NF-POGO Centre of Excellence Year 2 Report

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for proper utilization and interpretation of such complex information.The Programme was made available to 25 participants from five Latin America countries,including four from Argentina, 15 from Brazil including two from INPE and four from IEAPM,one from Ecuador, three from Mexico and two from Venezuela.Instructors who participated in the Training Programme included:Dr. Milton Kampel (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil) – Local OrganizerDr. Heather Bouman (Oxford University, England),Dr. Robert Frouin (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, USA),Dr. Vivian Lutz (Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo Pesquero, Argentina),Dr. Milton Kampel (Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais, Brasil),Dr. Roberto Millan (Univ. Autónoma de Baja California, Mexico),Dr. Rodolfo Paranhos (Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)Dr. Gerald Plumley (Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences, Bermuda),Dr. Silvana Vianna Rodriguez (Univ. Federal de Rio de Janeiro, Brazil),Dr. Eliane Gonzalez Rodriguez (Instituto de Estudos do Mar Almirante Paulo Moreira, Brazil)Dr. Wanderson F. de Carvalho (Instituto de Estudos do Mar Almirante Paulo Moreira, Brazil)A full report of the Brazil Training Programme is provided in Appendix 6.4.0 The Future of the NF-POGO CofE4.1 Year 1 Changes that Were Implemented in Year 2After year 1 was complete, private exit interviews were held with each scholar. One of the mainquestions asked was: „how do we improve the programme?‟ After the scholars left, BIOSfaculty held discussions focused on how to improve the programme. Overall, several changeswere implemented in the year 2 programme. The changes are outlined below and are followedby comments about how these changes were perceived in year 2.1. The deadline for student applications was moved forward. This was necessary because ofdifficulties involved in getting Bermuda Work Permits and Transit Visas (i.e., in manycases, it was seemingly impossible to get one before the other without a lot of extrawork).This was a very positive change.2. Several Scholars invited to participate decided not to attend. This was invariably a resultof „family situations‟, almost always involving young children or aging parents. Theapplication form for year 2 was modified to include questions such as „how willparticipation in the NF-POGO CofE adversely affect your family life, especially if youhave young children or aging parents? Other questions were added to make sure Scholarsunderstand that they cannot commute weekly between Bermuda and their home countryto maintain a salaried position.Again, this was very positive. Only one Scholar withdrew after being asked toattend (she had not yet finished her MS degree and had anticipated she would bethrough).3. Scholars were asked to conduct an „independent study‟ during the second half of theCofE in year 1. This did not work as well as anticipated. Students were much moreinterested in learning skills than in conducting research. For instance, they would ratherconduct 5-10 short „experiments‟, each involving a new skill, than to use one skillrepeatedly in order to get publication quality results. For year 2, the decision has beenmade to increase the duration of the modules (from roughly 2 weeks to 3 weeks) and to14
incorporate more laboratory and/or field skills into each module. The year 1 Scholarsthought this an excellent approach.Scholars were very happy with the addition of new modules and the increasedefforts to get them into the laboratory for more hands-on training.4. Related to #3, the research projects will be of shorter duration in year 2 and will be muchmore directed by BIOS faculty. Our problem in year 1 was that many students tookseveral weeks to decide on a project. While we encouraged Scholars to talk with facultyabout their projects, many Scholars rotated through faculty several times as theyattempted to finalize a project. This was frustrating for faculty and was not a productiveuse of Scholar time/energy. For year 2, the projects will be much more directed, but thatdoes not mean we will „force‟ students to do a project if they have the backgroundnecessary to convince us they want, and can, do something else. Our goal is to minimize„slippage‟ (i.e., to get Scholars started on a reasonable project in a short period of time,rather than having them spend weeks mulling idea after idea).This was the most positive of all changes. Scholars had a much better idea of thework they were going to be involved with from an earlier stage.5. During the exit interview (Section 2.12), several Scholars told us that they had learnedthey needed a very detailed description of what they had done as part of the CofE. SomeScholars needed this for their home institution (i.e., many Scholars needed to „prove‟ thatthey had been trained as part of the CofE). Other Scholars needed a detailed document oftheir work in order to obtain academic credit (e.g., a couple of Scholars had applied tograduate programs and wanted to receive academic credit for their work at BIOS as partof their degree). Our plan for year 2 is to have instructors assign „grades‟ at the end ofeach module (we are still debating whether these will be letter grades, e.g., A, B, C, etc,or a more descriptive evaluation such as First, Second, With Distinction, etc.). We willalso give a „grade‟ for the final independent project (including the work itself, the finaloral presentation about the work, and the written report of the work).The grading system worked well. It allowed students to determine how they wereprogressing during the course of the Programme. Several students have subsequentlyasked for copies of their transcripts, which they will use as part of their applicationpackage to graduate schools.6. We made several changes to the modules:Our original plan for year 1 was to have a „core skills‟ module when the Scholars firstarrived. Our goal was to teach basic skills in writing (especially scientific writing) andoral presentations. As many of the Scholars arrived late, we decided to incorporate thepresentation skills into weekly seminars (Section 2.8 and 2.9). This worked well. Incontrast, we did not do a sufficient job of helping students improve their writing skillsuntil the final reports were due (Section 2.10). We will include a „core skills‟ modulein year 2 AND we will require that each module have at least one writing assignmentthat will be evaluated as part of the student grade.This worked well, but still needs improvement. We need to be more proactivein grading written reports and getting them back to Scholars in a timely fashion.Our plan for year 1 included a module on data management. This proved intractable,as the instructors, part of the Ocean Data team from Belgium, were not able toparticipate as originally scheduled. The team is scheduled for year 2.This was a very successful module and is scheduled as part of the year 3programme.15
Page 2 and 3: Executive Summary of Year 2 Activit
Page 4 and 5: To facilitate the review process, B
Page 6 and 7: 2.3 Course ModulesThe course module
Page 8: 2.4 Guest Lectures and Seminars8/27
Page 11 and 12: Gustavo FuentesKathleen SilvanoBenn
Page 13: 2.11 CofE Graduation CeremoniesThe
Page 17 and 18: Details on the 10 students selected
Page 20 and 21: September 2009) and SAFARI'10 works
Page 22 and 23: Invited by the Abdus Salam Internat
Page 24 and 25: Appendix 1. Application Form for th
Page 26 and 27: Summary of your current work (~200
Page 28 and 29: If you are selected as a NF-POGO Sc
Page 30 and 31: Appendix 2_B. NF-POGO Scholars who
Page 32 and 33: Appendix 5. Commencement Speech Giv
Page 34 and 35: discovered that I was not cut out t
Page 36 and 37: Report for Training Programme for D
Page 38 and 39: 1. IntroductionThe topic of the 200
Page 40 and 41: Each of the three teams had at leas
Page 42 and 43: Eliliane Vasconcelos CorrêaUnivers
Page 44 and 45: Valeria SeguraInstituto Nacional de
Page 46 and 47: F. Gerald PlumleyBermuda Institute
Page 48 and 49: Friday, September 25AM: -(L) HPLC,
Page 50 and 51: 10. Appendix 5: Trainee Presentatio
Page 52 and 53: 11. Appendix 6: Selected Photograph
Page 54 and 55: Back in the lab, students and instr

NF-POGO Centre of Excellence Year 2 Report

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