Where is Einstein when we need him

In numerous musings on the subject, Albert Einstein was often dubious about the value of formal teaching. Much quoted remarks of his include: ‘The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education’ and ‘Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school’.

These observations from one of the most celebrated scientific geniuses of the 20^th Century may provide some small comfort to the current cohort of geoscience students worldwide. They are struggling mightily to study under the restrictions deemed necessary to contain the spread of the Covid-19 virus. Einstein, who ironically was a notoriously poor university lecturer, did also state: ‘I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.’

A satisfactory learning environment is exactly what universities are trying to provide for all students during the pandemic. Assuming students cannot attend in person the obvious recourse has been to hold classes online. Pre-recorded or live/interactive sessions seem popular options. The geoscience curriculum is one of the more challenging subjects in this regard because it exposes a major limitation of online learning, namely the absence of hands-on experience.

Just as medical students need to practise on live patients, so geoscientists and especially geologists need to encounter physical rocks and their formations. In this month’s EAGE News, there is an excellent description by Jon Rotzien and colleagues from the Black Hills Natural Sciences Field Station on the herculean task it took to deliver a 14-day field course to 30 graduating students this summer while complying with Covid-19 health and safety rules. Not surprisingly the authors fear that such undergraduate field camps may well perish as geology and other courses go increasingly online. 

In fact, the coping strategies of universities in this time of Covid to meet the needs of students generally has served to accelerate what many see as a coming crisis. The use of online lectures, discussions and tutorials instead of in-person teaching has raised questions about the spiralling cost of a degree (notably in North America and the UK), the value of the university experience for the world’s changing work environment, and ultimately whether it is time to reimagine higher education.

These are themes which are well addressed in a recent Times Higher Education article by Timothy M. Devinney, chair and professor of international business at the Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester and Grahame R. Dowling, professor emeritus of marketing at the University of New South Wales. 

Covid-19 is obviously precipitating a revenue crisis for universities, threatening academic staff numbers, availability of academic programmes and original research. This comes at a time when, according to Devinney and Dowling, ‘most public universities look more like bloated conglomerates than focused intellectual-capital and information-dissemination institutions that can help the economy and society navigate the future.’ Much as in the health services of many countries, the size, influence and cost of administration of universities has grown totally out of proportion to the service being provided.

Who can disagree? At the workface there is not an academic to be found who does not complain about the growing teaching load, burdensome curriculum compliance requirements checking for plagiarism, too many students leading to lower standards, and pressure to undertake research with all the attendant application paperwork and quest for sponsorship. On top of which tenure, an important part of the academic staff remuneration package, is becoming increasingly elusive as managements seek to cut costs by hiring lecturers on contract.

The academic staff seems powerless to affect change as universities the world over are increasingly regarded by governments, democratic or autocratic, as utilitarian job training centres. The cost to the taxpayer might be the ostensible reason, but for governments of many complexions this can also be a convenient pretext to limit the scope of potentially unfriendly academic inquiry and discussion.

It follows that universities are under enormous pressure to be cost effective, hence the deteriorating working conditions for academics and the exorbitant cost of a university education in some countries, notably the US. Covid-19 has highlighted how one of the favourite revenue-earning gambits for universities has become unstuck, namely the explosion in foreign student enrolments especially at English-speaking institutions. Milking the foreign student market was never going to be sustainable, and now this source is at least temporarily running dry, impacted by virus-related travel and residence restrictions. This could be especially problematic for those universities that have become dependent on this income. It may well be a factor in hastening what seems like unavoidable consolidation in higher education institutions.

Many universities are now placing their faith in providing online programmes to accommodate their students’ learning needs during Covid. Anecdotally this is not the ‘resource-lite’ option some might imagine. Online elements are not new for most universities. However, providing full course presentations, interaction possibilities, access to teachers, facilitating student teamwork and communication generally, establishing work submission procedures and marking protocols plus setting up the access technology is a big step up. As such it is labour and resource intensive.

We can probably expect universities to adopt a hybrid approach mixing the desired in-person participation with more online education materials. This of course poses a threat to the traditional academic college set up with students on campus. An added complication is the plethora of courses on all sorts of topics, supported by highly reputable universities and academics, that can be accessed free or for a fee. So-called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) – online courses with unlimited participation and open access via the web – were first introduced around 2008. They were apparently inspired by the MIT distance learning OpenCourseWare project started in 2001, which included the partly philanthropic intention of making undergraduate and graduate education materials open to all.

Since 2012 the idea has really taken off with both university and commercial participation. The availability of so much educational resource online has inevitably brought under further scrutiny the role of universities as a somewhat exclusive centre of learning and dispenser of career qualifications for students.

The outcome of the online learning experience for students is a matter of much debate amongst the educationalist community. Drop-out rates have apparently been high. Deep research, aided by latest digital analysis tools, is looking into the learning process itself and how courses can be crafted to suit the students’ psyche. This work is its infancy, so we can be sure that the online element of the student experience will endure and will undoubtedly become more sophisticated. What universities have to figure out is how to adapt the online learning revolution and balance the still essential in-person requirement for students and their mentors, not to mention practical work.

Which brings us to the plight of today’s geoscience students and those intending to follow in their footsteps. As suggested here, the traditional academic structure is becoming fragile and a different style of learning is evolving, quite possibly opening the way to alternative avenues into the professions. Uncertainty reigns.

Of more immediate concern is how flexible universities can be in transitioning their courses to meet the new understanding of the role of geoscience in society. This is urgent because student numbers at the main geoscience schools are shrinking at an alarming rate. Fabian Wadsworth, Edward Llewellin, Richard Brown and Andrew Aplin, members of the academic staff at the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, recently posted a blog on world.edu entitled ‘Earth sciences face a crisis of sustainability’.

They say the number of UK students taking A-level geology as a university entrance requirement has fallen by more than a quarter since 2014. They have no doubt that geology’s association in young minds with the fossil fuel industries is to blame. These are strongly perceived as being environmentally and ethically unfriendly and in the case of the oil and gas industry no longer a ticket to a well-paid career for life.

The Durham writers provide a vision for students of what earth sciences and geology specifically can offer in the modern era when the future of the planet is at the top of the agenda for the upcoming generation. It is worth quoting at length to remind us all of the possibilities unshackled from a long spell under the age of fossil fuels. The statement applies as much to geophysicists and other earth science disciplines.

‘The truth is that the modern geologist is interested in the formation and evolution of planets; the complex interactions among lithosphere, hydrosphere and atmosphere; the evolution of ecosystems; understanding natural hazards and mitigating their destructive potential. Moreover, the minerals and metals required to power our low-carbon future are often buried in the Earth’s crust, requiring geological expertise to map, analyse, target and extract sustainably. High-capacity batteries, solar panels, turbines and electrical systems depend on precious metals such as indium, lithium, neodymium and nickel, stored in rocks beneath our feet. Exploiting geothermal energy resources requires drilling through strata and circulating hot fluids through porous underground networks. Building wind or solar farms requires geo-engineering for stable large-scale structures rooted on bedrock, as well as materials for motors and generators. Managing water resources for an increasing global population requires models for groundwater utilization and aquifer dynamics’.

Students still need convincing, but as Einstein said, ‘We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them’.

‘The geoscience curriculum exposes a major limitation of online learning’

‘Possibilities unshackled from a long spell under the age of fossil fuels’