We have attempted to assess whether teaching with ‘Weather in a Tank’ helps student learning. The evaluation summarized in the paper below highlights the overwhelmingly positive responses from instructors and students who used the experiments, citing that the ‘Weather in a Tank’ curriculum offered a less passive and more engaged and interactive teaching and learning environment.
Assessment tools were developed to track the teaching procedures used in our project and determine how effective they are, including:
- Student pre/post test of conceptual knowledge:
pre_post_Weather_in_Tank. - Survey of students impressions of the effectiveness of each laboratory experiment, its integration with observations, and its impact on their learning:
Students Survey. - Log of instructor’s equipment use in class:
Instructor weekly log. - Rubrics for instructor use in evaluation of student work:
Rubric for written reports
Rubric for oral presentations.
See a summary of the
Instructors comments.
These assessment tools were developed in collaboration with our educational consultant Kathleen J. Mackin and are also available in pdf format:
Instructor_weekly_log.pdf
Rubrics.pdf
Professor_interview.pdf