Tag: pedagogy
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Model GIS Curricula
I thought I would follow up yesterday’s post on ESRI technical certification and my GIS curriculum with a discussion of the UCGIS Geographic Information Science and Technology Body of Knowledge project. I don’t think that ESRI is in any way intending their certification program to be a model curriculum for the entire field of GIS, but it got me…