WHAT SHOULD WE BE TEACHING IN INTRODUCTORY GIS AND REMOTE SENSING COURSES?

At the 2010 On the Cutting Edge workshop on Using GIS and Remote Sensing to Teach Geoscience, we asked a panel from academia, government, and industry to develop a profile of the ideal student coming out of an introductory GIS or remote sensing course (http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/gis/outcomes.html). A strong consensus emerged that provides important guidance for those who teach GIS and remote sensing. Not surprisingly, everyone's lists include basic competence in GIS or remote sensing software skills, plus a functional knowledge of fundamentals. What is more interesting is that all of the lists emphasize competences beyond nuts and bolts and a basic knowledge of GIS and remote sensing, as listed below.

Independence. Students should be doggedly persistent, self-sufficient, and able to: 1) find/obtain/download GIS/RS datasets and prep them for GIS/RS analysis; 2) find and interpret metadata and deal with missing metadata; 3) troubleshoot projection and coordinate system issues; 4) figure things out on their own, find answers to their own questions, and use Help menus, books, and online resources effectively; 5) collect data independently in the field and integrated it with a GIS; 6) design and carry out or manage a project effectively.

Critical thinking. Students should be able to 1) evaluate the qualitative/quantitative uncertainty and limitations of data; 2) schematically diagram what is happening to data in a particular analysis and analyze how that influences interpretation of results; 3) carry out hypothesis-driven analyses involving spatially referenced data, interpret results, marshal evidence, and analyze uncertainties and limitations of interpretations; 4) work out how a particular technique could be used in other analyses and with other data; 5) critically analyze existing maps.

Communication. Students should be able to: 1) structure a public presentation and identify and present to diverse audiences; 2) create attractive, informative, clear, and cartographically correct maps.

If the focus of a course is on teaching techniques using step-by-step instructions with data provided by the instructor, students will not achieve many of the important goals listed above. GIS and remote sensing courses should incorporate practice in these critical skills as an integral part of the course.