The collection of documentation on this blog site is a synthesis of QuEST project research, interpretations and resulting recommendations. Raw data, working datasets and all other project materials, including presentations, are on the EOAS NextDrive Cloud server, at https://nextcloud.eoas.ubc.ca/apps/files/?dir=/QUEST&fileid=97739899 accessible only to those with EOAS accounts.
Goals: The “Quantitative Earth Sciences Transformation” (QuEST) project’s goals were to …
- Characterize current quantitative Earth Science (QES) offerings across the EOAS undergraduate curriculum (QES is defined under “scope”);
- Recommend strategies for rejuvenating these undergraduate degree specializations to align more closely with the rapidly evolving research priorities and employment opportunities
- Explore and initiate marketing strategies that will inspire and attract appropriate students to pursue their undergraduate qualifications that will be rigorous, relevant and rewarding in a wide range of potential career or further educational opportunities.
This executive summary has three sections: (1) Background, (2) Recommendations and (3) Comments on the nature of change.
1. BACKGROUND
Scope: At UBC the quantitative Earth science degree specializations include geophysics, atmospheric sciences, and physical oceanography, and QuEST recommendations primarily focus on these three disciplines or areas where they intersect. The environmental science program is also interested in enabling students to pursue a more quantitative focus. Geology faculty also recognize quantitative thinking skills as increasingly important for practitioners and researchers. While these programs are not specifically targeted in QuEST recommendations, many ideas presented here could be applied in their courses or curricula, perhaps with adjustments to suite different contexts. Finally, the geological engineering program, although certainly a quantitative discipline, is also not a primary focus for the QuEST project as it the constraints and priorities of BASc programs differ from those of BSc degrees.
Activity: With funding from UBC’s Advancing Education Renewal Fund and Departmental support, work was carried out between spring 2020 and end of 2023. This coincided with the COVID pandemic limiting opportunities to engage with individuals both directly and indirectly. As is well known, everyone’s capacity to engage in new activities was severely limited, other than the effort to “pivot” to the online world for teaching and research.
Never-the-less, surveys, interviews, consultations with educational experts at UBC and beyond, participation in geoscience education workshops, and background literature research were all carried out. Two professors provided faculty oversight, and work was mostly done by an EOAS lecturer and educational developer (half time), and one hired summer student, with generous contributions of time and expertise from CTLT (C. Hunter) and UBC Career Services (K. Rawes). The project’s timeline is summarized on the methods page.
Nineteen quantitative and qualitative data sets or reports were gathered, analyzed or prepared with results listed in tables of data sets and reports. Summaries of several faculty discussions are also on that page. Tools or resources built to support QuEST activities, future curriculum work or for student support are summarized with links on the tools and resources page. Many sources were used, and the 87 references actually cited are included on a references page, including some web resources. Complete reports and discussion papers that are referenced or summarized elsewhere are included as ten appendices. Finally, contributions about QuEST work within UBC and at external conferences are listed on the references page.
Frameworks: Characterizing current curriculum and generating practical recommendations for rejuvenating degree programs is best done using frameworks based on precedent and well respected educational practices. These include: • UBC-wide program renewal guidelines, • experiences from other institutions, • practical guidelines for specific tasks such as designing Program Learning Objectives, • perspectives such as “transparency of teaching practice” and • “emphasis on authentic learning”, • a persistent student-centric point of view, and • career-development priorities — all these and others are part of underlying precedent and wisdom that has informed QuEST’s review work and the preparation of recommendations. See the frameworks page for details.
Current State: To provide background and context, the “Currently” portion of QuEST documentation describes and discusses the following:
- Current degrees offered & courses taught in EOAS;
- The global nature of geoscience student enrollments and societal demand for geoscientist;
- A detailed assessment of skills students need to succeed;
- A summary of Departmental discussions about QES curriculum prior to the QuEST project.
Data characterizing the quantitative learning that students encounter in EOAS suggest that students are certainly gaining significant expertise in mathematics, physics of Earth processes, and computing. However, some courses have not evolved much in a decade or more. It also seems that courses are to some degree “isolated”. The progressive development of capabilities that students experience from year to year could be made clearer, with earlier courses being more transparent about how skills being learned will be important later, and senior courses being more explicit and transparent about building upon skills and knowledge from earlier courses.
Desirable skills: There is an extensive report discussing the knowledge, attitudes, skills and habits that students should be developing as geoscience undergraduates, to best serve their needs and those of society. The discussion is based on internal conversations and the perspectives from the wider academic and non-academic communities. The opinions of EOAS faculty and those of the wider community (including non-academic sectors) are largely consistent, although employers tend to look more for “personal maturity” and “readiness to work” while research faculty tend to focus on discipline-specific knowledge and skills.
Curriculum: An overarching theme emerging from QuEST work is the need to deliver quantitative BSc programs that balance three diverse objectives: students need to develop:
- level-appropriate capabilities to think and problem-solve using mathematical, physical and computational concepts that are fundamental to Earth sciences and the analysis of corresponding data;
- “soft” or “work-related” skills and attitudes to ensure they can successfully compete for employment (desired by roughly 80% of EOAS students) or graduate positions;
- life-long learning abilities and attitudes to leverage the rapidly advancing techniques and technologies emerging now and in years to come.
Radical change to curriculum, content, and delivery is interesting (and considered) but it is by no means the only option. See “the nature of change” below. Instead it may be easier to consider “gentle” evolution of existing degree specializations by:
- adjusting the priorities, content, and pedagogies of individual courses so that learning is inspiring, relevant, active and focused on students’ current and future needs;
- ensuring that senior courses are making effective use of early course;
- incorporating both career preparation and development of age-appropriate maturity with respect to fundamental quantitative concepts and applications;
- balancing the depth and breadth of learning that a degree from a premier research institution should provide.
It is also recognized within the Department, and more broadly by UBC and at peer institutions, that an equally important aspect of curriculum renewal is enhancing and maintaining a greater sense of community among QES students, graduate students, faculty and corresponding employment sectors.
2. RESULTING RECOMMENDATIONS
The roughly 150 specific suggested actions or recommendations are organized into 21 categories.
> All are listed on one page for convenience.
> The recommendations categories are summarized in this single table in terms of type, implementation context and urgency, impactfulness and cost.
Recommendations range from the straight forward (such as rationalizing syllabi for consistency and transparency) to the complex and perhaps even “radical” (such as re-configuring whole degree specializations). Recommendations are organized by the context in which they would be implemented, including:
- adjustments that could be made within courses;
- enhancements to existing degrees;
- changes to degree programs requiring greater commitment and approval;
- administrative or “cultural” adjustments at the departmental level;
- improvements to student academic and community support, especially regarding career preparation.
How are recommendations expected to be used? It is certainly true that curriculum belongs to the faculty. Understandably, curricula are often geared towards specific disciplinary goals, and change can be hard even if it is desired. There may even be cynicism since curriculum reform is sometimes based on fads and box-checking rather than genuine engagement (Usher, 2018). Therefore it is anticipated that an important “next step” will be to use recommendations to help clarify priorities among stake holders, using them as a starting point for discussions to clarify goals. Then a “project” can be initiated, practical plans and timelines can be prepared, and support can be sought as needed.
Marketing; Attracting students into QES degree specializations is a priority and activities were under way before the QuEST project began. Development of a new first year course specifically for students with quantitative interests has been discussed since before QuEST. Progress stalled during COVID, but there is a page of QuEST reporting devoted to recommendations regarding a first year quantitatively oriented course, including development tactics, choices of content, and how to teach it. Departmental perspectives at the time discussions stalled (mid-late 2020) are also summarized on that page.
Other initiatives started during QuEST are listed in table form with pointers to details. These include
- Build a prototype for a Canvas-based resource to support advising for all EOAS undergraduates.
- Initiate guest partnerships between EOAS faculty and the Math department to introduce climate science as a context for first mathematics courses.
- Clarify EGBC requirements for geophysics students (awaiting approval from EGBC, probably early 2024).
- Gather ideas and guidelines for incorporating as seamlessly as possible aspects of career preparation into existing courses.
- Adjustments to the EOAS and UBC websites making quantitative Earth science degrees and corresponding career prospects more visible and inspiring to students.
There are five other categories of recommendations for actions aimed at raising the visibility and attractiveness of EOAS as a place to pursue rigorous, rewarding and valued quantitative and data-oriented degrees.
- Establish a sustainable Departmental marketing strategy specifically for inspiration and recruiting, as distinct from (although perhaps overlapping with) public outreach. (8 specific suggestions)
- Attract BSc students at the time they choose their degree specialization. (6 specific suggestions)
- Showcase the inspiring things students learn and experience so that prospective students can see and understand the values and rewards of QES degrees. (8 specific suggestions)
- Foster partnerships both within and beyond UBC, emphasizing QES courses, degrees and degree-options. (11 specific suggestions)
- Engage in active outreach to high schools and Vantage. (6 specific suggestions)
- Alumni engagement specifically for providing examples of how QES degree qualifications are used in valuable and rewarding post-graduation opportunities. (6 specific suggestions)
- Enhance EOAS (and UBC) website content that targets QES recruiting. (9 specific suggestions)
3. COMMENTS ON THE NATURE OF CHANGE
Traditionally, the important variables in education have been considered to be related to content, curriculum, or pedagogy. This is a common perspective of experts in any field when they take on the responsibility of educating the next generation of professionals. This not “wrong” but arguably not complete. UBC Faculty of Science learned during the Carl Weiman initiative between 2007 and 2013 (and continues to learn) that change at any level is less about the material or practices, and more about both the academic culture of the unit (research group, department, faculty – etc.) and the “emotional nature of the process of change“. To quote Goldberg and Somerville, 2015 (their context is engineering but the point is entirely relevant in science contexts):
“… we needed to admit that the secret sauce to … [educational reform] … was profoundly emotional in nature and that words like “trust,” “courage,” “joy,” “connection,” and “openness” (the five pillars of transformation) were necessary to convey and understand the experience. And this was excruciatingly hard for a couple of engineers to understand and embrace, but once we did, we knew there was no going back. A particular simplified formulation we like is that
“Authentic transformation leads to an unleashing of students”, and that
Unleashing = Trust –> Courage –> Initiative –> Failure –> Authentic learning“
Using more “formal” research methods, Shadle et al., 2017 identified 15 “drivers” that motivate faculty to participate in post-secondary STEM education reform and 18 “barriers” that reduce the likelihood of success. Their results are summarized in two charts, and not surprisingly, both the favorable conditions and the challenges are mostly “soft” rather than discipline-specific. Also not surprisingly, “time” is by far the most commonly mentioned barrier to change – but time is a fixed commodity so this translates into “priority“. Everyone has the same amount of time – it’s mainly a matter of what you value or how you choose to spend your time.
The point is that we can make any number of seemingly practical suggestions to change courses, course sequences, a degree program or even departmental practices for supporting students. BUT – success will be much more likely (and complete) when all those involved arrive at a state of trust, recognize the courage needed, act to initiate and sustain the changes agreed upon, “fail” gracefully by learning from the experience and moving forward, and strive for “authentic student learning” that goes beyond the confines of an individual’s (or group’s) expertise by facilitating development of knowledge, skills and attitudes that STUDENTS will need in any of their myriad of post-graduation options.
Hopefully the results and recommendations arising from the QuEST project will serve as a starting point to clarify, then agree upon priorities, to trust all colleagues and stakeholders, and to initiate (with sufficient resources) changes that will ensure the quantitative Earth science degrees will grow, thrive and set a global standard for excellence and relevance for the coming generations of geoscientists – expertise the world needs urgently.
Finally – some thoughts are provided separately regarding “next steps” to follow up after the QuEST project results have been reviewed. See the next steps page.
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