William A. Prothero, Jr.

Geophysicist, Seismologist, Educator

My primary research field is seismology, tomography, and seismic instrumentation. Currently, however, I have been focussing on the application of technology to learning, especially large classes. This seems to me to be an extremely important issue, because technology is affecting all areas of education and it is important that models of the effective use of technology be created by practicing scientists. I am most interested in using technology to teach the "process" of science and scientific thinking to non-scientists, especially to the general education audience.

I teach Oceanography (GS-4), Geological Data Analysis (GS-134), and a seminar in science education.

Recent changes: I've been working on a new educational software project called "Learning With Data." It is a complete revision and rebuild of the software I have used in my oceanography class.

Current Project: "Collaborative Research: Moving Data Based Inquiry Learning to the Internet." Funded by NSF, Fall 2002, and completed Dec. 31, 2007. Its focus was continued development of the "EarthEd Online" technology to create an online oceanography course featuring a) the use of real earth data, b) scientific writing, c) collaboration, and d) application of the content to society.This technology is being incorporated into the new "Learning With Data" software.

For more information about my use of technology in a large general education class, click here.

Find out about my new "Learning With Data" software, click here.

Recent publications:

Prothero, W.A., 1995. Taming the Large Oceanography Class, Jour. of Geological Education, 43, Nov. 1995. Prothero, W (chair), M. Giorso, M. Ramamurthy, R. Richardson, J. Stanesco, R. Sternbert, D. Stout, B. Tewksbury, 1997. “How Should We Teach Earth System Science?”, in “Shaping the Future of Undergraduate Earth Science Education, Innovation and Change Using an Earth System Approach”, Report of Workshop convened by A.G.U. Nov. 14-17, 1996.

Prothero, W. A. 2000. Keeping our focus: a perspective on distance learning and the large introductory science class, Computers and Geosciences, Elsevier, Vol 26, No. 6, pp647-655.

Kelly, G. J., Chen, C., & Prothero, W. (2000). The epistemological framing of a discipline: Writing science in university oceanography. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 37, 691-718.

Mayer, R., P. Mautone, and W. Prothero, 2002. Pictorial aids for learning by doing in a multimedia geology simulation game, Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 171-183.