Teaching Palaeosciences to Future Generations

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Background

The palaeosciences cover many aspects of biology, geology, and geography, making them a truly interdisciplinary subject area. As long-term observations are critical to understanding climate and environmental changes at a range of scales, it is important to consider and reflect on how this broad topic area is taught in universities. Palaeosciences teaching includes both theoretical and practical aspects, and high-quality teaching is vital for student success. Much effort has been expended in increasing the quality and diversity in palaeosciences teaching, and this has accelerated recently. The new norm is a much more collegial approach to teaching, with colleagues sharing methods, experiences, and recommendations, there is also a need for publications on these developments. There is tremendous value in capturing these experiences, which include some cross-cutting themes, with likely benefits to both students and the palaeosciences community more generally.

Most educational research and development of teaching resources is undertaken in universities, but much of this work remains “in-house” and unpublished, meaning that academics are often “reinventing the wheel”. This Research Topic will bring together a collection of “wheels”, highlighting excellent pedagogic practice in the community. Both educators and students will benefit from the discussion of developments in teaching methods, availability of new resources and technology, a new focus on student involvement, and the showcasing of expertise across the wider community. An area where recent innovation has been widespread is the ‘tried and true’ palaeoscience teaching sequence where students collect their own data for analysis by undertaking a field trip to collect samples followed by multiple laboratory practicals. The materials produced and the lived experience of teaching in alternative ways offer opportunities to develop richer future pedagogies which are more inclusive of diverse students and teaching methods. By showcasing research and sharing experience and practice, this Research Topic will serve to capture the recent development and innovation for the longer-term good of the field and its students.

This Research Topic will contribute to the collegial sharing of expertise and experience. We invite authors to submit original research and review articles as well as shorter perspectives papers focusing on the following topics:
• Method developments, both for teaching in-class and in the field
• Student-active teaching methods
• Flipped classroom activities
• Online teaching and education (Virtual classroom teaching, virtual field trips, virtual lab classes)
• Theoretical developments
• Student engagement (could be made specific to online teaching and face-to-face teaching)
• Use of filmography
• Outreach
• Useful tools and how to use them

Keywords: Palaeosciences, Teaching, Online, Fieldwork, Labwork

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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