|
|
Global Change I Course: A Technology-Enhanced, Interdisciplinary Learning Environment
|
|
Discussion 2. Faculty views on computer-dependent learning activities
As mentioned earlier, the instructors indicated that the advantages of using computers in any particular learning activity are threefold. Tim Killeen, professor of Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences, used an activity where he asked students to measure the ozone column abundance of a particular region and relate those measurements to the meteorology of that region. He and his colleagues believe that by using technology to collect and analyze data students will: a) develop a better understanding of how these two things (regional ozone abundance and meteorology) are related because they will have investigated the relationship in a hands-on fashion, b) not be distracted from gaining this meaningful understanding by digressional calculations and graphing, and c) gain first-hand knowledge of the tools used to achieve this understanding. He also believes in the power of real world data and explained how real-time data sets from the United States Geological Survey provide the data for the models that students are constructing in class.
Tim: We study the Great Lakes and get real-time data sets from the USGS sensors measuring the water flows down the tributaries, the pH and the sediment loading. We put that into a model and build a real-time interface, so students can then come in for their term projects and say, "Now I'm in this Collaboratory space [a user-driven web environment that offers interactive access to global or regional datasets], in Houston, Texas, with all of these data sources. I can either do an experiment in one of these rooms where I'm measuring, say, an ozone column abundance, and relating it to meteorology of the region, or I can use the Collaboratory as a tool to get access to these multiple data sources, and the expertise that's in the Collaboratory."
These same kinds of models can be run using real-time, real-world data from the fields of space and upper atmospheric science, according to Luis, a graduate student who develops the course website.
Luis: We're looking at space science or upper atmospheric topics. We take data sets that are available there, simplify them somewhat, and build a lab around them. So we try to give sort of real-world examples about what scientists are concerned with at this current time, and then let the students investigate it themselves.
Below, a central administrator expands further on the value of using real world data. He says that the use of the web in the Global Change course is not just a way of delivering information. It also trains students how to use tools that allow them to manage an "information explosion." This training is crucial to their future capacity to understand the science and public policies that affect the environment, according to him.
Central administrator: The success of the course hinges on its ability to provide students with an enormous range of primary sources and fresh research about global change, about the climate, global warming, about the efforts to measure environmental change. It also gives them the ability to sort through that research and these sources in an effective way, so that the students can take that information and turn it to their own learning purposes. It's a place where they're managing vast amounts of data and making it transparently accessible so the students can use it to do stuff they want to do inside the class. There are, of course, many other kinds of teaching that don't need the type of information that the Internet provides. You may have the seminar or books. But the Global Change course, I think, shows how the ability to manage an explosion of information [through the ability to manage on-line information] is crucial to certain courses in science and public policy.
Dan Mazmanian, Dean of the School of Natural Resources and the Environment, reiterated that students can use technology for their own learning purposes. He believes the Internet is the tool providing them "ready access to all the other information" they need to "pursue a line of inquiry" independently.
|
