Dear Earth educator,
The 2020 Rendezvous Planning Committee is pleased to announce that the Online Earth Educators' Rendezvous program and registration are now available! The Online Rendezvous will take place online via Zoom from July 13-17, 2020, and will feature a mix of multi-day (M-W and Thu-Fr) workshops with synchronous and asynchronous aspects, afternoon mini-workshops, roundtable discussions, plenaries, and a contributed program.
2020 Online Earth Educators' Rendezvous
- The Program is designed to maximize synchronous times that are appropriate across multiple time zones.
- There will be a one-hour break between morning and afternoon programming.
- Morning workshops will meet for two or three consecutive days.
- Workshops are interactive, with participants learning from experts and from one another in formats that build on research-based pedagogies. You will have an opportunity each day to synthesize ideas from the afternoon sessions and put them to use in your own institutional context. These sessions feature time to work on your own introductory or upper-division course, to plan new ways to strengthen your program, or to focus on a particular teaching skill.
- During the afternoon, you can pick from a mix of mini-workshops, roundtable discussions and/or contributed talks or teaching demonstrations. These sessions allow you to sample areas where you have specific needs or interests. Sessions will range from a focus on program or curricular change (e.g. adding service learning or sustainability education) or techniques to address broad challenges faced by our community (e.g. increasing the diversity of your graduates). The contributed program committee will select oral and poster presentations and will arrange them into a set of themed sessions. The contributed program will be open to all registered Rendezvous participants.
- The formal program includes two plenary speakers, which will give you the opportunity to hear from experts who bring to light new ways of thinking about Earth related topics, ways of teaching, and interdisciplinary perspectives; all registrants will be able to attend the plenaries as long as they're registered for at least one day of the Rendezvous.
- We have responded quickly to challenges we are all facing due to the current pandemic, and now offer a workshop that specifically addresses this: Teaching your upper-level course online: A Community Collaboration to build robust online Geoscience courses, as well as a roundtable discussion on transitioning to teaching online.
- We anticipate that there may also be some supplementary programming in the evening for specific groups of participants (e.g., graduate students, geoscience education researchers).
- Register for any number of days you wish; if you register for four days, your fifth day is free!
- NAGT members receive $100 off registration. If you're not a member, you can join today!
- Registration stipends/awards are available for the following workshops:
- Preparing for an Academic Career
- Creating Inquiry-Based Labs for Introductory Geology Courses
- Teaching for a Changing World: Water resources and melting ice
- Participants will be emailed a link for their workshop(s) and afternoon events prior to their start date; detailed information about how to connect and participate in the online events is forthcoming.
Register for Online Rendezvous today and join us for this unparalleled professional development opportunity!
Sincerely,
Caroline Smith
On behalf of the 2020 Rendezvous Planning Committee