Excellence in teaching

Dr Charter Mathison, Department of Geology and Geophysics won the 1994 Excellence in Innovation in Teaching Award and a 1992 Excellence in Teaching Award. Charter has 23 years experience as a university teacher with a subject specialism in mineralogy and petrology.

Innovation was required to deal with some of the problems of teaching the use of a microscope to determine the optical properties of minerals for their identification. Problems included the complexity of the subject and the reduction of time allocated to it; ensuring that students see exactly what is intended, often in 3-D; enhancing the efficiency of the teaching-learning process for all in a context that normally requires one to one contact with the student; engaging the students' motivation with high quality materials; and integrating the wide range of resources available to the students.

In addressing these difficulties, Charter has produced an exciting development in the teaching of geology - a fully edited integrated instructional video program (3.5 hours) which includes microscopic images of minerals, text, computer graphics and commentary. All this is supported by self-paced notes, microscope slides, photographs and a computer-aided test program 'Optest'.

Students can now all 'see through the instructor's microscope' at the same time and follow through complex stepwise procedures in a lucid manner. They no longer get lost in the detailed world revealed by the microscope - arrows in the field of view point the way. The program has allowed students access to good examples of the real thing rather than the abstract sketches of before.

Student response is highly favourable. Significant learning is taking place in the absence of the instructor and teaching has become more effective as there is more time to concentrate on other areas of weakness. Most Australian Geology departments have now bought the program and there is a developing realisation of the value of extending its use to other topics in geology. Indeed Charter is currently making more videos on mineralogy and petrology funded by a National Teaching Development Grant.

For Charter, the most important thing has been to keep a 'log' of the questions asked by students in the lab setting and to use these as a basis for analysing what actually happens during the teaching-learning process for its continuous improvement.