Tuesday, September 4, 2007

CUR Geosciences blog; Cutting Edge workshops announced

A couple announcements promoting groups involved with teaching geosciences and working with undergraduates:

The Council on Undergraduate Research Geosciences Division has a blog: http://curgeosciences.blogspot.com/ It includes announcements of upcoming workshops and technical sessions.

(If you don't know CUR, they promote and encourage research at undergraduate institutions and research with undergraduates. The Geosciences Division sponsors the undergraduate research poster sessions at regional GSA meetings, technical/education sessions at national GSA and AGU meetings, and workshops on getting started in doing research with undergraduates. The workshops, in particular, are open to post-docs and grad students, and are especially useful to people who want to work at primarily undergraduate institutions.)

On the Cutting Edge (the NSF-sponsored series of workshops put on by the National Association of Geoscience Teachers) has announced their 2008 workshop schedule. There are workshops on preparing for an academic career that might be of interest to grad students and post-docs. There is also going to be a workshop on using visualizations, models, and online data - this might fit with the interests of some geo-bloggers (Brian? Maybe Ron?).

(I went to the Cutting Edge workshop on Teaching Structural Geology, and the pre-Cutting-Edge workshop on Teaching Mineralogy. I found both of them very valuable, partly for the teaching ideas and partly for the conversations and connections with people with similar interests.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

that does look interesting...although I'd probably need to actually have a job teaching geoscience...maybe they have a workshop where I can get one of those!

Kim said...

Well, there were a couple people at the Teaching Structure workshop who had post-docs or temporary jobs. If it's really up your alley, you might contact Cathy Manduca and ask her about it.

If you're interested in a job that's more toward the teaching end of the teaching/research continuum, the Cutting Edge people are a good group to know. They're good mentors, and they can be good connections when it's time for tenure reviews. The workshop for grad students (and the early-career faculty workshop) is supposed to be really good, too.

Ron Schott said...

Yup, these had definitely popped up on my radar. I've previously attended four NAGT Cutting Edge Workshops:

1) Early Career Geoscience Faculty: Teaching, Research, and Managing Your Career, June 2002

2) Developing Effective On-Line Educational Resources in the Geosciences, February 2003

3) Teaching Petrology in the 21st Century, July 2003

4) Designing Effective and Innovative Courses, July 2004

Every one was a great learning experience and I'd highly recommend them to anyone interested or involved in teaching in the geosciences.

I'll definitely be signing up for the Teaching with New Geoscience Tools: Visualizations, Models, and Online Data workshop and I'm strongly considering the Geomorphology one, too.