0x010088F6312065A70A44B630A6848498EAD80093CFEAFE161DC94D83C7C5C9A5A748B8

Compared to the previous year (2020), the course has undergone a significant number of upgrades. Firstly, the contents of the theoretical part of the course (lectures, reading materials, and assignments) have been modified to avoid overlap with the new master course GEOG3529 focusing on climatology and glaciology as part of the physical geography education at IGE. Both courses have been designed, carried out and coordinated by Irina Rogozhina and are therefore aligned in their learning methods and outcomes to avoid redundancy and act as complementary training programs. To achieve the highest degree of complementarity between these two courses, GEOG3528 now presents a much stronger geophysical and geodynamical module, reduced and redesigned climatological, glaciological, hydrological and geomorphological modules and a new biological section on the origin of life on Earth and the links between non-renewable natural resources (gas, oil and coal), continental drift and mass extinctions (two brand new lectures and one significantly upgraded lecture). Secondly, following requests of students from year 2020, GEOG3528 expanded its MatLab training focusing on the analysis, visualization, and manipulation of environmental observational and reanalysis data from 4 x 90-minute sessions to 6 x 90-minute sessions. Due to small number of students on the course in 2021 and an increasing practice of physical teaching at Dragvoll outside lockdown periods, all course activities were implemented in a physical space as opposed to previously practiced mixed physical and virtual environments. However, the allocation of a lecture room without Panopto resulted in our inability to record lectures on GEOG3528.

Compared to 2020, the course was impacted by a generally lower number of master students registered on studies of the geography disciplines. According to the assessment across the three courses taught by Rogozhina, the apparent low in the recruitment of master students into physical geography courses was at least partly caused by the pandemic. This is clear from the difference in the bachelor student numbers on GEOG2020 in 2022 (initially 50+ students with remaining 41 students after dropout), 2021 (initially 22 students with remaining 16 students after dropout), and 2020 (30 students remaining 23 students after dropout). However, the low number of students on GEOG3528 had several positive outcomes: (1) It allowed Rogozhina to identify the most challenging parts of the course that required more extensive coverage; (2) It enabled testing and co-development of new teaching strategies with constant feedback from the learners, and (3) it promoted a new strategy for the master student recruitment into physical geography courses across all faculties of NTNU with comparable backgrounds that has been successfully implemented on GEOG3529 during spring 2022. The course coordinator will further develop and improve the student recruitment strategy throughout the upcoming semesters to increase the general popularity of the master courses in physical geography across NTNU’s faculties.Two significant issues arose in relation to the MatLab training during the autumn semester 2021: (1) Students were unmotivated to complete the recommended online training program prior to the beginning of the physical MatLab sessions at Dragvoll; This resulted in a much slower progress than anticipated; (2) Students informed Rogozhina and then confirmed with the administration that they were not working hard on MatLab exercises, because the exam did not contain any questions about this part of the course, but it would be different if such exercises were part of the exam. Thus, the overall conclusion is that much better learning outcomes of the MatLab training can be achieved by establishing mandatory homework exercises after each physical MatLab session instead of the recommended online training and by including MatLab questions in the exam. Both of these improvements will be implemented in GEOG3528 during autumn 2022. As the class was small during the autumn 2021 semester, it is not surprising that the dispersion of the grades for the exam and assignments is rather small. Even though, none of the students got an “A” as a final grade, both the outcomes of the grading and the reference group report suggest that materials taught were accessible to and understood by students. As always with the exams designed by Rogozhina (25 questions across the entire theoretical part of the course), the timely and successful completion of the exam was a matter of thorough preparation across the entire course work and an effective use of the exam time. Only one student struggled with finishing on time.

NTNU:TIA:REST

Institutt for geografi

Department of Geography

Ingen trykte eller håndskrevne hjelpemidler tillatt. Bestemt, enkel kalkulator tillatt.

Engelsk

Deltakelse ved minst 4 av 6 øvinger og innlevering av løsningsforslag for alle 6 lab arbeider.

Jordens overflate evolusjon: observasjoner og numerisk modellering 

Geografi

Geografi - masterstudium

Lektorutdanning i geografi - masterstudium (5-årig)

Natural Resources Management (Master's Programme)

Web/Lists(guid'8b698a2d-6ad0-4f7d-b3be-219cc1979f02')/Items(13726)/FieldValuesAsText

Jordens overflate evolusjon: observasjoner og numerisk modellering - GEOG3528