Active learning in large classrooms is difficult but not impossible – here is one example of an active learning technique developed for small classrooms, the gallery walk, which I have successfully re-purposed for a class of 100 (but I see no real upper limit on class size with the modified version of this activity). “In …[Read More]
The coolest groundwater paper of 2013!
What paper inspired you the most in 2013? The Early Career Hydrogeologists’ Network (ECHN) of the International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) has announced a new contest: ‘2013 Coolest Paper of the Year’ award (described in this Hydrogeology Journal editorial). I nominated Fan et al (Science, 2013) who completed a Herculean effort to map the depth …[Read More]
Co-teaching a blended class across universities: why? and why not?
This term I am co-teaching a graduate class in advanced groundwater hydrology with Grant Ferguson (University of Saskatchewan) and Steve Loheide (University of Wisconsin – Madison). In co-developing and co-delivering this course we have learned a lot – I’ll start here with our initial motivations and write later about our pedagogic decisions, software tools and …[Read More]
Why read “Water Underground” blog? And for me, why write a blog?
My reason to blog is really quite simple: to share what doesn’t currently fit into peer-reviewed articles. I will write about groundwater as well as how I research, teach, supervise and collaborate. In short I hope to cover the whole kit and caboodle of academia, from the underground perspective of groundwater. Why read this blog? …[Read More]