The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Bronx Community College (BCC) $90,565 for a two-year project aimed at strengthening the teaching of introductory geography courses and increasing student engagement in the field.
The IUSE: Innovation in Two-Year College STEM Education (ITYC) planning grant will support “Beyond the Survey: Sparking Innovation in Introductory Geography Courses,” led by Dr. Tamar Rothenberg, Professor in BCC’s Department of History, in collaboration with Marissa Isaak Wald of Central New Mexico Community College in Albuquerque.
The project grew out of a challenge familiar to geography faculty: introductory courses often cover a vast range of places and concepts, leaving limited opportunity for students to explore topics in depth or connect what they are learning to their own communities and experiences.
“We started this project because, as community college introductory geography instructors, we were frustrated by the structure of survey courses that provide a broad sweep with little depth and a lot of vocabulary,” Rothenberg said. “We wanted to give our students room to connect geographical concepts to their local as well as regional and global worlds, and see themselves as geographers not just in our classes, but potentially with a career in a geography-related field.”
As a first step, the researchers will work with the American Association of Geographers to survey introductory geography instructors and geography program leaders across the United States. The survey will examine what types of introductory courses are offered, student enrollment, teaching approaches and the resources faculty currently use.
Those findings will help guide the creation of a community of practice for introductory geography instructors and plans for faculty-led workshops to develop free, shareable Open Educational Resources (OER) and active-learning materials. The goal is to create resources that allow students to make stronger connections between geographic concepts and the places and communities around them while developing the skills to think geographically about regional and global issues.
The project also includes collaboration with the Science Education Resource Center at Carleton College (SERC), which will help plan future faculty workshops and provide an open-access platform for the resulting teaching resources.
Ultimately, the planning grant will lay the groundwork for a larger NSF proposal to develop and expand these resources, build a national network of geography educators and support innovation in introductory geography education. The longer-term effort seeks to attract and retain more students in geography and introduce them to the wide range of careers in which geographic knowledge and skills can be applied.
Rothenberg teaches GEO 10: World Regional Geography and HIS 10/11: History of the Modern World at Bronx Community College.
About Bronx Community College
The Bronx Community College (BCC) is home to more than 40 academic programs that will prepare you to continue your education at a four-year institution or begin your career. In addition to our high-quality academic programs, we offer you the opportunity to learn from our outstanding faculty, create flexible class schedules and grow with the support of our academic community. A Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), we enroll students from nearly 100 countries. Our campus is also home to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, the country’s first hall of fame. In October 2012, our campus was declared a National Historic Landmark, becoming the country’s first community college campus to receive such a designation.
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