Associated Projects - University of Leicester

GeoPods: A podcast library for geographical techniques

In a context where the cost of field courses are a further and politically unwelcome burden on student budgets, there has been considerable reflection on the role of fieldwork on the geosciences curriculum. The useful role that the modern day fieldcourse can afford by involving students actively in research processes, has been highlighted (Healey 2005); Panelli & Welch (2005) also argue that field studies should follow the teaching of research methodology. This approach, through various forms of inquiry-based learning, has long been embedded at Leicester, where students frame research questions, design and then implement methodologies to solve them at various points during their academic career.

The openness of research topic during either a formal field course or the dissertation makes it inevitable that student groups spend some time doing the “unknown”, whether that is the use of a particular piece of equipment, a sampling method or an unfamiliar geographical process. We should also consider the “forgotten” in a field context; with no easy access to a text book or journals, techniques or concepts previously learned are similarly (if less) remote to students. The GeoPods project seeks to develop novel digital learning resources that better support students working remotely in the field, that are generic across a range of cognate disciplines such as geology and archaeology as well as geography, and that build pedagogic bridges from class to field. The work seeks to reduce what can be slow and frustrating progress in the learner, while releasing the teacher to spend more time with the students on the more intellectual challenges of the discipline.

The GeoPods project (Funded by the University of Leicester’s Teaching Enhancement Fund & SPLINT) builds on the work of the Distance Learning Alliance’s Impala and Impala 2 projects within Leicester, via the development of techniques & models for audio-visual podcasts demonstrating the use of field equipment. We aim to pioneer and evaluate our equipment library in field courses, independent study & in a new methods course in Geography at Leicester. SPLINT’s class set of video iPods will facilitate the use of such a library directly when required in the field. A library of 35 podcasts was created over the summer of 2007 by Jen Dickie, and is currently being evaluated by students at Leicester prior to more general Internet release. For access to podcasts, click here

Healey, M. (2005) Linking Research and Teaching to Benefit Student Learning. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 29, 183-201.
Panelli, R., Welch, R. (2005) Teaching Research Through Field Studies: A Cumulative Opportunity for Teaching Methodology to Human Geography Undergraduates. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 29, 255-277.

Staff involvement: Claire Jarvis, Jen Dickie