Friday 20 November 2015

Seeds for Solutions, How does the past inform the future? Innovation projects from 2009/10 #KATS2015

Project Title: Bringing Real-life Court Cases to the Forensic Classroom: Problem-based Learning
Project Leader(s): Catherine Duckett, Craig Adam and Robin Braithwaite


Project Aims:
The aim of this teaching innovation project was to develop Forensic Science teaching materials from real‐ life police investigations and court cases, to be used across a number of modules on the undergraduate programme, in the form of problem‐solving and problem‐based learning sessions.

Bringing Real-life Court Cases to the Forensic Classroom - Final Report

Creative Commons License
Bringing Real-life Court Cases to the Forensic Classroom: Problem-based Learning by Catherine Duckett, Craig Adam and Robin Braithwaite, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.




Project Title: Development of a Digital Field Mapping Techniques with a Student-led E-Learning System
Project Leader(s): Stuart Clarke and Stuart Egan


This project will develop a learning and teaching system that familiarises undergraduate geoscience students with digital field mapping techniques, including the hardware and software required for data acquisition, interpretation and processing techniques, as well as the integration and use of digitally acquired field data with other digital datasets to inform the field interpretation. The system will provide the necessary platform and teaching aids with which students can be exposed to modern field-based mapping techniques that require a digital approach and that are therefore not currently addressed satisfactorily within the undergraduate courses at Keele. The project will also address how best to formatively and summatively assess student performance during the various stages of digital mapping as well as how to provide effective feedback.

The use of digital mapping techniques is not new (e.g. McCaffrey et al., 2005). Fairly recent developments in the use of handheld computers and larger-screen tablet PC devices, combined with the use of GPS technology and mapping software, have provided a new and viable way for geoscientists to collect their field data in digital format. This methodology has many advantages; in particular, the field data can be recorded into a configurable database and on to a map simultaneously. It is also possible to merge the digitally collected data with other data sets such as DEMs, satellite imagery and aerial photographs, structural measurements, outcrop scale sketches, digital photographs and rock sample data. Despite these advantages, digital mapping systems have been mainly confined to geological research projects (e.g. Wilson et al., 2005) or for use within commercial geoscience organisations2. To date, there has been little attempt to incorporate the use of these systems as part of the learning experience and mapping training received by geoscience undergraduates. This is a significant omission from the undergraduate teaching curriculum that will increasingly become an obstacle to graduate employability within both commercial companies and governmental geoscience organisations.

A fundamental objective of this project is to develop an affordable digital mapping system with linked learning and teaching resources that can be implemented within the geology/geoscience undergraduate curriculum. The system will bridge the gap, strengthen the bond, and remove the perceived differences between laboratory and field-based learning, thus strengthening not only the student learning experience but also the breadth and scope of the geoscience programmes and the employability of graduates from those programmes.

Creative Commons License
Development of a Digital Field Mapping Techniques with a Student-led E-Learning System by Stuart Clarke and Stuart Egan, Keele University is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.