Barbara Tewksbury, the William R. Kenan Professor of Geosciences, and three colleagues have been awarded a major grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant is a collaborative grant from NSF's Division of Undergraduate Education and is for a $2 million project over three years to fund continuation of a national project, On the Cutting Edge, which developed a comprehensive program of workshops and related Web-based resources to support geosciences faculty professional development at all stages of their careers. The initial NSF grant for the project was awarded five years ago to Tewksbury and her co-principal investigators (Heather Macdonald, College of William and Mary; Cathryn Manduca, Carleton College; and David Mogk, Montana State University).
On the Cutting Edge has developed extensive collections of digital resources both to support these workshops and for dissemination to the broader community.
In the next phase of the project, Tewksbury and her colleagues will build on these initial successes and design and implement On the Cutting Edge program elements that will encourage faculty to become fully invested in the cycle of innovation. They will focus on establishing a culture in which geoscience faculty will: participate in on-going professional development to improve teaching; contribute to improving geoscience education through development, publication, and review of new ideas and materials for teaching and about learning; develop standards for recognizing and evaluating scholarly contributions; and assume responsibility for leadership in a wide range of community activities needed to sustain excellence in geoscience education. They plan to expand their workshop schedule, add new workshops and expand the Web site.
