Mirjam Sophia Glessmer

Tag: teaching

Reflections on reflections

November 15, 2016
When we think about reflections in water, we usually think of calm lakes and trees on the shore opposite to us. Or clouds. Or at least that’s what I think…
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Facilitating student group work

May 18, 2015
Grouping students together for collaborative work is easy, but how do we make them work as a team? Collaborative learning is often propagated as the ultimate tool to increase learning…
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Rogue waves in a bath tub

November 29, 2013
Trying to create rogue waves in the bath tub of the infamous “red house”. As a part of their projects, students in the CMM31 in Isafjördur course had to conduct…
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Examinations via Skype.

October 18, 2013
My experience with an examination via Skype. In 2012, I taught two lectures via Skype at the University Centre of the Westfjords, while actually physically sitting in Norway. That experience is…
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Hydrothermal springs

October 16, 2013
Hydrothermal springs that you can visit without a deep-sea submersible. When teaching about hydrothermal springs, I usually use a video a friend of mine took of hydrothermal vents on the…
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Why do we get an Ekman spiral?

October 11, 2013
Visualizing an Ekman spiral using a deck of cards. To state this right upfront: this post will not explain why the surface layer is moving at a 45 degree angle…
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Q&A pairs

October 10, 2013
Have students group in pairs, develop and answer questions. It is really hard to come up with exam questions (or even just practice questions) that have the right level of difficulty…
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Interference of waves.

October 7, 2013
Movie on wave interference – two wave fields arriving perpendicular to each other, interacting and leaving. When talking about waves, it is often difficult to explain that wave heights of…
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Standing waves.

October 6, 2013
A seesaw to visualize how standing waves move in an enclosed basin. In enclosed basins, standing waves can occur. In the simplest case, they have a node in the middle…
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Progressive waves on a rope

October 5, 2013
Visualization of progressive waves: wave form and energy move forward while the rope itself stays in place. When I talked about waves in GEOF130 recently, in order to explain the…
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Long-distance teaching.

October 3, 2013
My experiences with giving a lecture via Skype. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I taught two lectures at the University Centre of the Westfjords, Iceland, in 2012 while physically…
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Teaching in Isafjördur

October 2, 2013
Teaching a block course at the University Centre of the Westfjords, Iceland. For those of you who were surprised that lately they didn’t recognize my students any more and the…
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Measuring temperature.

September 28, 2013
Students build thermometers. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I find that they appreciate oceanographic…
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Measuring salinity

September 27, 2013
Students evaporate water to measure the salinity of a water sample. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity…
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Measuring density

September 26, 2013
Students build a device to measure density. As described in this post, I like to have students build “instruments” to measure the most oceanographic properties (temperature, salinity and density). I…
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Tasting sea water reloaded

September 25, 2013
Doing the “tasting sea water” activity again with a different group of students. A very good introduction to the concept of salinity is the “tasting sea water” activity. Last time…
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Internal waves in the atmosphere

September 23, 2013
A photo of internal waves in the atmosphere. Internal waves exist on the interface between fluids of different densities. In the ocean they are mostly observed through their surface imprint.…
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Surface imprints of internal waves

September 20, 2013
How internal waves in the ocean can be spotted on the surface. Under certain conditions, internal waves in the ocean can be spotted at the ocean’s surface due to changes…
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Internal (lee) waves in a tank.

September 19, 2013
Lee wave experiment in a large tank with a moving mountain. In this previous post, we talked about internal waves in a very simple experiment. But Geophysical Institute has a great…
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Internal waves in a bottle

September 18, 2013
Internal waves are shown in simple 0.5l bottles. Waves travel on the interface between fluids of different densities and the phase speed of those waves depends on the density difference…
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How mountains form

September 17, 2013
A very simple visualization of rock folding. See? When I said “very simple” I meant “very simple”. But it does help explain why sometimes rock layers are not nice and…
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A simple DIY tidal model

September 12, 2013
Instruction for a very simple DIY tidal model. Today, we built a very simple DIY tidal model in class. It consists of two sets of tidal bulges: One locked in…
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Beware of the stereotype threat

September 10, 2013
Teaching tips focussing on stereotypical behavior are harming, not helping. I was recently sent a link to an article on my university’s web pages, where a senior professor gives teaching…
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A, B, C or D?

August 31, 2013
Voting cards. A low-tech concept test tool, enhancing student engagement and participation. (Post 1/3) Voting cards are a tool that I learned about from Al Trujillo at the workshop “teaching…
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Forskningsdagene are almost upon us

August 30, 2013
Preparations for experiments to be shown at the science fair “forskningsdagene” are under preparation. Forskningsdagene, a cooperation between research institutes and schools, science centers and other educational places, will take…
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Continue. Stop. Start.

August 29, 2013
Quick feedback tool for your teaching, giving you concrete examples of what students would like you to continue, start or stop This is another great tool to get feedback on…
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On “fun” vs “learning”

August 29, 2013
Quick feedback tool, giving you an impression of the students’ perception of fun vs learning of a specific part of your course. Getting feedback on your teaching and their learning…
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Sea surface height and ocean depth

August 28, 2013
A hands-on activity in which students use real data to find similarities in the sea surface height and the ocean depth along satellite tracks. In yesterday’s GEOF130 class, we explored…
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Heat capacity of air and water

August 28, 2013
Hands-on activity to better understand the concept and consequences of heat capacity. Also a great party trick. Imagine you take a balloon. Any kind of normal balloon. You blow it…
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And even more on density

August 28, 2013
My favorite experiment. Quick and easy and very impressive way to illustrate the influence of temperature on water densities. Today in the “introduction to oceanography” (GEOF130) we conducted my favorite…
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More on density

August 28, 2013
Extremely simple experiment to illustrate the effect of density differences. At room temperature, will coke cans float or sink in freshwater? And how about coke light? Btw, this experiment is…
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Tasting sea water

August 28, 2013
Hands-on activity on sea water salinity In the first lecture of the “introduction to oceanography” GEOF130 course 2013, we investigated water samples from four different regions: The Mediterranean, the tropical…
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