Background
The John A. Dutton e-Education Institute is the learning design unit for the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. We work in close partnership with the College's five academic departments to design, develop, and manage the College's online certificate and degree programs.
The College of EMS serves as a leader in distance teaching and learning at Penn State. To date, our College boasts 15 online programs and more than 130 online courses. We have been able to extend the reach of a high-quality, rigorous, and research-based Penn State education to more than 5,900 undergraduates and more than 1,250 working adult professionals around the globe.
See our main website for more information about the Dutton Institute.
Demonstration of Online Courseware
- A "Program Office" Website: Energy and Sustainability Policy Degree (online B.A. program) and Renewable Energy and Sustainability Systems (online masters program)
- An orientation course for a degree program - EM SC 302 (Orientation to Energy and Sustainability Policy)
- Assets (how-to resources for students and faculty)
- Introduction to Core Competencies
- A large enrolling course - GEOG 030
- A smaller enrolling course - GEOG 469 (GIS for the Energy Industry)
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A Writing-intensive Course - GEOG 438w
GEOG 438w is a writing-intensive course where the author (Brent Yarnal) has included a variety of activities to engage students. Each lesson has a nice overview of what students should complete for that lesson in a section called To Read, To Write, To Discuss, and also good instruction and rubrics for the writing assignments.- Instructions for writing assignments
- We also included a writing sample so that students could see the requirements in action
- All writing assignments used the following writing assignment rubric
- There was also a discussion rubric
Specific teaching and learning strategies
- Animations - EGEE 102 (Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection) has animations demonstrating conduction and convection of heat
- Interactive experiments - EBF 200 (Introduction to Energy and Earth Science Economics)
- Read the instructions for the International Trading experiment
- See how the International Trading experiment works (Captivate/Jing movie)
- Knowledge checks - EGEE 102 has questions integrated into the content page to check student understanding while learning
- Narrated screen capture - There are a variety of Jing movies Eliza Richardson uses in her EARTH courses for different purposes. Below are a few:
- Explaining a still graphic (2 examples):
- Using a virtual whiteboard to explain a concept
- Answering a student question about why the San Andreas probably won't produce a big tsunami
- Showing a student how to access library e-reserves
- Providing feedback on a student's assignment
- Explanation of how to set up a calculation in a problem set
- Real-life case studies - GEOG / EME 432 (Energy Policy)
- Simulations - METEO 469 (Understanding Global Warming) METEO 469 has an interactive activity using a tool that was built in Flash.
- The activity is a Statistical analysis of climate data activity
- A linear Regression tool was used in this activity
- Videos
- Interviews with content experts: EARTH 501 (Controversies in the Earth Sciences)
- Site visits and field trips: EARTH 530 (The Critical Zone)
- Adding instructor presence: GEOSC 010 (Geology of the National Parks)
- Student-generated content: GEOSC 010 (Geology of the National Parks)
- Explaining a concept: EGEE 102 (Energy Conservation and Environmental Protection)
- Many more examples! - Through our Open Educational Resources initiative website, you can look at more than 50 complete online courses. (We also "publish" information about our OER at the OER Commons.)