Hi William, 

That's a good question. We've done at least two things at different scales that have been effective:

• For the authors of the materials, professional development was embedded in the work and sustained over at least two years; they effectively became part of a professional learning community that supported them in not only developing new curricular materials but in enhancing their own teaching practice. 
• The authors themselves are a relatively small group, but all of the materials we developed that are available online are built using evidence-based teaching techniques, and the why and how of these is described in detail, which lowers the barrier for adoption for a much broader group.

Other presenters can chime in here with more things we've done, but those are two that are centered on the materials development part of the project.  

That's a great question and an ongoing area of research for the project. InTeGrate has taken a multi-faceted approach to reaching educators and providing follow up support including face-to-face workshops, virtual workshops and webinars, the website and online discussions, and traveling workshops in partnership with the NAGT. We're learning how the InTeGrate community is acting as a community of practice, promoting use of the materials and also the guiding principles and pedagogy the materials are built on.  So far the biggest aggregations of InTeGrate adopters are at institutions where local leaders initiated implementation programs. These projects were proposed by community members, and supported by InTeGrate, to instigate change at scales bigger than a course using InTeGrate materials and principles. Our community is still expanding as we are able to reach new groups of faculty members, especially through meetings like the Earth Educator's Rendezvous and making more explicit connections to the Next Generation Science Standards.

More information about the impact of the project is here:
https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/about/pubs....

Kim Kastens and Cathy Manduca's recent article in Change: Leveraging the Power of a Community of Practice to Improve Teaching and Learning about the Earth
https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1398997

The digital library model of putting stuff out there (no matter how good it is) and expecting that 'if you build it they will come' has failed numerous times. It seems that InTeGrate and its predecessors have been unusually successful in this because the PD is embedded.  Cailin's comment that the biggest aggregations come at institutions where there is a local leader is another good clue about the importance of people power.  It would be great to know about the approaches these local leaders are using to engage others.  Do one or a few intriguing activities serve as a foot in the door for broader course revisions?  Are students carrying useful skills or Earth insights to another course? Do local leaders plan a strategy or seize teachable moments with colleagues? 

Thank you for this comment! I think you're right. The InTeGrate model was based on a system approach to help overcome the issue you're describing. The 'we' that built the and tested materials is the community of users, with guidance and support from InTeGrate.

The Implementation Programs are focused on making changes at scales larger than a course, so only some focused on course revision. The 16 program have goals and work at various scales from multiple departments across a campus, to cooperation between institutions in a community, to teacher preparation programs from institutions across a state. This was intentional to help the community imagine a broad range of possible innovations.  Each of the leaders has written about what they think were the most important elements in 'making change happen' in their specific program. You can see what they've written on the individual program profile pages.There are themes that recur, like having a common vision, meeting on a regular basis to support each other, and finding ways to showcase their work to their institutions.

Following their work with InTeGrate, the leaders came together to write a synthesis of lessons learned from across the 16 projects and the resulting toolkit includes a section on 'making change happen' along with four other themes including Attracting and supporting diverse learners, Teaching across the curriculum, Building connections to strengthen K-12 teaching and Supporting transitions to workforce, transfer and careers. This synthesis is based on their experience and links out to examples from all the implementation programs.

Thanks for asking! InTeGrate authors developed several different modules and courses that could involve working with an authentic community audience. In many cases, these types of engagements are given as suggestions, since the materials are meant to be widely adaptable and adoptable, but the summative assessments are designed to be used in that way. For example:

• In the summative assessment for the module Major Storms and Community Resilience, students prepare for and participate in a town hall meeting, where they evaluate their community's Hazard Mitigation Plan.
• In the module Map Your Hazards, students develop presentations in which they describe the results of their mapping of hazards, vulnerabilities, and risks, taking into account that different stakeholder groups might have different backgrounds, interests, and concerns. 
• In the module Lead in the Environment, the summative assessment involves developing a policy memo recommending a particular course of action for a local community with regard to lead exposure;  that could be shared with a local community.

Many other modules and courses have activities that could be adapted to working directly with local communities. 

The curricular modules all make the connection between the Earth system and societal issues and we have examples of instructors making a direct connection to their local communities at the course scale and at the program scale. There isn't a prescribed way this happens across the project, but people have provided stories and details about the work they've done in their local contexts to give others ideas about how to replicate or expand on what they've done.

Martha Richmond at Suffolk University taught Lead in the Environment and had her students present to the mayor. Her instructor story is here:
https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_ma...

Sarah Fortner lead an implementation program at Wittenberg University where they created a new First Year experience that connected course-based projects with community partners:
https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/programs/im...

Wow! These are awesome examples and serve as great examples for others wanting to create similar experiences for their students. Thank you!

InTeGrate is part of the EarthConnections INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot.  EarthConnections builds on the InTeGrate model by making the connection to work in the community explicit.  Learn more: http://stemforall2018.videohall.com/presentatio...

Hi, Claire:

We have a range of materials for intro modules and courses both face-to-face and online. You can check out the materials here:

https://serc.carleton.edu/integrate/teaching_ma...

The courses are all modular to you can mix and match modules. The materials were all written with the same design principles so they fit well together.

Almost all of the courses use real world data sets. Two of the guiding principles were to have the students learn about complexity and big data so we use real data wherever possible. In the online courses that I was involved in we have Capstone activities based on such data for example in the Water Science and Society course we have students look at hydro data for a city which has a challenging water situation and to think about policy issues for that location.

You might also be interested that, of the 112 materials authors, 30% were geologists, 29% environmental scientists, 10% from education and the humanities combined. The balance were mostly from other STEM disciplines. The first 1,200 participants in the InTeGrate community were 40% geoscientists and 60% people from other disciplines. So the materials are also being used broadly outside of geoscience.

Thanks Cailin - encouraging to read that it is an interdisciplinary resource!

Hi Gretal,

Thank you for these comments! The project external evaluator Kim Kastens and lead Cathy Manduca published an article in Change recently about the community of practice that starts with a definition of the CoP. The model certainly includes opportunities for new people to join and InTeGrate has seen exponential growth in participation.

Change: Leveraging the Power of a Community of Practice to Improve Teaching and Learning about the Earth
https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2017.1398997

Cathy can comment more directly about collaborations with EarthConnections, but there is a lot of potential to work with groups like CIRTL.  We've made InTeGrate resources available to future faculty through the NAGT sponsored Preparing for an Academic Career program that runs at the Earth Educator's Rendezvous and the Workshop for Early Career Faculty.

Thanks Cathy and Caitlin, it is so helpful to hear about the details of the work and all the collaborations involved to make it successful.

Hi Jillian,

Is this something you're interested in building on in your own teaching?

Several of the modules have units that include use of GIS including The Wicked Problem of Global Food Security, Coastal Hazards, Processes and Society, Map Your Hazards, and Water Science and Society. If you search the site for GIS you will also come up with these and also essays instructors have written on using GIS in their classes, beyond the modules. For example this essay written by Abu Badruddin from Cayuga County Community College about using GIS to investigate environmental justice.