Tag: higher education
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Live lecture/webinar hybrid experiment
I’m currently teaching two sections of the same introductory GIS course, one face-to-face (F2F), and one online. This morning I tried a little experiment – I taught my regular F2F class in a lecture hall as usual, but I had a live webinar version of it online at the same time. It went remarkably well,…
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Course evaluations: valuable, unvarnished feedback
I just read through the course evaluation forms that students filled out for the courses I taught last winter. There is always a delay before instructors are allowed to see them, both to prevent any rash retribution on the part of a disgruntled professor, but also so they can first be read by the student…
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Engaging new GIS students with web mapping
Simultaneously published at V1 Magazine with thanks to Matt Ball, co-founder and editor, Vector1 Media. Not that long ago, I considered “web mapping” an advanced topic, best left to be taught in a senior GIS course. While that can still be the case, depending on how it is defined, the fact is that creating a map of…
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Taking an inventory of my teaching material
I have tried many times, in many ways, to create a well-organized and complete inventory of all my teaching material, and so far it has always eluded me. I want to have one document where I can track all of my lecture topics, concepts, skills, tools, readings, and assignments. I’m not talking about all of…
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GIS instructors and teaching with technology
It’s not much of a stretch to say that most GIS instructors are likely also techies (Mirriam-Webster: “a person who is very knowledgeable or enthusiastic about technology”), myself included. It follows then, that we would also be interested in exploring the use of technology for how we teach, not just what we teach. I attended…
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Should programming be part of a university GIS curriculum?
In my last post, on GIS training vs. education at university, I referred to a paper by Fagin and Wikle (2011) who had conducted a survey of GIS instructors in the U.S. regarding perceptions of the importance of various GIS subject areas. One finding that I thought deserved its own post was that “Most respondants…
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GIS training vs. education at university
Many undergraduate university students take GIS courses with the expectation that these courses will increase their chances of finding gainful employment upon graduation. While I believe that the GIS courses I teach can help students develop marketable skills, I think that there are sometimes differing opinions between instructor and student about what students should learn,…
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Watching students write their final exam
This morning I spent 3 hours watching my students write their final exam. It’s a strange experience, as I want them all to do well, but know that some will and some won’t, for a whole host of reasons. You might think that spending 3 hours pacing around a room might be dull (and I…
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I’m going on sabbatical, not vacation
I had my last class of the term on Tuesday and will not be teaching again until January, 2012. I have been approved for a half-sabbatical which officially starts July 1, but I am gearing up for it already. The official term is “study leave”, but most people tend to call it a sabbatical. The…
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My annual GIS curriculum review
Every summer, I perform a self-imposed curriculum review of the five GIS courses I teach each year. I think about the topics included and their sequence, and which course they belong in. I make notes to myself throughout the year about what topics need work, what examples worked well or fell flat, or what new…
