Pedagogies in Action: A Community Service Weaving Teaching Methods to Examples for Learning

How can digital libraries best support the implementation of their materials in ways that reflect best practice in teaching methods and engage students in learning? SERC's Pedagogic Service http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/service/ allows partners to embed information about effective teaching into their existing websites and to tie this pedagogic guidance to activites and resources in their collections. Current partners include NSDL pathways and other NSF-sponsored digital libraries: Physics (ComPADRE), Quantitative Social Sciences (Teaching with Data), Statistics (CAUSEweb), Economics (Starting Point: Teaching and Learning Economics), Biology (MLER, MERLOT) and Earth Science (Starting Point, ERESE).

The materials available through the service are highlighted in the Pedagogies in Action portal http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/  which provides information on more than 40 teaching methods  Each method is described with pages addressing what the method is, why or when it is useful, and how it can be implemented. New methods added this year include  Jigsaw, Teaching the Process of Science, Guided Discovery Problems,  Teaching Urban Students, Using ConceptTests, and Teaching with Google Earth.  The collection of 775 example teaching activities shows specifically how each method has been used to teach concepts in a variety of disciplines. Contributing partners report that use of the Pedagogic Service improved their processes for developing and disseminating content to a wider and more diverse audience, resulting in a greater number of resources for their users.