A Comparison of Different Teaching Strategies in a Soil Science Class.

There is a growing interest to create flexible curriculum for post-secondary education. It is becoming increasingly valuable to assess how college courses offered in different formats adapt to student learning styles and needs. In addition, increasing student enrollment and cost of education have engendered a resource driven challenge, and online courses could be a way to preserve student, instructor, and academic institution resources. At the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL), Soil Resources 153 was taught three different ways: (1) Traditional, with one 50-min lecture per week and a 2-hr lab twice per week, (2) Blended learning, in which instruction occurred both online and in 2-hr face-to-face meetings once per week, and, (3) fully on-line. To evaluate and compare these teaching methods, students in each course completed end of the semester survey questionnaires. Of the 153 students that completed the questionnaires, 70 were freshmen, 31 were sophomores, 34 were juniors, and 18 were seniors. Survey response rate was 97.5%, 95.5%, and 37.5%, in the traditional, blended, and online sections, respectively. Of the students that responded, 47 identified as visual learners, 24 as kinesthetic, 43 as tactile, and 7 as auditory learners, with 4 students indicating they had no preference and 27 students selecting “it depends”. Student responses by teaching method were analyzed, and teaching methods were compared.