NAGT-GER: A Community of Practice to Support the Emerging Field of Geoscience Education Research

As the National Research Council noted in its 2012 report on discipline-based education research (DBER) in undergraduate science and engineering, in order to advance DBER as a field of inquiry, "a robust infrastructure is required to recognize and support [DBER] within professional societies." One way to develop such an infrastructure around geoscience education research is to create a community of practice within the broader geoscience education community. In recent years, the members of the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) have created two divisions to support the geoscience education needs of specific subpopulations of the geoscience community: the 2YC division, focusing on community college issues, and TED, focusing on teacher education. This year marks the first year of a new division within the National Association of Geoscience Teachers (NAGT) focused on geoscience education research. The Geoscience Education Research division (GER) is committed to the promotion of high quality, scholarly research in geoscience education that improves teaching and learning in K-12, higher education, and informal learning environments. High quality DBER in geoscience requires the ability to connect current theories of teaching and learning with deep content-specific conceptual understanding. A community of practice like NAGT GER, has the potential to improve the quality of scholarly efforts in geoscience education by providing a forum for improving the collective knowledge and expertise of the geoscience education research community. Current division initiatives and efforts will be highlighted and time for dialogue on future directions will be included.