AUGEN Conversations
One of AUGEN’s objectives is to encourage and support excellence in teaching and learning in geoscience across Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific. Join us for one of our regular online T&L activities, AUGEN Conversations
The AUGEN Conversations program began in October 2021, and is held every second month to discuss T&L relevant topics from papers, book chapters, conference presentations etc. These topics can but need not be intimately linked to geoscience education. After all, the aim is to enrich us mutually by exchanging ideas and concepts about teaching in general and how best to implement them. There is no need to prepare or read the relevant literature prior to meeting, just come along with an open mind and curiosity (and bring your lunch, or morning tea, or afternoon tea, depending on your timezone!)
More information on the format and meaning of the Conversations contact Dom (Domenik.wolff-boenisch@curtin.edu.au)
See our upcoming event below, with previous events - and recordings of the main topic introduction - also available!
November 2022
“Squaring the circle, how difficult it is (really) to keep students engaged. What can be done about it”
Did you miss the event? Catch up now! We recorded the session, listen here
Past Conversations
September 2022
On student motivation (and perseverance)
Let’s be frank, we all want to be masters of student motivation and have our own ideas about how to achieve it. In this Conversation, I show some tricks, which include the colour pink, a candle, an amplifier, and the Russian for ‘no’ to achieve student bliss. Sceptical? Come to the Conversation to find out how this works.
In this Conversation Dom discussed how we find out about what motivates students, and how we can use that knowledge in our teaching. Did you miss the event? Catch up now! We recorded the session, listen here and the slides are available here
May 2022
A case study on student perception of online lecturing
In this Conversation Dom presented a case study addressing the question of the importance of online lectures for student learning.
We recorded the session, listen here. The paper is available here
This case study looks at implications of transitioning live to recorded lectures, a subject that has acquired an acute importance given COVID19 and the unexpected need to move lectures online. Over a period of six years, from 2015 to 2020, a questionnaire was handed out at the end of a ‘unit’ on environmental geoscience; a ‘unit’ at Australian universities represents a ‘course’ in the European and American tertiary system. This is a 2nd semester, 3rd year core unit of an Applied Geology course meaning that (most of) the polled students were about to acquire a Bachelor of Science finishing their undergraduate studies. The students were asked multiple questions related to iLectures and their attitude towards this asynchronous content delivery approach as integral part of a flipped classroom. Provided that such a STEM unit with 40-120 students can be deemed representative of the wider student community, the findings indicate that students in general have come to terms with online lectures, way before COVID19 gave them no other choice. Acceptance rates for iLectures were over 50 % across all years, except for 2020, a clear indication that COVID19 marred the online experience, probably due to oversaturation and isolation. The majority of the students saw benefits in this asynchronous lecturing approach, irrespective of whether the rationale behind it had been explained in detail. Despite seeing benefits of the flipped classroom and recorded lectures, one out of three students preferred live lectures. This number has increased after COVID19 to 40 %, yet another sign of the negative impact of the pandemic on online lecturing. This inference is unrelated to the quality of the recordings which was deemed high. Finally, the importance of meaningful extended lecture notes to complement the recordings is highlighted.
March 2022
In this Conversation we discussed concepts explored in another classic paper ”Learning and Teaching Styles In Engineering Education” Felder, & Silverman, Engineering Education, 78(7), p. 674–681 (1988)
We recorded the session, listen here
October 2021
Our first AUGEN Conversation was held on Thursday 14 October, 2021
We began with an old (but now debunked) classic, The Dr Fox study, to approach the question:
Do teachers need to be field experts or performers to entice student engagement?
The original study was carried out in 1973 and revisited 40 years later in 2014. This is what the latter publication has to say: “From its initial publication, the Dr. Fox study evoked tremendous interest that has not subsided in 40 years as a focal piece of evidence in the ongoing debate over the validity of student evaluation of teaching.”
Read the papers here : Dr Fox 1973 and Dr Fox 2014
We recorded the introduction to the session, presented by Dom Wolff-Boenisch - watch and listen on this link. For privacy we didn’t record all of the discussion but do have some excerpts from the lively chat available here


