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  Investigating the Pedagogical use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geoscience Fieldwork Education


   Faculty of Health

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  Dr F Tracy  No more applications being accepted  Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

About the Project

School / Faculty: Education / Education Health and Community
Project Title: Investigating the Pedagogical use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Geoscience Fieldwork Education
Project Supervisory Team: Dr Fran Tracy, Prof. Tim Stott, Dr Karl Jones, Dr Andrea Mallaburn
Application Deadline: 22nd April 2016

Studentship Description:
This PhD project focuses on the use of web-based and mobile technologies to support geoscience fieldwork and geoscience education. This involves the use of virtual environments for the enhancement of ‘real’ fieldwork to support student’ learning (Fletcher et al. 2007; Stott, 2015). Recent development of a Virtual Alps Field Guide at LJMU presented real field data from primary and secondary sources to scaffold the analysis of data carried out by undergraduate students (Litherland and Stott, 2012). This PhD would continue the development of online field guides with the aim to foster ‘expert-like’ reasoning in students and engage them deeper in inquiry by contributing their own data to the site (Tracy & Jordan, 2012; Stott, 2015).

As part of the development of virtual field sites there is potential for the use of accessible mobile technologies to involve students in inquiry-based learning by enabling them to lead their own activities and act as ‘author’ in knowledge building activity (Healey and Jenkins, 2009; Little, 2010). Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), popularly called ‘drones’ show great potential for use in geologic fieldwork and teaching (Jordan, 2015) as remotely operated aerial vehicles that can collect data for aerial surveys, field mapping and monitoring.
Research for this project will ethnographically explore the learning experiences of undergraduate geosciences students at university, home and out in the field. The focus for observation will be on the role that UAVs play in structuring and enabling fieldwork activity and the effect of new forms of data collected from this technology on subsequent student inquiry and analysis.

Overall the focus of this project will be to investigate:
1) The role that fieldwork plays in learning about geoscience
(2) How virtual field guides can better support authentic learning
(3) The role which unmanned aerial vehicles can play in facilitating student participation in learning as knowledge construction.

This studentship scheme offers a valuable opportunity to study for a PhD while teaching in subjects broadly related to the PhD research.
As a GTA, the student will work with academic staff in a range of teaching, learning and assessment activities to support student learning for up to 180 hours in each academic year. These activities include supporting lectures, leading seminars, providing tutorial support, demonstrating in practical classes, marking student assessments and exam invigilation. GTAs will undertake a programme of teaching and learning skills development during the first year, and will be encouraged to attend a range of researcher development sessions in line with the Vitae Researcher Development Framework (https://www.vitae.ac.uk/vitae-publications/rdf-related/researcher-development-statement-rds-vitae.pdf ) throughout their three years of study.

Applicant requirements:
Applicants should hold an undergraduate degree (2.1 or 1st class) in Education, Sociology, Geography or related discipline or a relevant Masters degree. Experience of using mobile technologies is highly desirable along with an understanding of internet based educational environments. The project will employ a range of data collection techniques, including ethnographic observation and online data tracking, therefore the candidate should have confidence/experience in both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis.
Contact details: To enquire about this project or for any further information please contact Dr Fran Tracy ([Email Address Removed]) with the subject heading GTA STUDENTSHIP.
Application process:
The Admissions Team can be contacted for information on PhD application procedures at: [Email Address Removed] and 0151 231 5340.

PhD information for the School of Education is online at: https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/study/courses/postgraduates/school-of-education-postgraduate-research
Applications can be made online at: https://uaf.ljmu.ac.uk/


Funding Notes

Studentship covers full tuition fees (UK/EU students), £1500 yearly bench fees; a bursary in line with the rate set by the Research Council UK (RCUK) per annum, currently £14,296.

References

References for further information:

Fletcher, S., France, D., Moore, K. and Robinson, G. (2007) Putting technology into fieldwork education: A pedagogic evaluation. Journal of Geography in Higher Education 31, 2, 319 – 330.

Healey, M., & Jenkins, A. (2009). Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. Higher Education Academy. Retrieved from http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/ resources/publications/DevelopingUndergraduate_Final.pdf

Jordan, B.R. (2015) A bird’s-eye view of geology: The use of micro drones/UAVs in geologic fieldwork and education, GSA Today, 25:7, 50-52.

LJMU Virtual Alps 2.0 (2015) [Online] http://redtech.ljmu.ac.uk/projects/virtualalps/index.html (last accessed 13/02/15)

Litherland, K. & Stott, T. (2012) Virtual Field Sites: lossess and gains in authenticity with semantic technologies. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 21: 2, 213-230.

Little, S. (2010). Inquiry-based learning in the social sciences: A meta-analytical study. CILASS (Centre for Inquiry-based Learning in the Arts and Social Sciences), University of Sheffield. Retrieved from http://www.shef.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.122795!/file/IBL_in_Soc- Sci-FINAL.pdf

Stott, TA. (2015) Design, Development and Evaluation of VirtualAlps 2.0: A Semantic Web Based Virtual Field Guide for teaching Level 6 Geoscience. In Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Education and eLearning (EeL 2015), organised by Global Science and Technology Forum. Bangkok, Thailand, 14-15 September 2015, 124-128.

Tracy, F., & Jordan, K. (2012). Students as designers of semantic web applications. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 21(2), 171-188.