Innovation
in Teaching:
Lessons Learned from the University of Montana
For Dr.
Steve Sheriff, Professor at the University of Montana, finding
new ways to capture students' imagination and engage their interest
in science is an evolving process.
As Steve
notes, "I found over the years that students need more
than traditional teaching methods. For example, I used to teach
standard whole earth geophysics classes. But now, I've switched
to teaching a broad range of geophysics in a very applied way.
Course composition has changed as well and now I use a combination
of classroom lectures (theory and physics), problem sets, laboratories
and self-directed field assignments. "
Benefits
for Students and Enrollments
The new
approach seems to be paying dividends for both students and
the geophysics program. Students are more excited by the course
offerings and enrollments are increasing. Steve also attributes
part of the success to a unique self-directed study initiative
that requires the students to perform self-designed experiments.
For magnetics,
for instance, Dr. Sheriff asks his students to identify a known
magnetic source and then go out to the field and locate / acquire
data from their source. They do all of the work independently
-- from survey design to acquisition to processing.
Over a few
years students have used soccer goal posts, cars, stacks of
mountain bikes, and the like as their known sources. Their results
lead directly to discussions on buried sources along with upward
and downward continuation."
In addition
to increasing learning retention, the self-study approach has
also resulted in "a higher quality and more interesting
set of project reports."' The students also "really
like the lab and field courses" which further adds to the
learning process.
Magnetics
as an Introduction to Geophysics
Dr. Sheriff
notes that magnetic studies are a good introduction for students,
especially for geologists who may be experiencing their first
exposure to geophysics. "Magnetics is a super place to
start for teaching. It's easy and enables rapid visualization.
In addition, it gives students a way to easily relate measurements
made at surface to the subsurface - a process that is essential
for geologists and geophysicists alike."
Students
at the University of Montana have been using GEM magnetometers
in training for eight to ten years, and as Steve notes, "GEM's
systems are pretty good and easy to train on. I make sure that
students practice in the lab before going to the field and the
process becomes intuitive quite quickly."
Online
Curriculum and Teaching Materials
As part
of his teaching efforts, he also developed a comprehensive web-based
curriculum that can be accessed online. Dr. Sheriff is more
than pleased to have other academic professionals visit
his web site at the
University of Montana to see the course outline.
It includes
a "Quick Sheet" for working with the instrument, tips
on using the magnetometer / gradiometer and other references.
It's a great start for designing a self-directed course using
the GEM 19-T proton precession magnetometer!
