These are recommendations that can be applied in a single course or a sequence of courses. Some ideas are appropriate for any course, while others refer to a specific EOAS course or course sequence. A possible new first year course is discussed elsewhere.

Contents

• R1: Rejuvenate syllabi and CLOs
• R2: Enhance QES learning by focusing on “quantitative critical thinking.
• R3: Increased use of applications and context
• R4: Quantitative concepts in service courses.

R1: Rejuvenate syllabi and CLOs

Well-crafted syllabi with Course Learning Objectives (CLOs) are critical for (a) improving consistency and coherence within a sequence of courses, (b) helping students set appropriate expectations and self-asses their progress, and (c) helping instructors ensure the education they deliver remains focused on the needs of students and the discipline. They can evolve over time, but they do need to be written carefully to be optimally effective. Consistency among EOAS courses will benefit students by making it easier to compare courses and set expectations for their pathway through degree requirements.

EOAS is in fact relatively compliant (see the QuEST report on syllabi and CLOs) – but not 100%, nor are they particularly consistent across courses.

1. Why syllabi and CLOs? To …
   • publicly characterize our curriculum and each course more fully,
   • share among colleagues so they can see intentions and outcomes for related course sequences, recognize pedagogies and student products & experiences.
   • help students choose the courses they want and need,
   • ensure students set appropriate expectations about content and learning experiences.
2. To consider doing:
   • All EOAS courses need current and complete syllabi that are compliant with UBC’s standards.
   • Syllabi should be made publicly visible.
   • Faculty would ideally be reminded at end of each term (December and May) to revisit and revise – especially thinking carefully about whether CLOs are effectively articulating the expectations. Regular “maintenance” need not be onerous.
3. How? Requires
   • Departmental commitment & explicit expectations;
   • A place to keep and edit them, perhaps a standard syllabus webpage for each course with a template for maintenance;
   • Regular reminders, ideally at end of each term (December and April);
   • Use the UBC syllabus template which includes guidelines for syllabi and CLOs;
   • Engage the help of a science education specialist to assist, review and refine.
   • Evidence-based advice for what makes an effective learning goal can be found on the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative’s Learning Goals page.

R2. Enhance QES learning by focusing on “quantitative critical thinking”

Aspects to considering include changes to content or activities in individual courses in order to emphasize “critical quantitative thinking” and ensuring that students use, reuse and apply new capabilities throughout their curriculum. Specific pedagogies are not the focus here, but see also the section “Regarding pedagogy” on the methods and frameworks page.

Recommendations for adjusting degree programs are on the degree specializations page. EDI aspects are also discussed there. See also related recommendations at the degree or Departmental level. Here the focus is on what can be done in an individual course.

1. Share content adjustments with colleagues. Changing course content and learning activities is up to instructors, but consistency, continuity and strategic repetition of earlier content in senior courses depends on discussion within faculty groups.
   • This means content revision should be driven by:
     • revisiting or reusing prior learning contexts,
     • applying prior learning,
     • practicing new skills more than once,
     • making judgments or creating with prior knowledge & skills.
   • Why? The goal is to support building and retaining new knowledge, skills, & especially “attitudes” such as the habits-of-mind associated with mature, critical, quantitative and data-oriented thinking. For example, EOAS has already committed to one preferred, open-source based computing environment (Python), so that students can build upon computing skills as they progress through their degree programs.
   • Evaluating how well changes have improved student capabilities (i.e. “learning”) is a key driver of what and how we teach.
2. Focus course adjustments on fostering, practicing and assessing “process oriented thinking“.
   • It is relatively easy to check a student’s “answer” but it is more difficult to assess the student’s “process”, i.e how they got the answer.
   • Therefore instructors are advised to seek expert advice & support to develop more effective ways of (a) causing students to practice new skills effectively, and (b) assess those skills rather than the outcome or product of applying those skills. Departmental, Faculty of Science and UBC expertise can help instructors gain teaching and assessment expertise.
3. Foster higher-level quantitative thinking and decision making abilities. Recent and current research about teaching math and physics should be explored and discussed by QES faculty to determine preferred improvement options. Examples of precedent are given in the “Further Discussion about critical quantitative thinking” expanding section below.
4. Integrating computation into the learning of physics and math is essential moving forward. Future professionals and academics are already increasingly dependent upon computing capabilities when addressing problems and questions that involve mathematics and physics. This has been an issue in undergrad physics curriculum for some time – see for example Chonacky and Winch, 2008 in the American Journal of Physics.
5. Artificial intelligence and machine learning is considered by many to be a priority moving forward. EOAS does have one undergraduate course in which AI/ML ways of thinking are introduced but it is taken by very few undergraduates. Introducing these ways of thinking in smaller “doses” in courses taken more widely would benefit students’ longer term abilities to consider whether AI/ML methods may be appropriate for tackling a wide range of problems.
6. Incorporate aspects of justice, diversity, equity and inclusion (JEDI).
   • See for example to Shafer et. al. July 2023 as a starting point. Also, the AGI’s “vision and change” document (Mosher and Keen, 2021) has sections and discussions of recruiting for a “diverse and inclusive community”. “Diversity” and “diverse” are mentioned 50 and 47 times respectively. This may be more effectively addressed at “courses” level. It includes diversity of application, and awareness of potential “colonial” perspectives about data, resources and land-use decisions.
   • Articulate the notion of bridging quantitative thinking with the rights, concerns and perspectives of different cultural groups both locally and globally. Laura and Shandin are likely the first point of contact for these deliberations. Refer to Laura’s interview.
   • Emphasizing societal relevance of learning also increases visibility of JEDI issues.
   • The page with recommendations related to career preparation offers suggestions for helping ALL students (regardless of their prior experiences, family support, etc.) identify and pursue opportunities to gain relevant non-academic experiences, and succeed at that critical post-graduation step of finding the right job or graduate school.
7. UBC’s Strategic plan states that best efforts to transform education include “…engaging students as co-creators of their education“.
   • Corresponding adjustments can be made to any course by allowing students to make some choices about what they learn.
   • For example, some projects, labs or assignments could incorporate some degree of choice regarding the problem that a student solves or the task they pursue.
8. Suggestions by EOAS faculty for new courses: ideally these should be proposed in context of specific curricular goals. Search for opportunities that are equally important for geophysics, atmospheric science and oceanography students. Examples already exist, eg. EOSC 410. Suggested examples from discussions in 2019 and 2020 include:
   • P. Austin: A course that uses a text like Denis Hartmann’s Global Physical Climatology  (free if you’re on our vpn). Predicts ~15 students / yr in such a course. Example 3rd yr course taught at Washington (https://atmos.uw.edu/~dennis/321/) or grad course  https://atmos.washington.edu/~dennis/571/.
   • P. Austin: Consider broadening topics in ATSC 409/EOSC 511 (numerical methods) and offer it every year. That way, 3rd yr students experience simulation/model building as soon as they’ve completed ODEs.
   • E. Haber’s image analysis course.
   • L. Heagy’s rejuvenated applied geophysics EOSC 454, likely to be co-taught with a graduate version, hopefully starting in Jan. 2024.
   • Climate physics – P. Austin and R. White (this may be in progress as of 2022).
9. Considerations regarding new courses; asking the following questions will help ensure the course is well-placed within the department’s various curricula:
   • Is the course being proposed because the capabilities to be taught are becoming important for future occupations students will pursue? How is that known?
   • Is the course being proposed because the subject is a topic of current research?
   • Will the course be “small” and aimed at more mature students? Or is it a foundational course that provides skills and knowledge students need in their 3rd or 4th year? If the course is not a senior course, then be careful of developing a “dead end” course, i.e. one in which students learn capabilities that will not be practiced in subsequent courses.
   • Can a graduate version of the course be taught simulataneously?
   • Can the suggested course be made to become a useful contribution to the curriculum of all QES programs?
   • Is it aiming to be an elective accessible to “any” student?
   • If there are pre-requisite expectations (eg. differential equations), how much experience will be required and how will incoming students’ abilities be assessed? Will resources be provided to help fill gaps?
   • One current example is the proposed new EOSC 2xx course on geophysical image processing. How this process unfolds beyond 2023 could become a model for how best to tackle considerations introducing new courses into the EOAS suite of offerings.
10. Regarding specific existing courses:
    • EOSC 213 and EOSC 329: EOSC 213 is apparently not prerequisite for any other GeolEng courses. Consider adding some programming and/or Jupyter notebook use into EOSC 329. This should reinforce prior learning while elevating the content and learning tasks to modern, computing-oriented methods of addressing the quantitative nature of groundwater studies.
    • DSCI 100: the OCESE project helped prepare a python-based section, now being taught by L. Heagey, but incorporating Earth science oriented data sets has not yet been accomplished.
    • EOSC 212 is a successful course which was developed a decade ago based on research about “scientific expertise”, and summarized in Jones, Jellinek,& Bostock, 2012. Current learning goals target scientific thinking through • Reading and using science articles, • Communicating, • Awareness of your science learning, • Qualitative and basic quantitative data analysis, • Healthy scientific skepticism, and for specific topics: • relevant concepts & topics (varies), • Models versus data, • Working with scientific information. To leverage the success of this course, it may be timely to consider options such as
      • “Polishing” the course so it can be taught on a rotating basis by any faculty member;
      • Incorporating guest appearances from EOAS researchers (faculty, PDFs/RAs, graduate students);
      • Increasing the emphasis on “critical quantitative thinking”;
      • Adding modules that are involve “industry” or “societal” contexts to complement the current focus on thinking associated with “scientific research”.
    • EOSC 410: It used to be that either one of EOSC 212 or ENVR 300 was required as a prerequisite. Recently this constraint seems to have been removed, however some older prerequisite listings still include these requirements.
11. Consider names of courses (existing or new):  Could they make clearer why the course will be important students rather than simply stating the abstract subject? Hydrology courses have obvious relevance to student while “applied geophysics” or “fields and fluxes” etc. may seem relatively obscure.

R3. Increase use of applications and context

Suggested tactics for amplifying the relevance in individual courses

In addition to its influence on curriculum, the context or relevance of quantitative Earth sciences is also identified as a priority in “marketing” efforts. Inspiring contexts that could be used in courses can be informed by efforts to showcase the impacts of geoscience on society that are being prepared for public outreach and student recruitment.

1. Seek relevant contexts for learning fundamentals that are not research oriented. Make use of case histories, alumni experiences, the “applied” literature, and public  or press-related materials. Choices would ideally resonate with instructors’ interests, but the priority is inspiring students, most of whom will be employees, not scientists.
2. Begin a module or concept with the “need” rather than the abstract development of theory. This is because when students can relate to the context – either personally or as relevant to society – they are more motivated and learning is much improved. An effective cycle of learning involves:
   • establishing a setting to ‘hook’ the learner,
   • identifying the need for the learning that is about to begin,
   • using that setting during development of the concept and for assignments,
   • then closing the segment with something like “how as what we’ve learned made a difference to the original problem?” This last step can be done by discussion or as part of an assignment – its purpose is “reflective” and causes the learner to re-connect the new (possibly complicated) concepts with a reason for knowing it.
3. Share contexts used with colleagues teaching senior courses so they can re-visit settings students encounter in early courses.
   • Seeing more advanced treatments of problems first considered at elementary levels increases motivation and retention.
   • Learning efficiency is also improved because students will spend less time “coming to grips” with the context for their assignments.
4. Increased use of projects, capstone experiences, guests or visitors, and other tactics are discussed in the section about “career preparation“.

R4.Quantitative concepts in service courses

From two points of view – teaching for an “educated citizenry” and attracting students into EOAS degrees – EOAS service courses could do better at reflecting the quantitative nature Earth science knowledge. When a course focuses on “show-and-tell” or mainly descriptive content, it perpetuates the misconception that Earth sciences are mainly descriptive, not rigorous, and somehow less important compared to the standard four sciences (physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics). Timing may be right given the evolving expectations regarding science courses by non-science degree programs (eg Arts?).

Some suggestions for how to implement this recommendation include the following. Note that recommending specific teaching tactics is beyond the scope here, but see the Pedagogy section of our Methods and Frameworks page for some suggestions.

1. A new first year course about quantitative Earth sciences for capable students is discussed separately.
2. A “champion” is needed who (a) has interests in this idea and (b) is given time and space to promote and initiate corresponding changes. Recent adjustments to EOSC 112 represent a successful precedent, but similar enhancements should be considered across all EOSC 1xx and 31x courses.
3. Consider introducing a rotating delivery model in which all (or most) EOAS instructors contribute to the teaching of service courses every N years. Other institutions (and UBC departments) do this, and faculty who say this is rewarding claim that it keeps them attuned to students, their priorities and those of wider society.
   • No faculty member should truthfully be able to claim to be unable to teach any EOAS subject at the first year introductory level.
   • Avoid the “serial monogamy” model of teaching in which more than 3 or 4 instructors teach 2-3 weeks only before handing off to another instructor (Jones and Harris, 2012). Students may like this for various reasons, but it is not conducive to a cohesive, predictable learning experience.
   • The benefits of exposure to several EOAS faculty can be gained by introducing regular guest contributions, rather than “teaching” for just a few lessons.
4. Adjust content and activities to focus LESS on “how it works”, and MORE on “how we use what is known to make decisions affecting individuals, communities, industries and stewardship of our planet, or to understand better how our unique planet and it’s life & ecosystems work.“.
5. Revise and simplify the EOAS general goals for non-specialist courses. They date back to roughly 2010 and are not really “in use”. Specific learning goals are needed that target:
   • the quantitative nature of Earth sciences;
   • “ways of knowing” and implications for decision making;
   • notions of sustainability;
   • foundational Earth science concepts such as “observational science”, deep time, the coupling between life, evolution and how Earth works;
   • employing Earth science evidence for decision making that affects communities and long term sustainability; etc.
   • Including attitudinal learning goals that exemplify the styles of evidence-oriented thinking and maturity regarding uncertainty and incomplete data that reflect the way individuals and society must think if sensible decision making is to occur.
6. Initiate a project in which shortcomings and opportunities related to revised goals are discussed for each service course, perhaps using a SWOT approach. No need for “new” courses – the existing suit of 1xx and 31x courses are fine.
   • Seek funding such as a “small TLEF”, involving a project lead and short, focused engagements with EOAS faculty. A project goal could be: “to revise service course learning outcomes to better reflect the ways that society depends upon evidence-based Earth science information, and to generate a road map for evolving existing courses so they can deliver those outcomes“.
7. Incorporate “stories” (eg. readings) that are less descriptive and more about “ways of knowing” or “managing” for the good of communities.
   • Injecting content to address attitudinal goals may mean less “content” – but that’s OK. A climate emergency – yes – but in fact we are responsible for a whole planet, involving agriculture, population, resources, biodiversity, climate – etc.)
   • Stories should ideally be relevant to students in all degree specializations (eg, see EOAS1xx demographics from 2019, and revisit for current data).