus time. The time it takes for a sound to be shot through the air and bounced back up is a seismic reflection. So with the visualization program, you can pick the top surface of the cube as a time slice, a paleosurface, or a stream channel in the second and third dimension as you rotate the cube.
Eric agreed with Shane and explained that if students cannot see and manipulate the three- dimensional model themselves, the concept will not stick in their brain.
Eric: It is important to be able to manipulate the visualization. If they can rotate and move the model, they get much more out of it than they would by just looking at it and listening to me explain it. If you can look straight down the fault you can see the relationship. With any other view, you don't see the right relationship. It affects much more of their brain and sticks in their mind. It is embedded in other parts of their brain when they are able to do the manipulation.
As a result of the computer-dependent learning activities that Eric assigned, Shane's entire approach to problems changed to the point where he now concentrates more on the process of finding a solution to a problem rather than on the solution itself.
Shane: I look at problems differently. It is not so much, "What is the exact answer?" but, "How you get to that point?" It is the process that matters. Your answers can change, given somebody else's new idea.
It is the understanding of this process, according to him, that has, "helped, especially in the job market."
Shane: There is a huge void in geology between the university system and industry as far as understanding how the earth and rocks behave. Being able to use these technologies through the help of industry brings the whole class up to that same level.
And it is not only the process of solving problems that Shane has learned, but also the process of working with equipment that is not always as reliable as he would like it to be.
Shane: Sometimes it's a blessing when a computer breaks in class, because we all sit there and go, "We're dead meat if we don't get this thing fixed," and then we figure out ways to fix it. And then there's sense of accomplishment, and then the next time it breaks, it's not a big emotional falling apart.
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