Priorities, summer 2020

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. What kinds of students are targeted for a rejuvenated curriculum?
  3. What changes to existing EOAS programs are appropriate at this time?
  4. Outreach, recruiting, marketing & student support or advising
  5. A new first year course

1. Introduction

These notes summarize discussions between May and Sept 2020 about the QuEST project’s scope and priorities. Factors contributing to discussions included:

  • goals and plans in the QuEST project proposal that garnered funding;
  • loosely documented options discussed at EOAS retreats in 2019 and 2020;
  • previously undocumented priorities of individual faculty members;
  • approaches to curricular review and renewal, based on post-secondary educational expertise within EOAS, at UBC, and from relevant literature.

There was some debate about the QuEST project’s goals and priorities. Were we expecting to take concrete action towards implement existing ideas? Were we to carry out “due diligence” & background research regarding the current state of curriculum in EOAS, and the needs, expectations & opportunities for BSc graduates? Did we expect to “make changes” or “recommend actions to make changes”? What combination of these ideas would be most appropriate for steering QuEST project activities?

There was certainly a desire to take concrete steps as soon as possible. At the same time, it is recognized that the challenges imposed by 2 years of COVID did delay progress. Moving forward into 2024 and beyond, the department can hopefully find the enthusiasm, energy and commitment to tackle some selected priorities. It is hoped that the QuEST project documentation offers some viable options, with appropriate background details to help justify suggestions, roughly predict costs and commitments, and inform decisions.

The following lists represent my (FJ’s) interpretation of the main priorities emerging from discussions. Rather than concrete expectations, they are lists of ideas and issues raised. They are not presented here in any particular order. If these lists are incomplete or incorrect in any way, the fault is mine, not those who contributed.

2. What kinds of students are targeted for a rejuvenated curriculum?

  1. One question often discussed is whether students would be best served by offering traditional QES career paths (eg. geophysics) or whether to offer a more general quantitatively oriented curriculum. End-members of the discussion look like: (1) “university education is not about setting up students for specific careers”, versus (2) “students should be prepared to enter specific career paths upon graduation”. The reality probably lies somewhere between these two end-members. Many aspects of QuEST work relate to this conversation.
  2. The students targeted by QES curriculum renewal will most likely be a small population of rigorously inclined students, perhaps ~15-25.
  3. Are any such students in the ENSC and related programs?
  4. There needs to be an awareness of the distinction between recommendations aimed at enhancing quantitative capabilities of “all” geoscience students versus those targeting the teaching of quantitatively inclined specialists.
  5. Care needs to be taken to avoid describing aspirations for undergraduate programs at the graduate student
  6. Is there energy and justification for developing a new consolidated degree program encompassing a range of disciplines that is both appealing and develops rigorous capabilities such as process modelling & data science? The pros & cons and costs & opportunities are still debated, but a more practical, incremental pathway may be more likely to succeed.

3. What changes to existing EOAS programs are appropriate at this time?

Discussions during summer 2020 certainly revealed a desire for concrete action soon. The following are specific suggestions. They are not in any particular order, nor are “costs” and requirements discussed here.

  1. Gradually changing content of existing courses was discussed as more practical than introducing new courses and dropping old ones. However, given the number of new EOAS faculty between 2018 and 2024, new courses will no doubt emerge.
    1. Adjusting existing courses or building new ones should not occur in isolation. Changes should be predicated by a vision & planning sequence, otherwise progress will be piece-meal and curricular flow for students may be compromised.
    2. If gradual adjustments are intended to contribute in the long term towards a new degree specialization, then courses that are applicable within the geophysics curriculum may be the most likely candidates for evolution.
  2. Could QES specializations &/or courses be consolidated into a program that is appealing and appropriate for students who would otherwise consider physics? Two examples of appropriate subject areas are process modelling and data science. There are certainly others.
    1. This would initially target ~15-25 students.
    2. Common 2nd & 3rd year, specialization at 4th year (eg solid or fluid).
    3. Consider new 3rd 4th year options in hydrology, geophysical fluids for atsc / ocgy, climate.
    4. A degree specialization name change could be considered, eventually.
  3. Engage with Environmental Sciences. Ideas include:
    1. Establish an optional QES stream within the ENSC specialization involving existing EOAS courses. Ensure it is characterized to attract and inspire appropriate students.
    2. Determine if there could be QES components as part of the Faculty of Science’s sustainability and ENSC ideas and aspirations. (T. Ivanochko would be first point of contact for such discussions.)
  4. Examine potential joint, minor or other degree or credential options
    1. With Physics? EngPhys, a minor in geophysics? Needs inspiring marketing.
    2. Math? Maybe a credential in geophysics (geophysical fluids or inversion perhaps) or atmospheric sciences (fluids or numerical methods perhaps)
    3. Computer science? Maybe less likely, unless a friendly CPSC colleague can be convinced.
  5. Who could/should be involved?
    1. A balance is needed between “too many cooks” and individuals simply forging ahead without consultation and planning. This requires careful coordination to manage varying expectations and the practicalities of curricular change within the UBC “system”.
    2. EOAS faculty will want to apply their own expertise to define learning priorities. Fair enough – also engage educational expertise about curriculum design & best practices with UBC support and with reference to precedent (the geosci and QES literature).
    3. Time and energy needed to make progress is considered daunting by some. Therefore, Departmental support such as teaching or committee duty buy-outs may be important.
  6. What are the key QES skills that students should develop?
    1. Faculty members are of course experts in their areas of discipline-specific research. However, most are under-informed about the needs of the non-academic occupations that students will take on after graduating. The QuEST project addresses these issues.
    2. Foundational concepts, tools & methods were discussed at Department retreats in spring 2019 and 2020 and are summarized elsewhere.
    3. Defining QES curriculum is a balance between generalities & specifics. “Academic freedom” is fine but students need to know what KINDS of problems they’ll learn to solve. Appropriate program and course learning objectives must inform students as well as faculty and these objectives may require examples to clarify.

4. Outreach, recruiting, marketing & student support or advising

The desire to take concrete steps as soon as possible was particularly evident regarding efforts to attract appropriate students. Here are ideas that were discuss. Many have been initiated – see QuEST marketing actions and recommendations for details.

  1. Outreach: target high schools and UBC’s Vantage college.
    1. Ideas for targeting schools were discussed – see QuEST marketing recommendations. A primary goal is to dispel the notion that Earth sciences are “soft”.
    2. Target high school teachers and career advisers, how apparently tell students that the Earth sciences do not involve much “hard science”. We (EOAS) tend to reinforce this by the qualitative nature of most first year EOAS courses.
    3. However, “marketing” to these targets was recognized as challenging and time consuming.
    4. These challenges are not unique to UBC – see for example. Lyon etal 2020.
  2. Improve all EOAS and UBC web content relating to EOAS degrees and occupations. This was done in 2020-21 but deserves as second round of improvements, ideally with advice from EOAS faculty
  3. Inject EOAS context into the (then) new DSCI-100 course taught by Statistics.
  4. Provide more substantial help for students to map their strengths & interests onto opportunities. In other words, improve advising so that students are more aware of rewarding opportunities and benefits of pursuing QES degrees.
  5. Clarify relevant industry workforce situations and opportunities for students, based on academic, government and professional societies information.
  6. Relate opportunities for physics students to QES. Start here.
  7. Increased inspiring & relevant contexts for learning in existing QES courses. This means relatively minor adjustments to content, assignments and assessments, including (for example) instigating capstone opportunities that relate to occupations students may encounter in the one to two years following their graduation.

5. A new first year course

This was considered during deliberations to be a high priority. Unfortunately, no further work was completed other than some discussion and background research about first year students in other EOSC 1xx courses, perhaps due to lack of resources and other priorities during COVID. However, the Department could now (2023) consider whether this can be elevated again to a high priority.

See the separate page for details about a proposed new first year course, including a synthesis of earlier deliberations and resulting recommendations.