Engaging the students of today and preparing the catchment hydrologists of tomorrow: student-centered approaches in hydrology education

Abstract

As hydrologists confront the future of water resources on a globalized, resource-scarce and human-impacted planet, the educational preparation of future generations of water scientists becomes increasingly important. Although hydrology inherits a tradition of teacher-centered direct instruction – based on lecture, reading and assignment formats – a growing body of knowledge derived from engineering education research suggests that modifications to these methods could firstly improve the quality of instruction from a student perspective, and secondly contribute to better professional preparation of hydrologists, in terms of their abilities to transfer knowledge to new contexts, to frame and solve novel problems, and to work collaboratively in uncertain environments. Here we review the theoretical background and empirical literature relating to adopting student-centered and inductive models of teaching and learning. Models of student-centered learning and their applications in engineering education are introduced by outlining the approaches used by several of the authors to introduce student-centered and inductive educational strategies into their university classrooms. Finally, the relative novelty of research on engineering instruction in general and hydrology in particular creates opportunities for new partnerships between education researchers and hydrologists to explore the discipline-specific needs of hydrology students and develop new approaches for instruction and professional preparation of hydrologists

Assessing student understanding of physical hydrology

“…Are there questions or tasks that could be used in place of those we have chosen to demonstrate student achievement of the goals? A well-designed pre-and post-assessment can be used to infer whether a given instructional intervention, e.g., a change toward a more student-centered and inductive learning environment (Ngambeki et al, 2012), has caused a change in understanding in a given group of students, but the results are not necessarily generalizable. Further, without broad consensus on the goals of hydrology education, the change might not be one that is meaningful to the larger community, and, without common assessment mechanisms, it will be impossible to calibrate and compare changes that result from different curriculum interventions.…”

“…Hydrology, as a field, has become increasingly interdisciplinary and technologically complex, and as a consequence there have been calls for examining, evaluating and enhancing hydrology education at the upper division and graduate level (Bourget, 2006;Ngambeki et al, 2012;Merwade and Ruddell, 2012). Hydrology education at this level is primarily intended as preparation for either applied or research careers, although not all students in these courses will become hydrologists.…”

Training hydrologists to be ecohydrologists and play a leading role in environmental problem solving

“…As we transition to a worldview in which water management seeks to better balance infrastructure with soft engineering and sustainable use of other ecosystem services (Zalewski, 2011;Palmer, 2010), we expect ecohydrology to play an increasingly important guiding role and for ecohydrologists to play leading roles in developing and implementing new and innovative solutions. For this reason, we advocate for education that does not focus solely on the professional competencies of the individual but also the personal competencies (Ngambeki et al, 2012). These include skills in creative thinking, cooperation, communication, and leadership.…”

HydroViz: design and evaluation of a Web-based tool for improving hydrology education

“…However, most engineering hydrology courses focus largely on empirical approaches and lack necessary emphasis on understanding of basic hydrologic processes and learning from field data and new observational and simulation resources. As such, the hydrologic research community has expressed the need for fundamental improvements in current practices of hydrologic education, especially at the undergraduate level (Bourget, 2006;Wagener et al, 2007;Howe, 2008;Loucks, 2008;Ledley et al, 2008;CUAHSI, 2010;Ngambeki et al, 2012).…”