Bücher der Reihe Elements of Paleontology

Prior conceptions that include erroneous or incomplete understanding represent a barrier to durable learning. By intentionally eliciting prior conceptions and implementing pedagogical strategies described in other Elements in this series, lecturers can shape instruction to challenge negative views of paleontology and improve student learning.

Evidence shows that active learning helps students strengthen learning and build more advanced skills. The flipped classroom is one approach to maximize time for active learning. This Element explores a number of ways lecturers can create a flipped classroom learning environment.

This Element outlines the use of Macrostrat and its mobile client Rockd, and provides examples of how to integrate these resources into a variety of paleontology and Earth science courses. These tools provide a unique educational opportunity for students to interact with primary geological data and make new field observations.

Student-centered learning shifts the power and attention in a classroom from the instructor to the students. This Element provides an overview of the research on student-centered pedagogy in introductory geoscience and paleontology courses and gives examples of these instructional approaches.

Discusses the theory behind kinesthetic learning and how it fits into a student-centered, active-learning paleontology classroom. Presents methods for incorporating it into student exercises. Assessment data demonstrates that these exercises have led to significantly improved student learning outcomes tied to these concepts.

The Neotoma Paleoecology Database provides support to educators from primary schools to graduate students. Collaborations among pedagogic experts, technical experts and data stewards, centered around data resources such as Neotoma, provide an important role within research communities, and an important service to society.

In this Element best practices in experiential learning are illustrated by courses with embedded student research. Guidelines are presented for how to plan and execute a student research project. Research-based teaching provides challenges for students and faculty, but the benefits for all stakeholders are strong.

'Big data' science initiatives, such as the Paleobiology Database (PBDB), provide inexpensive and accessible research opportunities for undergraduate courses. This Element provides an introduction to what the PBDB is, how to use it, how it can be deployed in introductory and advanced courses, and examples of how it has been used in undergraduate research.

Active learning is a natural fit for paleontology, which can provide opportunities for examining fossils, analyzing data and writing. This Element introduces different types of active learning approaches and explains how these can be applied to large introductory paleontology classes for non-majors.

Students' passion for dinosaurs can be harnessed to trigger interest in science and be used to develop critical thinking skills. Three methods for developing critical thought are outlined in this Element: using dinosaur paleontology to illustrate logical fallacies and flawed arguments, evaluating primary dinosaur literature, and critiquing dinosaur documentaries.

This Element provides a hypothesis-driven look at testing models for diversification in Cambrian echinoderms, fitting and using a joint tree and diversification model to estimate a dated phylogeny of the Cincta (Echinodermata).

An ontogenetic series of Deltasuchus motherali helps clarify its niche and resolve a contested part of the crocodyliform family tree.

This Element provides insight into using Instagram as a science education platform by pioneering a set of calculated metrics, using a paleontology-focused account as a case study. The authors conducted year-long analyses of 455 posts and 139 stories that were created as part of an informal science learning project.

Fossil crinoids are exceptionally suited to deep-time studies of community paleoecology and niche partitioning. By merging ecomorphological trait and phylogenetic data, this Element summarizes niche occupation and community paleoecology of crinoids from the Bromide fauna of Oklahoma (Sandbian, Upper Ordovician). Patterns of community structure and niche evolution are evaluated over a ~5 million-year period through comparison with the Brechin Lagerstatte (Katian, Upper Ordovician). The authors establish filtration fan density, food size selectivity, and body size as major axes defining niche differentiation, and niche occupation is strongly controlled by phylogeny. Ecological strategies were relatively static over the study interval at high taxonomic scales, but niche differentiation and specialization increased in most subclades. Changes in disparity and species richness indicate the transition between the early-middle Paleozoic Crinoid Evolutionary Faunas was already underway by the Katian due to ecological drivers and was not triggered by the Late Ordovician mass extinction.

Recent advances in statistical approaches called phylogenetic comparative methods (PCMs) have provided paleontologists with a powerful set of analytical tools for investigating evolutionary tempo and mode in fossil lineages. However, attempts to integrate PCMs with fossil data often present workers with practical challenges or unfamiliar literature. This Element presents guides to the theory behind and the application of PCMs with fossil taxa. Based on an empirical dataset of Paleozoic crinoids, example analyses are presented to illustrate common applications of PCMs to fossil data, including investigating patterns of correlated trait evolution and macroevolutionary models of morphological change. The authors emphasize the importance of accounting for sources of uncertainty and discuss how to evaluate model fit and adequacy. Finally, the authors discuss several promising methods for modeling heterogeneous evolutionary dynamics with fossil phylogenies. Integrating phylogeny-based approaches with the fossil record provides a rigorous, quantitative perspective on understanding key patterns in the history of life.

Imaging and visualizing fossils in three dimensions with tomography is a powerful approach in paleontology. Here, the authors introduce select destructive and non-destructive tomographic techniques that are routinely applied to fossils and review how this work has improved our understanding of the anatomy, function, taphonomy, and phylogeny of fossil echinoderms. Building on this, this Element discusses how new imaging and computational methods have great promise for addressing long-standing paleobiological questions. Future efforts to improve the accessibility of the data underlying this work will be key for realizing the potential of this virtual world of paleontology.