University geoscience teachers: apply now to attend teaching focus group meeting
3 December 2019
The European Geosciences Union (EGU) is currently carrying out a consultation on how the organisation can best support the teaching of geosciences in universities. As part of this process, its Committee on Education will host a focus group meeting on Wednesday 6 May 2020 from 17:00-20:00 at the annual EGU General Assembly in Vienna.
If you teach university-level geoscience and are interested in contributing to this consultation, you are invited to apply to take part in this focus group meeting, which will take the form of small group discussions. The aim of the meeting is to solicit a wide range of views from across the university-level geoscience teaching community in order to develop an ‘action plan’ for future EGU initiatives that will support geoscience teaching in higher education.
Applications to take part in this meeting, which will be limited to 20 participants, are invited from anyone who teaches geoscience at the university level. Participants will represent as much diversity in the community as possible (in terms of gender, country, subdiscipline, career stage, etc.).
In addition to committing to attend the 2020 General Assembly in person, successful applicants will be asked to prepare, and to submit in advance of the focus group meeting, a brief report describing their personal perspectives on the strengths and weaknesses of, and challenges and opportunities for, university-level geoscience teaching, as well as an overview of the situation in the country in which they teach. Individually submitted reports, the outcomes of the focus group discussions, and a summary of responses to an initial online survey carried out in 2019, will be edited into a single report that will be made available to the entire community through the EGU website.
Successful applicants will be awarded a bursary of 250 Euros to support travel/ accommodation. The deadline for online applications is 14 February 2020, and the outcomes will be communicated to all applicants by 28 February 2020. Successful applicants will be required to submit their reports by 12 April 2020.
Although the number of participants in the focus group meeting will be limited, all members of the university geoscience teaching community are welcome to contribute to the discussion, either in person at a splinter group meeting at the 2020 General Assembly (Thursday 7 May 2020 from 17:00-18:00) or via an online questionnaire. All of these opportunities will be advertised on EGU’s social media channels.
If you have questions, please contact uni-education@egu.eu