Other peer institutions

Derived from details in file CScontacts-summary.pdf. To summarize ...

• At UofA, changes were made to make it easier for 4th yr physics students to jump into geophysics, and physics now more flexible to allow a 'minor' to be attached to the degree. Also, Python is now the standard for computational learning.
• At UoT, geophysics is part of the physics department. Oceanography & atmospheric science courses are available as electives for physics students.
• At MUN, Geoph stream students often get minor in math by adding 2-3 more courses.
• At CSM, good relationships between geoph and comp. sci.
  • Geophysics profs teach a compsci courses in alternate years.
  • Cross-departmental collaborations are being pursued.
  • Excelling flowcharts detailing newly (2021) upgraded geophysics pages. See their geophysics page with faculty, major, minor, courses, and their program flowchart.
  • “You don’t see the gaps until you grind the crank a few times”. Therefore, assessing impacts of change 3-5 yrs later is critical – eg. a special retreat.
  • Working to ensure learning goals are aligned across the curriculum.
  • Noted that geophysics faculty do not teach in any 1st year courses which means 1st year students do not "see" geophysics.
  • they want to ease the challenges of switching into geophysics in 3rd or 4th year.
  • Working to increase alumni engagement, including bringing in alumni who have non-traditional careers - eg in digital media, data science, etc.
  • They have "nested mentoring" a bit like Stanford - faculty plus senior undergrad and graduate student mentoring.
• At Georgia Tech: a somewhat "engineering" focus.
  • “Rebound” in enrolments is attributed to >>introductory class with new special section for EAS students, >>improving advising and professional development, and >>building a greater sense of community”
  • Popular service courses on climate and energy.
  • Upper level "Sea level and coastal engineering" course attracts ~25 engineering students.
  • Renaming their QES major "Computational EAS"
  • Intro to quantitative methods (2nd yr) includes Python and some statistics.
  • Earth System Modeling course has differential equations prerequisite. Upcoming changes are to be more "practical".
  • Quote: “Future grad students will take more advanced numerical methods later anyway.”
• Stanford's renewed geophysics program is described next.

Stanford University

Stanford has set an excellent precedent for curricular reform of their geophysics major. Details were contributed by D.Schroeder in response to emailed questions posed by C. Schoof. Although geophysics was their context, the strategies are not discipline specific; any QES degree specialization - existing or newly conceived - could benefit from following this model, or parts of it. Details are on a one page summary of this "Stanford model", but the key components are:

1. Two explicit pipelines for students are defined: environmentally oriented  and physics/engineering oriented. (EOAS could do something similar with more pipelines to accomodate all QES disciplines, and either career-oriented or scientific preferences.)
2. Core courses are reduced to the following bare minimum: (The ENSC program at EOAS also is structured around a bare minimum of core courses.)
   • Measurements, Instruments, Fields and Waves
   • Mathematics, Computation, Mechanics and Dynamics
   • Laboratory Studies
   • Exposure to the breadth of the department via an introductory course involving a "parade" of guests by all faculty plus a recitation using short readings & one problem.
   • A thesis-writing senior capstone
3. A focus on "teaching well" is paramount, including "polishing" core courses so they can each be taught by any (or almost any) faculty member without requiring re-invention.
4. Each student has several mentors: a faculty member, a grad student, a capstone project supervisor, and a new (paid) undergrad peer advisor each year. (The job of faculty mentor needn't be onerous - just timely and focused.)
5. Social events are important for building community among faculty and students.
6. Active recruiting and marketing efforts are undertaken by faculty members (some of which EOAS is already doing).

EOAS could take a similar approach by agreeing upon core capabilities described by how students would use what they’ve learned in each core requirement. The core could be as few as 3-5 courses. An overarching desirable capability would be that students can apply these fundamentals in a QES setting of their choice (geophysics, atmospheric sciences, etc., and applied or "scientific").

Stanford's initiatives seem highly consistent with aspirations of QES faculty in EOAS. Certainly Stanford is a different "academic environment", but their ideas are more compatible with EOAS than other schools. EOAS would need to allocate time/energy, designate a lead or "champion", and undertake honest ("brutal") evaluation of essential courses, experiences and aspirations bearing in mind the impact on students' opportunities upon graduation (including professional accreditation). This is probably possible if such a program is designed with sufficient flexibility AND significant support available to advise students early in their decision-making path.

Current EOAS courses that are capstone experiences include EOSC 445, the 6-credit project-based capstone for geological engineers which involves and ENVR 400, a 6-credit course that is research oriented and community-based.

Other EOAS courses include smaller-scale "capstone-like" activities, but a capstone degree requirement would expect more than a project for partial credit in a normal course. Currently in EOAS, the number of courses in which students engage in capstone-like experiences is summarized here, using data gathered from instructors and summarized on the learning tasks page.

Benefits and tactics of capstone experiences were generously summarized for the QuEST project by C. Hunter, curriculum consultant at CTLT, including definitions, types, purposes, benefits and keys to success. See Capstone Courses and Projects – An Overview, with 18 references.

UBC Strategic plan states that best efforts to transform education include "...engaging students as co-creators of their education". Capstone experiences are all about providing opportunities for students to take on some ownership of their own learning by tackling larger scale problems or applications.

Learning portfolios (electronic or otherwise) provide opportunities for students to gather a collection of demonstrable skills and resulting “products”, and to reflect periodically on progress towards completion of their degree. They are useful additions to any resume as they provide the kind of evidence of maturation in a discipline that is not possible with just a list of grades. Use of portfolios would be consistent with the UBC Strategic plan which states that best efforts to transform education include "...engaging students as co-creators of their education".

Landi and Minden, 2023, describe the benefits of including learning portfolios instead of final exams in a mathematics course taught during the COVID pandamic by stating that "Given the stresses that students faced during pandemic learning this final portfolio allows us [instructors] to view their growth as a whole and demonstrates to the students themselves their ability to learn mathematics".

Literature on educational portfolios articulate benefits to students, but they seem "hard" to implement and sustain. ePortfolios were being explored by several groups at UBC between roughly 2010 and 2018 (presentation by L. Write, 2014) but enthusiasm seems to have dwindled after that. Programs such as business, nursing, teacher education and dentistry have all experimented with learning portfolios. Currently, the education faculty requires portfolios for pre-service teachers. In EOAS, ENVR 200 currently has students produce portfolios (although they are time-consuming to assess), and other units have either experimented with portfolios or included other opportunities for students to reflect on their learning.

"Teaching portfolios" are currently expected for faculty as part of the promotion process (see CTLT's teaching portfolio page). Students would also benefit from producing a permanent (ideally digital) record of progress and reflection, even if only in a reduced format. Full-on degree-wide students' learning portfolios may be harder to implement, justify, assess, and sustain for larger programs, but they - or some variation of them - may be attractive for specializations with lower enrollments or in individual courses.

The course EOSC 212 currently meets one aspect of this goal; it is essentially an "introduction to scientific thinking and communication" with an engaging perspective and teaching environment. It was developed based on research about "scientific expertise" (Jones, Jellinek,& Bostock, 2012).

The settings for EOSC 212 modules change year to year but the "teaching model" is now over a decade old, so it may be time to leverage its success by considering options for updating it to
a) meet more-broadly based objectives that introduce contexts and applications of quantitative earth sciences that go beyond the current research-focused perspectives, and
b) engage more of the Department faculty in contributing to this (and other) introductory courses aimed partly at inspiring students to pursue earth science (especially quantitative) degrees and careers. More details are on the "Enhancing courses" page.

The rapidly evolving needs and opportunities of coming generations suggests a need to move beyond traditional post-secondary educational models. Notions being discussed more frequently at post secondary institutions include: • life long learning, • alternative credentialing, • increasing specialization of scientific disciplines, • diverging priorities of universities and non-academic sectors, and so on. These and topics are all worth discussing as the demand for post-secondary qualification continues to grow while knowledge, necessary skills, technologies and priorities evolve more rapidly than departments can keep up.

Are there differences between preparation for "normal" (i.e. traditional) careers versus preparation for post-graduate research degrees? One approach to addressing this apparent contradiction is outlined in Keane and Wilson, 2018. They suggest that occupational categories are evolving away from traditional disciplines because of greater integration of relevant (geo)sciences; “The ideal result [upon graduation] will be a more integrated geology and geophysics portfolio of competencies“. They recognize that robust quantitative skills are still critical predictors of success, but that other areas of focus include:

• solving complex geoscience problems with AI, ML and data science;
• data acquisition strategies, including sensors, procedures and quality control;
• a growing demand for strong geologic cognitive problem solving.

Pros and cons of considering all QES specializations as one "scientific discipline" in the spirit of the American Geophysical union (AGU) have been discussed several times in the past. (AGU includes 25 sections spanning the physical Earth sciences, all dedicated to fostering scientific discussion and collaboration rather than focusing on concerns of industry.) This notion was articulated at the EOAS Departmental Retreat in 2019 by responding to the question: "Are there any other specific opportunities to improve the specialization?" with the following succinct response: "Consider re-branding geophysics in the AGU context as including ATSC, Physical OCGY, Hydrology, planetary physics, etc.". See the summary of pre-QuEST departmental deliberations. A complete overhaul of all quantitative specializations in EOAS to fall under one umbrella degree  would be complicated. Doing so could also risk making the diversity of career and research opportunities even more invisible to prospective students. However, more radical ideas probably do deserve some consideration, if only to establish the tolerance and interest for such change within the Department.

One appropriate perspective is to re-imagine STEM Workforce Development as a Braided River; Batchelor et al., 2021 suggest that a contemporary approach to today’s science careers could look less like a structured pipeline and more like a collection of paths that change and adapt to the needs of the individual. This has a JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, includsion) perspective which has implications for "marketing" available degree programs. It is also a generally intriguing way of thinking about curriculum and how it could evolve.

In terms of precedent, there are creative degree options at other peer institutions. For example, "Joint masters in applied geophysics" at the IDEA League of universities. Also, some institutions are considering the so-called "modular" degree. This means defining credentials based on capabilities achieved rather courses taken.