AUGEN NEWS - May 2022
From the President
For those in the two-semester system, well done on another long teaching session! For me, the semester has been full of challenges as our universities and students adjusted to a return to face-to-face learning together with ongoing COVID disruptions. To those who taught or prepared courses, completed marking and student feedback, led field trips, supported your students and continued your outreach activities - well done! The AUGEN TEAM are all proud of the work you have done and hopefully you all have some time for a break before Semester 2 begins.
We have an exciting seminar coming up this week (Friday 3 June at 10 AM AEST (check your local time below) by our former committee member and ongoing AUGEN superstar Dr Jacqueline Dohaney (who recently moved to the University of Edinburgh) on Interactive vs. Traditional methods of lecturing (more details below). This promises to be a great session and perfect timing to follow up the excellent Conversations session held earlier this month.
Having made available our Members area of the website for sharing teaching resources, the TEAM is now working on a shared interactive space for discussions and building collaborative projects! News on that soon.
Can you help? Later in the year we will be seeking sponsorship to cover the costs of our ongoing web presence. If your organisation is able to help please let a team member know!
And don’t forget to complete an AUGEN TEAM member profile to be included on our website and in a future newsletter https://forms.gle/kPk5YQwFDXh4S8vD8
Best, Sandra
A/Prof Sandra McLaren
School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences
University of Melbourne
📣 AUGEN Special Seminar 📣
Friday June 3
Interactive v. Traditional methods of lecturing
Dr Jacqueline Dohaney, University of Edinburgh
8 AM (WA)
9:30 AM (SA, NT)
10 AM (Vic, NSW, Tas, Qld, PNG)
12 noon (Fiji)
AUGEN Conversations
We had an excellent Conversations event on Tuesday 17 May on the topic of A case study on student perception of online lecturing
Many thanks to Dom for leading the session and all those who attended and joined in a lively and productive discussion. There were lots of great ideas for ongoing AUGEN TEAM projects shared.
If you missed the session, there is a link to the recording available on our webpage
Conversations will take a short break - enjoy your leave Dom! - and will be back in September
Meet the Team
Professor Penny King
The Australian National University
penny.king@anu.edu.au
My current teaching role
Convenor + Lecturer - Planetary Science, Lecturer - Geochemistry
Areas of special interest/expertise
Petrology, Geochemistry, Environmental Geoscience, Fieldwork, Outreach (general public), Outreach (primary and secondary school) First year geoscience teaching, Geoscience Education Research, Planetary Science
Feel free to get in touch if you have questions on these topics!
What’s the best teaching advice anyone has ever given you?
Keep learning! Seek feedback
What do you enjoy most about your teaching role?
Seeing students and demonstrators learning about new things
What advice would you give someone starting out in geoscience teaching?
This is hard to answer. I would say the best advice is to get advice! Ask people (e.g. in your organisation's teaching unit) to look at your curriculum
What is the greatest challenge to increasing the reach of geoscience education?
Probably vocabulary (jargon) and pre-conceptions about geosciences
Which wins for you? Rock, mineral, fossil, structure?
Rock!
See all the AUGEN TEAM profiles online https://www.augenteam.net/team-profiles
WE NEED YOU! Complete the form at https://forms.gle/kPk5YQwFDXh4S8vD8 to be profiled on our website and in an upcoming newsletter!
Your Favourite Rocks?
Some recent discussion on twitter brought up the question of ‘Your Top 10 rocks’! Not surprisingly, what followed was a spirited, but good-natured repartee between geotwitter regulars from around the world.
Lists of favourite rocks and the reasons behind them may be a good activity for second or third year students as an icebreaker at the beginning of Semester 2!
However, please note that all lists should contain pencil shale - ask me why 😆🔥
A couple of great blog posts on the topic of ‘Good and Bad Rocks’ from John Faithfull (The Hunterian, Glasgow):
http://megacryst.blogspot.com/2014/01/good-and-bad-rocks.html
http://megacryst.blogspot.com/2017/08/more-thoughts-on-good-and-bad-rocks.html
Who teaches what, and where?
Help the TEAM understand the current geoscience education landscape at different universities across the region.
We have set up a google spreadsheet and would like you to check and add/edit/complete the details for the Institution where you teach. We still need to know about subject offerings at:
Monash University, Federation University, University of Adelaide, University of Tasmania, University of Sydney and QUT - PLEASE HELP US OUT!
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EMe3x0EhLFuNnqoNXGw4gg2c8KZlZkc8ddMyuBvy88k/edit?usp=sharing
We will use the data to put together an opinion piece for TAG and other professional societies
Upcoming seminars
HERDSA Webinar - Looking under the QILT: using QILT data in higher education research
Thursday 2nd June 1 - 2 pm (AEST)
Quality Indicators for Learning and Teaching (QILT) includes four national surveys across the higher education student life cycle. The Student Outcomes Survey (SES) which looks at the experience of current commencing and completing, undergraduate and postgraduate coursework students, the Graduate Outcomes Survey (GOS) which looks at graduate outcomes 4-6 months after course completion, the GOS-Longitudinal (GOS-L) which follows up GOS respondents about three years later and the Employer Satisfaction Survey (ESS) which looks at data from the supervisors of GOS respondents. For this webinar Lisa Bolton, Director of QILT Research and Strategy, will explain the QILT surveys and how institutions can access the QILT survey data for higher education research. Professor Denise Jackson (Edith Cowan University) will then present a case study of her research which used QILT data to evaluate progress in developing employability and to determine influences on graduate employment.
Presenters: Lisa Bolton and Professor Denise Jackson
Further information: https://www.herdsa.org.au/herdsa-webinar-series
WE NEED YOU! Do you have some geoscience photos to share? Email them to sandra.mclaren@unimelb.edu.au to be featured on our website and in an upcoming newsletter!
Contributions to AUGEN News are welcome! Please send your updates, commentaries, book or journal article reviews, photos and ideas through to the team - sandra.mclaren@unimelb.edu.au