WWMKD?

For those of us who teach very large classes (my Intro Environmental Science course has about 650-700 students each year, and my Natural Hazards class is bursting at 150 students), it can be a constant challenge to think of each student as an individual. I think we can agree that everyone in academia is big on maintaining a mutually respectful environment in the classroom. But how this can be done effectively, if we know our students as a nameless, faceless mass?

Professors use a wide variety of tricks to get past this problem. I know of someone who teaches courses with hundreds of students (Intro Biology), and has the students make name-plates that stand on their desks at each lecture session. She then attempts to learn all of their names, and connect them to their faces…! At my age, I’m sorry, but I am way past being able to learn several hundred names and faces each term. That simply won’t work for me.

Instead, I try to focus on always being conscious of the HUMANITY of each individual student. I actively remind myself that “students are people, too.” Each of them has a mother and a father, and some of those moms and dads are pressuring their kids in not-always-healthy ways. Each of my students has a work schedule, health issues, family stresses, assignments for other courses, trouble sleeping, relationship problems – whatever it may be that takes their attention away from my course, or clouds their thinking from time to time.

It is probably MOST difficult to remember that “students are people” when you are answering the same stupid question for the 10^th time. Yes, I said “stupid question,” even though it’s not politically correct. In my opinion, contrary to popular belief, there ARE stupid questions in this world. For example, consider the following: I use i-clickers in my class (I’m not a complete fan of them; more on that in a future posting, perhaps), and one of my students once asked me, “Can I use my i-clicker at home?”

Let the full weight of that question sink in for a minute, and I think you will agree that it IS possible to ask a stupid question.

I answered that particular question with extreme patience; that is my practice. After all, what do I know about this student’s life…? Maybe he didn’t get any sleep last night because he works a graveyard shift. Or maybe he’s got a lot on his mind because he just got kicked out of his house, or his mom is dying of cancer. There are many reasons why people ask not-very-brilliant questions from time to time. I make sure that my answer doesn’t make my students feel that THEY are stupid, although I might gently hint that the question itself could have been better thought-out.

To help me remember the life pressures and humanity that lies behind each student’s classroom face, I carry around in my head a screening tool that I call WWMKD?, which stands for, “What Would My Kid Do?”. For those who don’t have kids, or those whose kids are still little, this will obviously be difficult to apply. But my oldest is now 21, so for the past five or more years she has been a pretty good analogue for my students. This does not mean that I treat my students like children, nor that I think of them as if they were my own kids (please, no!). It just reminds me that each one of them is an individual young person (for the most part), with the same types of pressures and concerns that my own children are facing.

So if my TAs and I take more than a week to hand back marked work, in my head I can hear my kid (and therefore my students) saying, “Mom, why hasn’t my prof posted our marks yet? I’m so worried about my grade – I won’t be able to sleep until I find out what I got on that paper.” I think about how I would feel, as a parent, to know that my kid is losing sleep over this, and I try to hustle our processing of the papers as much as possible.

If I am tempted to give a very weighty assignment at a time when I know students will have other course work due, I can hear my kid saying, “Mom, I can’t stay up any more to finish this assignment – I’m just too exhausted.” And I think about tweaking my scheduling just a bit.

If I am losing patience with answering yet another of those not-so-brilliant questions, I remember how complicated and daunting this institution looked to my own child when she first started as an undergraduate. I try to give them just a bit of leeway, since I know that they are still working at conquering the complexities of university life.

I don’t think this WWMKD approach harms my “bottom line” in terms of maintaining high academic and behavioral standards in my courses. Just as for my own kids, I never pass up an opportunity to remind my students that clearer thinking, better efforts, and higher-quality work is always desirable, and pretty much always possible no matter what pressures you are facing. But it helps me to remember that none of us is perfectly brilliant or brilliantly perfect all the time, and we all – even students – have burdens to carry.

Barbara Murck is a Geologist and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga as well as a Wiley author.

Investigating 3 Hazards of 2010

Investigating 3 Hazards of 2010:
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland, and the Haiti Earthquake
Submitted by Joseph Kerski

http://edcommunity.esri.com/arclessons/lesson.cfm?id=537

Investigating Three Hazards of 2010: The Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Eyjafjallajokull Volcano, Iceland, and the Haiti Earthquake This 30-question lesson invites exploration of three 2010 hazards using GIS as the investigative tool. Each hazard uses progressively more robust GIS tools and invites deeper exploration. (1) What is the difference between natural hazards and human-caused hazards? What are three hazards that caused much devastation and destruction in 2010, and why? Which of the three were natural hazards, and which were human-caused? What are the “gray areas” between natural and human-caused hazards? (2) What are the geographic components of hazards? How can GIS help us understand the causes and impacts of hazards? (3) What were the chief causes, impacts, location, movement, and spatial pattern of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland, and the earthquake in Haiti?

Joseph Kerski is a Geographer and Education Industry Curriculum Development Manager at the Environmental Systems Research Institute, Inc. (ESRI).

GeoDiscoveries: Formation of Midlatitude Wave Cyclone

In addition to providing quality textbooks and course content, Wiley offers an excellent media library of GeoDiscoveries that include content animations and comprehension activities.  These media tools will aid students in visualizing concepts over time and space and test their understanding using geographer’s tools.  Check with your Wiley representative to ask about the library of GeoDiscoveries that may accompany your course textbook.

An often difficult concept to visualize is the formation of a Midlatitude wave cyclone.  In honor of the Weather Riddle post, this animation will aid students in visualizing this dynamic, natural process so that it does not seem like a weather riddle itself.

Weather riddle: Canada, radar, and which geography?

Weather is a staple of every physical geography course, it is the theme for entire courses on its own, and it even anchors the entire discipline of meteorology.  Weather is also mentioned in regional and human-environment contexts, as a catalyst for many natural disasters that afflict human societies.  Yet, is weather ever conceived of as a socio-cultural product?  Surely a natural phenomenon, but when studied is altered by human knowledges and activities?

An author from the Atlantic has become recently smitten with the unique weather patterns expressed in radar images from our North American neighbors to the north.  Introducing the subject with a touch of refreshing humor, “A Weather Anomaly I love” and “Those Wacky Canadians and Their Oddball Weather” offers some very interesting alternatives for our sections on atmospheric weather systems.  The twist comes with why these weather systems appear the way they do on radar images – it actually has little to do with atmospheric systems after all!

Discussion Questions:

1. First impressions:  any guesses or suggestions to what is behind these summertime compact, discrete circular systems?
2. What might be particular about the regional and physical geography of Canada in July to produce these types of weather systems?  Think about latitudinal influences on air temperature, masses, the position of the jet stream, topography, etc.
3. What implications does the placement of radar stations have on the ultimate patterns and perceptions of weather systems?

NatGeo photos of UNESCO’s newest natural World Heritage sites

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known ubiquitously as UNESCO, has recently added 21 new ‘natural’ landscapes to its World Heritage List.  As tribute, National Geographic has created a slideshow of stunning photos of these ‘natural wonders.’

Enjoy.

Disastrous Playlist (Redux)

Pursuant to my posting from last week concerning My Disastrous Playlist, I am posting the whole list of songs that I have put together for use during the breaks in my Natural Hazards class. I have added a couple of the suggestions provided by commentators, too – thanks!

James, I’m saving your suggestions for my Environmental Science playlist – stay tuned for that, or maybe you can post yours…? But I also like the idea of using songs to introduce specific lecture topics. How about this one for your insolation lecture: Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas) by They Might Be Giants, which I discovered while researching one of the other suggestions. I haven’t actually listened to it yet, but the lyrics start out:

The sun is a mass of incandescent gas
A gigantic nuclear furnace
Where hydrogen is built into helium
At a temperature of millions of degrees

Yo ho, it’s hot, the sun is not
A place where we could live
But here on earth there’d be no life
Without the light it gives

Again my disclaimer for using the playlist – you need to actually LISTEN to all of these before you play any of them in your classroom. I have vetted them fairly thoroughly for overtly objectionable language, but everyone has different levels of tolerance. The range of musical styles represented here is very broad – everything from punk to alternative, hip-hop, reggae, inspirational, jazz, and traditional music. You have to decide what to play based on your own level of comfort and your students’ sensibilities.

But they’re all fun! So here’s my complete Disastrous Playlist – so far – along with the name of the album in parentheses; it’s in some kind of semi-alphabetical order, as per iTunes. By the way, so far Bob Dylan and Sufjan Stevens are tied for the most songs on the list:

1. Volcano by The Akkademiks (The Akkademiks….ROCK! And by the way, this is an entire album of geologically-themed songs. They have other-themed science albums, too, hence the band’s nerdy name.)
2. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) by The Arcade Fire (Funeral)
3. Los Angeles Is Burning by Bad Religion (The Empire Strikes First)
4. Volcano by Blues Machine (The Blues Tribute to Jimmy Buffett)
5. Shelter From The Storm by Bob Dylan (The Essential Bob Dylan – Disc 2)
6. Hurricane by Bob Dylan (The Essential Bob Dylan – Disc 2)
7. The Levee’s Gonna Break by Bob Dylan (Modern Times)
8. Black Diamond Bay by Bob Dylan (Bob Dylan: The Collection)
9. I Feel The Earth Move by Carole King (Tapestry)
10. 20 Year Flood by Chris Velan (Twitter, Buzz, Howl)
11. Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah)
12. London Calling by The Clash (London Calling)
13. Volcano by Count Basie & His Orchestra (The Classic Swing Collection)
14. Landslide by The Dixie Chicks (Home)
15. Riders on the Storm by The Doors (L.A. Woman)
16. Flood by Eleven Fingered Charlie (Owl Hollow Acoustic Sessions)
17. Landslide by Fleetwood Mac (The Very Best Of Fleetwood Mac)
18. The Lightning Storm by Flogging Molly (Float)
19. End Of The World by Great Big Sea (Rant And Roar)
20. Warning by Green Day International Superhits)
21. Storm by Gregory Isaacs (One Man Against the World: The Best of Gregory Issacs)
22. Volcano by Jamaican Steel Band (Steel Drums of the Caribbean, Vol. 2)
23. Fire And Rain by James Taylor (Sweet Baby James)
24. Flood by Jars of Clay (Jars of Clay)
25. Willow by Joan Armatrading (Love and Affection: Joan Armatrading Classics 1975-1983)
26. Electrical Storm by Joseph Arthur (Nuclear Daydream)
27. Down In the Flood by Mark Selby (Mark Otis Selby…And the Horse He Rode In On)
28. Red River Flood by Murray McLauchlan (Songs from the Street: The Best of Murray McLauchlan)
29. Volcanoes by Povi (Life In Volcanoes)
30. End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine) by R.E.M. (Document)
31. Riders On the Storm by Snoop Dogg featuring The Doors (Riders On the Storm – Fredwreck Remix)
32. Decatur, or, Round of Applause for Your Step-Mother! by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise – and yes, I know that’s not how it is spelled – you’ll have to talk to Sujan Stevens about it…)
33. Prairie Fire That Wanders About by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise)
34. The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise)
35. The Avalanche by Sufjan Stevens (Illinoise – who would have guessed that Sufjan Stevens would have so many disaster-themed songs…?)
36. Galveston Flood by Tom Rush (Take a Little Walk With Me)
37. Wasn’t That a Might Storm by Tom Rush (New Year)
38. New Orleans Is Sinking by The Tragically Hip (Yer Favourites – Disc 1)
39. Electrical Storm (William Orbit Mix) by U2 (The Best of 1990-2000)
40. Volcano Girls by Veruca Salt (Eight Arms to Hold You)
41. Deluge by Wayne Shorter (Juju)

Barbara Murck is a Geologist and Senior Lecturer in Environmental Science at the University of Toronto, Mississauga as well as a Wiley author.

Fieldwork Videos

Geographer Joseph Kerski is using YouTube to post videos from his fieldwork, workshops, and work with GIS technologies.  Videos range from wind farms, lava rocks in Idaho, red soils in Oklahoma, GeoCaching, and Geotechnologies in Education.

URL: http://www.youtube.com/geographyuberalles

How do you share photos and videos from your field work/travels?

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