TEACHING PALEONTOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE RÍO NEGRO: MORE THAN JUST BOOKS AND MEMORIZING NAMES

ARCHUBY, FERNANDO; BÉGUELIN, MARIEN; CASADÍO, SILVIO; CANALE, JUAN IGNACIO

Mendoza

Congreso; 4º International Paleontological Congress; 2014

At the Universidad Nacional de Río Negro (Patagonia, Argentina) we teach basic paleontology to second year undergraduate students of geology and paleontology by means of two courses following the student-centered pedagogy known as Problem-based learning (PBL). With this pedagogic approach students learn about a subject through the experience of problem solving. The goals of PBL are to help students developing motivation and skills for active self learning. The role of the professors is supporting, guiding, and monitoring students in order to facilitate the learning process. The backbone of our strategy with the students is encouraging them to develop a research project followed by writing a research article. The projects address the study of different invertebrate groups recorded in sections of the marine Maastrichtian-Danian Jaguel and Roca Formations. They must pass through the complete process of a regular scientific work, including the project, planning the sampling, applying for funding, etc. The students learn from how to think a title, to how to cite literature, and propose and test hypothesis. In the meanwhile, they have to read and write drafts. By the end of the course we organize a meeting with faculties and students of other courses, and every student has to expose their work. Then, every work has to be peer reviewed to finally pass the last examination. Reviewers are a student and a teacher. During 2012 and 2013 we implemented several strategies in order to reach our goals: we watched two movies, we proposed several online forums on different subjects, read books, played games, with concepts such as biostratigraphy or epistemology, developed conceptual maps with C-Map Tools, etc. We created a Didactic Collection hosting materials used to teach, as well as all the fossils the students collect in the field trips, that has at the moment more than 350 fossils or sets of fossils. We reinforce the teaching activities with a virtual classroom developed in the learning platform Moodle and hosted at the University server. There we upload literature, propose debates, open collaborative wiki-based texts, upload tasks and communicate with the students by an internal mailing system. We also innovate every year: in 2014, to help understanding invertebrate animals we are organizing a dinner in which six groups of students have to cook a meal having seafood. Previously, they have to identify the species and dissect them to recognize anatomical features. And there is more...