Please note that this session was withdrawn and is no longer available in the respective programme. This withdrawal might have been the result of a merge with another session.
EOS2.6 | Developing pedagogies for GIS, remote sensing, programming, modelling or mathematical skills in geoscience higher education
EDI
Developing pedagogies for GIS, remote sensing, programming, modelling or mathematical skills in geoscience higher education
Convener: Sarah Owen | Co-convener: Zoltán Erdős
As geoscience practitioners, teaching computing-based and mathematical skills in geoscience higher education programmes can be challenging. Students can shy away from engaging with subjects they feel fall outside of the traditional geoscience realm or away from their educational background. However, many of these subjects and skills are vital in building geoscientist graduates who are able to engage with and succeed in the vast array job roles in industry and academia.

The pedagogy of teaching across these subjects varies widely from focusing students on how to perform technical workflows using structured worksheets to empowering students with their own learning by teaching them how they might access, evaluate and develop their own workflows. The former risks a lack of flexibility and independence, creating autonomous students but who may struggle in tackling issues beyond the norm. The latter empowers problem solving scenarios but risks a lack of structure and efficiency in being able to build high level technical knowledge. These concepts strongly inform how we manage our learning spaces: balancing opportunities for independence through group work alongside designing in structure and scaffolding. Tutor to student conversations, student to student conversations, and independent learning all form part of the variety of learning experiences for students.

In this session the conveners welcome you to share examples of your practice which tackle these challenges. In particular, where successful innovation has moved away from more traditional constructivist lecture-practical didactic teaching, alongside fostering skills for lifelong learning. We invite authors to relay their experience and best practices across all the session subjects: GIS, Remote Sensing, Programming, Modelling, and Mathematics including Geostatistics. Some examples of these are suggested below, but the list is by no means exhaustive.

• Student led or student designed exercises
• Using technology to foster innovate delivery and engagement
• Promoting interactivity in large-scale computing classes
• Encouraging self-autonomy through engagement with freely available professional materials
• Feedback and assessment techniques promoting life-long learning
• Challenges and/or and barriers in curriculum design / engagement

We hope that this broad session will facilitate a wide ranging conversation on pedagogic practice in these subject disciplines and provide inspiration for practitioners.