Geolearning forum 2024

On 7-8th of November 2024, our annual gathering the iEarth Geolearning forum, took place in Tromsø. This is the 7th time iEarth has arranged a conference on teaching and learning, and this year a total of 116 people participated, half of them being students!

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This years theme was "Education in change" with three keynotes speakers, student workshops, poster sessions and a well received session on World Café topics.

The first keynote presentation was with Pro-rector Kathrine Tveiterås from UiT, the Arctic University, where she presented the ongoing work and rewamp of the entire educational program at UiT. They've decided to reduce the amount of subjects from UiT's educational programs by removing a total of 2000 ECTS across all faculties and departments.

Next up was a keynote with our head of the iEarth research group and Prof. II in iEarth Maria Weurlander together with iEarth postdoc Carly Faber, iEarth PhDs Julien-Pooya Weihs (GFI UiB) and Rafael Kenji Horota (UNIS). During their presentation they discussed scientifically well-proven strategies for teaching and learning in geosciences. Even though quite obvious, learning is an active process, and we interpret new information using prior knowledge and experiences. Learning is contextual, social, motivational and emotional. Have a look at the presentation here (PDF).

The keynote was followed by a workshop where participants where gathered in groups with both students and staff. The task was to find a theme that was challenging within geosciences, and then design a learning activity for that theme. Here we had to focus on everything from learning goals to where should this be taught to have one should assess such a learning activity.

Next up was a student workshop lead by our national student leader Siri Tungland and all the local student leaders at Bergen, Oslo, Tromsø and Svalbard. The workshop focused around creating your dream subject at your university. There were several interesting suggestions such as travel to Bahamas, Iceland and several other exotic field locations. At the end each group was asked a question to highlight the importance of cross-subject collaboration: "Is this subject possible to carry out next to two other subjects?". The answer was a resounding NO!

The first day ended with micro-presentations of posters that were brought to the conference and we had an extended poster session followed up by apertifs and a lovely 3-course dinner at the conference venue.

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Day 2 - 8th of November

The second day kicked-off with a keynote presentation from Marko Lukic. Marko is a digital partner at HelPed and leader of UiT's AI team. He is an educated doctor with a phd in epidemology from UiT, the Arctic University. UiT's AI team is working with enhancing knowledge-based competence and use of artifical intelligence within education and research. The topic of Marko's talk was "Generative AI in Higher Education teaching and learning: Getting past the knee-jerk reaction".

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Directly following Marko's keynote was a World Café session. The purpose of a World Café session is to have several topics available, give a short presentation and then discuss. Participants can then choose what to attend, sort of like choosing from a menu in a café. Its a nice way to get feedback on something you're working on, spread an idea and let people play around with / discuss how to implement something in their own teaching and learning. Have a look at the presentation here.

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After lunch, Sofia E. Kjellman a postdoc at the Department of Geosciences, UiT had a short but important talk regarding the UiT Department of Geosciences Fieldwork Code of Conduct. The Fieldwork Code of Conduct was developed by the IG Early Career Professional JEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) group (IG-jedi@uit.no). The goals are:

1. To provide a safe and inclusive working environment for all team members participating in fieldwork.
2. To facilitate effective communication between team members
3. To ensure that all those participating in fieldwork have access to the necessary support and resources in the case of interpersonal conflicts of any nature.

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Last but not least, A. Mattias Lundmark, Associate professor at the Section for Geodidactics at the Department of Geosciences, University of Oslo and focus area leader in iEarth held an engaging workshop where we were split into staff and students with post-it notes of different colors. We were then given three questions where we first discussed with a student, then discussed the same question with a staff member. We then shared our insights in a menti. This was a good way of talking to several people, both students and staff to discuss how we for example can help new students develop their learning skills?

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Siri Tungland (national student leader, UiB) and Nilas Mikkelsen (local student leader, UiT) did a splendid job of summarizing and getting feedback from Geolearning forum 2024.

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Posters pesented at Geolearning forum 2024:

Accelerating Astronauts sparking the joy for physics

Try, T.T., Voldseth, B.H., Strøm-Hellbekkmo, S.K., 2024.

Geophysical institute, University of Bergen, Norway - ttr020@uib.no

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Active Learning in the Geoscience Curriculum (ALIGC) - iEarth SEED Report

Kordts, R., Daae, K.B., Glessmer, M., Gandrud, E., de Vareilles, M., 2024.

University of Bergen - robert.kordts@uib.no

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Using both smartphone app and geological compass together to teach structural geology: a huge leap forward?

Koehl, J-B. P., Faber, C., GEO-2002 Class Spring 2023, GEO-2002 Class Spring 2024 - jeanbaptiste.koehl@gmail.com

Promoting geoscience for the next generation - On the hunt for future geoscientists

de Alencar, M. S., Lilleøren, K. S., Lundmark, A. M., Manengen, Å., Roan, P. C. H., Sickel, R. K., Tønnesen, W. G., 2024.

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Continuous Feedback in Teaching and Course Representatives at the University of Oslo

Brevig, R. K., Fossan, J. B., 2024.

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To pay or not to pay - the importance of student compensation

Decelles, G. L., Bovill, C., Lundmark, A. M., 2024.