Teaching geologists programming
Description:
Context
The learning design described here is to be used in the 10 ECTS course Geoelektromagnetism and Numerical Methods, which is an obligatory 2nd year course at the Department of Geoscience, Aarhus University. About 20 students attend each year, constituting a mix of geology and geophysics students. Specifically, the learning design described here is intended for the part of the course covering Numerical Methods (8 weeks, ~5 ETCS). This part of the course includes theory and hands-on exercises on numerical methods, and consists of a combination of lectures given by an instructor (2 x 2h per week) and theoretical exercises supervised by a teaching assistant (TØ; 3h per week). The final assessment is an oral exam where the list of questions is given beforehand.
Learning design
In order to develop self-efficacy and promote deeper learning and peer-interaction, I explore the possibility of adding new out-of-class activities, as a complement to existing lectures and TØ. These activities will mainly be implemented as online e-tivities, and I will follow the 5-stage model by Salmon (2011), in order facilitate a successful online learning experience for the students. In the first week of the course, the online e-tivities will focus on stage 1 and 2: 1) familiarize the students with the digital learning tools (discussion boards in Blackboard, making a tablet cast), and 2) promote interaction between students, whereas all following weeks will have e-tivities on stage 3-5: 3) information exchange, 4) knowledge construction, and 5) development.
Intended Learning Outcomes:
- Calculate algebraic expressions numerically, including interpolation, differentiation and integration, as well as solve equations.
- Produce curve and surface plots of mathematical functions and observed data in regular grids, read and write data on disk files, and fit analytical expressions to such data.
- Write, debug and apply elementary Matlab code in connection with the above-mentioned learning goals.
- Solve simple differential equations numerically.
- Combine and relate these electromagnetic and numerical methods for solving geoscientific problems.
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Out-of-class preparation |
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Text book |
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Read ↓ |
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N/A |
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In-class |
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Blackboard forum screencasts |
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Student-led repetition: |
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Peer-feedback, instructor will also be available and moderate the discussion |
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Textbook |
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Lecturing + hands-on exercises ↓ |
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Instructor |
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out-of-class online activity |
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Text book |
→ |
Post a screencast for online discussion, based on online E-tivity. Challenge at least two other posts. |
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Peers, TA, |
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Additional information
Example of Out-of-Class E-tivity:
Deadline for uploading is Friday, deadline for commenting is Monday April 1st, 11:15.
Duration approx. 1.5 hour
Introduction: This e-tivity follows up on our lecture on structural programming (decision statements like ‘if’ and loops like ‘for’ and ‘while’). In the lecture you have seen examples of these statements and how they are implemented in MATLAB.
Purpose to develop a code that uses structured programming (e.g. for, if, while) and post it for online discussion.
Task (deadline Friday)
Review the examples of code presented in the lecture slides from this week.
Develop a code, including at least one decision statement and one loop, choose ONE of the following levels (from easy to difficult):
- LEVEL 1: make a code to print numbers from 1-12, but skipping number 7
- LEVEL 2: make a code to plot 6 circles in one figure. Let one be blue and the rest red.
- LEVEL 3: come up with an example yourself of a code that uses at least one loop and one if statement.
Prepare a 2 min pitch to explain the main functionality of your code.
Make ONE slide in PP to support your pitch.
Record your pitch (audio, no video), maximum length 2 min
Post your file (can simply be the PP file) in the Blackboard discussion board 'W9 - Structured programming' in a new thread.
Respond (deadline Monday before lecture)
Comment on at least one other post: was the content of the pitch clear and would the code produce the intended result?
Voice-over in Powerpoint: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8u_QDZLqMs
This youtube video explains how to add audio to a PowerPoint slide, but feel free to use any other software if you like.