STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF GEOLOGIC NOTE-TAKING WITH IPADS

Jackie Dohaney, B. Kennedy, D. GravleyPostdoctoral Fellow, Geoscience Educationjdohaney@gmail.com

Motivation: Student Handwriting - Legibility

Why research field note-taking?

1. Note-taking skills are fundamental in the geosciences.

2. Important for data collection, observation-making and forming hypotheses.

3. Usually not explicitly taught in programs. They are commonly learned via:

holistic, piecemeal ‘best practices’. passed down from more experienced

geologists.

Not just about the skills

Formation of schema of rock and outcrop descriptions

Hypothesis-making: Building, testing, modifying and weighing hypotheses

(Field notes are) “...external

representations of student’s cognition in

the field” (Balliet 2012)

Research Questions:1. How do students describe their note-

taking experiences?2. What are their perceptions (attitudes)

about using technology (generally), and in the field?

3. How do students characterise their experiences using an iPad in the field, specifically for note-taking?

User-friendlyMinimal start-up to learnFocused on mapping, structure, and stratigraphy

Prabhat Rimal, Carter

Tillquist, Kien Hoang,

Lawrence Malinconico,

David Sunderlin,

Chun-wai Liew

MethodsInterviews (n=9 students)Pre-determined questions (semi-structured)Pilot study: Exploratory-focused

CodingEmergent themes (inductive approach)- First pass, identify questions asked, identify the responses to those questions. Cluster the similar questions first, then cluster responses

- Unique ideas/items within responses.

Preliminary ResultsQuestions:1. What is the purpose of note-taking?2. What strategies do you use to take notes?

3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of using iPad to take notes?

1. What is the purpose of note-taking?

“So when you are out in the field, you kind of have them (field notes), and it jogs your memory, you can have a think about it and you can think about what it all means. It’s not just memory too. It’s to, like, see it, and like maybe you will see things that you didn’t see, in the field also.”

Take a moment, and think about it. Write it down.

In the field After the field

Help you remember what you saw in the field (6/9)

To aid in making

interpretations (5/9)

2. What strategies do you use, when writing notes in the field?

“I would have just written like a clot of words… I would have described the rock in a non-systematic way, and it would have been like ‘these are the things that I see’, I dunno, and had like a list of things that I saw about it.”

Take a moment, and think about it. Write it down.

Strategies

STC (6/9)

Sketch (4/9)

Differences (6/9)

Write Everything

(4/9)

WRITING STYLE

APPROACHPROCESSES

Different strategies, depending on the situation (5/9 students)

Mapping ContactsFocus on the contactsLittle infoLook at differences between one location to another

Structurally-focused

Detailed outcrop descriptionFocus on characterisation

ThoroughLots of descriptive information

Textures and composition focused

Different strategies with iPad app?Yes, Different 7/9

Not Different 1/9

Didn’t Answer 1/9

What was different?Depth of text, varied from more to much less

Students had more individual locations, rather than summarising one outcrop with several features

Edit-ability - students didn’t have/want to use a rigid systematic approach

“Like I didn’t have to be as careful” (writing notes with the iPad)

Perceived Advantages of iPad Note-taking

Using Map in Real-time (5/9)

Efficiency (5/9)

Organised (4/9)

Perceived Disadvantages of iPad Note-taking

Cannot Annotate

Sketch (8/9)

Positive Outcomes Freedom to play and edit may

improve students efficacy with note-taking.

Freedom could lead to more creative hypothesis-forming. (students struggle moving from the descriptive phase, to interpretations and hypotheses)

“So I feel like the iPad encourages you to like look at things a little bit differently. And maybe like, kind of get creative with it, cause you can always go back and edit it.”

Ability to organise thoughts quickly, and easily through editing (Can review, revise, and add new items, easily).

“I think I tried to make {my notes in the iPad} the way I would like it to be. Like, more organized. The way it isn’t in my field notebook. So like, structure {it}, you know. Which I don’t really bother with as much with.”

Possible Negative Outcomes

Editability of the iPad text entry – reduces students need to use a rigid systematic approach

Stigma with using technology in the field

“I would say that I am biased towards using technology in the field, that’s not what I should say, but like the idea of being like “I use my iPad for everything”.

Inability to annotate sketches, could reduce on-the-spot analysis of features, and amount of information recorded.

“I feel like sometimes my notes, sometimes they are better in the {paper} notebook … because I don’t have the picture to look at, so I’ll make sure that I annotate stuff, and write stuff down, what I see in the field more.”

Future StudiesMatching student perceptions, to their notebooks

Further exploration of the perceptions of purpose of note-taking

Rigid or free-style approaches: Are some better than others for learning

Thank You! Any Questions?

Jackie DohaneyPostdoctoral Fellow, Geoscience Educationjdohaney@gmail.com

Suggestions for Note-taking

• Learning goals should be clearly communicated.• Note-taking tasks can be broken into smaller parts

(e.g., Start with the larger perspective then progress to the smaller perspective

• Let students reflect and organize their notes. • Establish field site ‘etiquette’ (to reduce social distractions and to initiate and maintain

focus.)• Once an introductory lesson has been completed, fullest

complexity. (Emphasis in the later lessons should be on fine-tuning these skills.)

FIELD NOTE-TAKING

Student Examples:“I mean, there is definitely a skill, and a purpose to like, condensing it

down. But that’s kind of, very much hard to do. In the moment, you know what I mean? Like, deciding what matters and what doesn’t.

Or if rephrasing this is valuable. When, when you’re out there you’re just basically trying to like, suck up as much information as you possibly can. And then later on you can decide what you need.

Or if there’s a way to say this paragraph in three words. You know, um so at least that’s how I go about things… That’s how you remember things that you don’t know. Again, you don’t know what you need and what you don’t. Until later on.”

Student Examples:“I think taking paper notes are awesome… I think you just have a better connection to your thoughts when you’re actually physically writing them out. And I don’t know if that’s just the way like, how we learned to write something…

I feel like you just express yourself better. I’m really big into like, putting visuals down. Um, whether it’s like arrows, or actual sketches, or things like that. Um, and so, I just feel like maybe the iPad’s better for if you need to be more organized with your notes.

But I think if you’re really just trying to get your thoughts down, really just trying to kind of work something out in your head. Which I feel like what geology is. Like, it’s not going to be black and white all the time, it’s going to be a lot of questions. It’s going to be a lot of like, trying to work things out. I feel like paper’s really beneficial for that, because you can really write down your process. Um, and you can really track your process a lot better than you can on something that’s not so constraining as an iPad.”