| Abstract |
Geothermal energy training is a very specialised area with only two established postgraduate courses available worldwide. The geothermal course at the University of Auckland was restarted in 2007 as a one-semester Post Graduate Certificate (PGCert) in response to the increasing demand for trained engineers and scientists with the boom in geothermal exploration and development in many countries around the world. The course is very applied and is designed to bring together graduates from different disciplines in science and engineering. Running this course has many challenges such as the diverse technical skills needed to teach this course, which are not all available within the University. The course is expensive to run due to the high cost of the long field studies. At the same time student numbers have to be limited for this level of applied teaching. The students are mostly international with different academic backgrounds, ages and ethnicities. This work is an investigation to find the optimum teaching and learning environment and course structure that achieve a balance between field work and class room based education, in an area of study which often involves a very practical application of scientific and engineering discipline. Given the diversity of the student backgrounds, the early part of the course is dedicated to the principles of geothermal energy, aiming to bring the students to a common level of knowledge. The curriculum then rapidly builds up a base level of fundamentals and information in preparation for the field study for both the engineering and earth science streams of the course. The block structure of the PGCert and the short duration of the modules allow the students to undertake the program in two short periods away from their regular employment spread over two calendar years. The course coordinator and main academic staff carry out most of the teaching, field work and are strongly involved in the selection of material covered by the external lecturers and industry experts. This reduces the course overhead in terms of number of full time academic staff and prevents repetition of material covered by multiple lecturers, which also ensures a consistent course structure. Running this course requires strong links with the geothermal industry for access to commercial sites, data and facilities. However, the course is not entirely structured as a field-based course as in some applied science programs. The success of the new course is evident from the student feedback (course reviews), the input from the employers of the students and the increasing number of applicants each year. The PGCert provides training for engineers and scientists involved in geothermal development and at the same time, delivers a constant stream of Masters and PhD research students. The PGCert is also popular with PhD students undertaking geothermal research at other universities around the world. |