The road ahead: A renewed focus on student learning and community

摘要

As this issue of the Journal goes to press, geoscience departments around the world are in the midst of adaptation and preparation for Fall instruction while supporting campus efforts to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. The need for more and better tools to assess student learning and insights into student access and success have never been greater. Summer field instruction is underway in many alternate formats, or is ready to begin shortly, and our community has come together in an unprecedented fashion to provide outcomes-based, research-guided teaching modules to support virtual field camps. The field teaching community has rallied to face the challenge of finding alternate ways to deliver the benefits of field instruction. It is too soon to tell what the impacts of these experiences are going to be for our students, but concurrent educational research efforts are underway. Research teams are measuring learning outcomes and are documenting the formation of the sense of community among students and positive impact on academic and career trajectories that results from thoughtful field instruction, on the ground or online. The six papers selected for this issue of JGE provide many useful new tools and insights, fortunately at a time when we as educators can use all the help we can get.