DEMONSTRATING PRACTICAL AND FIELD CLASSES
IN EARTH SCIENCES
A guide for new demonstrators
1. PRACTICAL CLASSES
1.1. Purpose of practical classes
Practical classes in Earth Sciences involve a wide-range of hands-on activities that are best
done outside the structured environment of lectures, seminars or supervisions. These
activities include:
• Learning of practical techniques for observing and interpreting geological materials or
data, for example, the petrological microscope.
• Observing and interpreting geological materials, such as rocks, fossils, minerals and
geological maps and also photographs, graphics and written material that might also be
available in text books.
• Manipulating geological data, using mathematical, statistical and graphical techniques,
for instance the calculation of subsidence curves or the use of stereographic projections.
Some classes now use computer applications for such analyses.
• Demonstration of a real or analogue geological process in, for instance, a flume tank, a
physical model or a computer simulation.
With the exception of the last activity, most practicals are designed for each student to
proceed at their own pace, but to have individual help from a demonstrator at any stage.
1.2. Role of demonstrators
Your role in practical classes is:
• To provide assistance, advice and encouragement to students so that they get the
maximum educational benefit from the practical class.
• To answer specific questions that you are asked, in the context both of the current
exercise and of the course in which it belongs.
• To offer help where it is not asked for, but nevertheless seems to be needed.
• To deal appropriately with organisational hitches such as malfunction of equipment,
missing materials, or errors in instruction sheets.
• To suggest improvements to the practical class to the course organiser.
Specific tips for fulfilling this role are given in section 1.5.
1.3. Recruitment of demonstrators
Recruitment for first year and some second year courses is organised centrally whereas, for
later years, recruitment is handled by individual course lecturers.
• Research students should receive a questionnaire before the start of the Michaelmas Term
seeking their availability for specific courses.
• For IA Earth Sciences and IB Geological Sciences B, the practical organiser will arrange
a demonstrating rota before the beginning of each term, including the times of any
demonstrators’ briefing meetings.
• For IB Geological Sciences A, and Part II and III courses, your help will normally be
sought by the lecturer for each course component. You should seek these people out in
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advance if you would like to demonstrate in a particular course component. Names can be
found in the Lecture List available online at https://www.timetable.cam.ac.uk/ or on the
Camtools teaching sites.
1.4. Preparation for practical classes
Your agreement to demonstrate implies not only that you will teach during your allotted
times but also that you will arrive at those times fully prepared for the current exercise. In
particular you are expected to:
• Attend any preliminary briefing meeting for the course component. These are weekly in
IA Earth Sciences and IB GSB.
• Collect the relevant handout sheets, either at briefing meetings, or through the teaching
assistants Lindsay Percival <ljp55@cam.ac.uk> or Ben Froste <bf268@cam.ac.uk>, Rm.
222, or online.
• Much course material is online at https://camtools.caret.cam.ac.uk/ . To access it you
need to be registered on the relevant course site and on the site for demonstrators. Contact
the course organiser or Alison O’Reilly <alison@esc.cam.ac.uk> with your CRSid (your
@cam identifier, not your @esc one). You will also need a Raven password.
• Work fully through any exercises, and examine any maps and specimens related to them.
• Check your solutions against the answer sheets that are available for some courses, and
possibly on the ESC Supervisors site on Camtools.
• Inform the course organiser if you cannot make a practical time for any reason. It is
helpful if you can arrange a slot swap with another demonstrator, but do let the course
organiser know this.
1.5. The practical class in action
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Arrive promptly and prepared for the class on the hour, even though not all students will
be there till five minutes past.
Check that all necessary materials and handouts are available and in order, particularly if
the lab has just been vacated by another group.
Check that lighting and ventilation are appropriate.
Give any introductory explanation that the course organiser may have asked you to do.
Respond promptly and thoroughly to any requests for help.
Discreetly check the progress of students who are not asking questions and offer help
when appropriate.
Try to guide each student through their own analysis of the problem in hand, rather than
providing them with the answer on a plate.
When appropriate, provoke discussion of the practical material amongst a small group of
students.
DO NOT spend prolonged periods sitting inactively at one side/end of the lab. Students
are more likely to seek your advice if you are moving, quietly, in their midst.
DO NOT immerse yourself in reading, either the current practical material or your own
material, to the extent that you do not notice calls for help.
DO NOT hold extended conversations with other demonstrators or passers-by. This
makes you unavailable for questions and is distracting to students nearby.
Be understanding towards rather than disdainful of students with seemingly trivial
problems or laughable misconceptions. No student should feel reluctant to ask your help
again for fear of an unsympathetic response.
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Encourage students having fundamental problems with practical work to seek further
assistance from their supervisors.
Give special help to students with a disability that might adversely affect their
performance of the practical. Course organisers should inform you of such students and of
special help that might be appropriate. If not, then discuss with the student individually
what help they expect to need. With the student’s permission, relay this advice to course
organisers so that help can be given throughout successive course components of the year.
Note any problems with the practical which could be fixed by better handouts, material or
organisation in future years.
Remain till the end of the practical time, and ensure that the room is left in a fit state for
the next group, or is shut down at the end of a session.
1.6. Safety and conduct in practical classes
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The person at the top of the list for each session is in overall charge and is therefore
responsible for safety issues.
You will need to keep reminding students (at least in IA) about safe practice, particularly
to keep bags, etc. off the benches and away from gangways – including the spaces
between benches – so that you can walk around the room safely.
Be aware that electric cables from microscopes and bench lamps may well be trailing
down the backs of the benches and can provide a trip hazard. This is why we need the
gangways to be clear of students’ belongings.
No food or drink to be consumed – lead by example.
Fire safety. If the fire alarm goes off, the person in charge of the class will instruct the
students how to leave the building safely and will lead them to the Assembly Point (the
lawn in front of the Dept. of Arch. & Anth.), and will inform them when to return after
the all-clear has been given.
1.7. Feedback
Practical classes evolve from year to year in response both to the changing aims and content
of the course and to the suggestions of students and demonstrators. There are three routes for
your constructive feedback:
• Direct comments to the course organiser, either during the relevant practical class or at a
later time.
• Discussion at the periodic demonstrators’ meetings in IA/GSB courses.
• Written entries in the comments book in the relevant lab.
The first two of these routes are the most effective.
1.8. Payment
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You are paid for demonstrating on a university-wide scale. The rate will depend on
whether you are a research student with no previous experience, an experienced research
student, or a post-doctoral worker.
At the end of each term, the course organiser will normally put in a block claim for all the
demonstrating on a particular course. Unless you inform the course organiser otherwise,
they will assume that you require payment for the number of hours allocated to you on the
course rota, even if there has been some swapping of time slots.
Julie Blackwell (julie@esc.cam.ac.uk, 33418) will arrange for payment. See her in the
first instance if you think that you have been incorrectly paid.
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2. FIELD CLASSES
2.1. Purpose
Field classes are a chance for students to see real geology at its natural scale, and to learn
how to observe, describe and interpret it. The main activities on field classes include:
• Observing rock successions, geomorphological features and active Earth processes on the
millimetre to kilometre scale.
• Learning and practising techniques for making such observations; for instance, geological
mapping, lithologic logging, using a compass-clinometer, keeping a field notebook, and
using geophysical recording instruments.
• Interpreting field-scale observations in terms of three-dimensional geometry, particularly
in the subsurface.
• Interpreting rock successions and field relationships in terms of a history of Earth
processes.
• Interpreting the geological history of a field area in its regional setting, and in relation to
its economic and environmental context.
2.2. Role of demonstrators
Your role on field trips is:
• To provide assistance, advice and encouragement to students so that they get the
maximum educational benefit from the field trip.
• To do this within the teaching formats specified by the course leaders. These vary from
trip to trip and between leaders. They may include ‘Cook's tours’ in large groups, field
projects in small groups or pairs, and student-led or teacher-led evening seminars.
• To assist the leaders in ensuring that the safety of students and teachers is a priority at all
times.
• To ensure the smooth running of the field trip by helping with logistic and domestic tasks
as required by the course leaders. In particular, you may be asked to drive vehicles and to
take the necessary preliminary training and tests.
• To suggest improvements in the field teaching to the course organiser.
2.3. Recruitment of demonstrators
Staffing lists for field trips are finalised a few weeks ahead of each trip by the Teaching
Administrator, Morag Hunter. However, she maintains a draft list of demonstrators to which
your name can be added throughout the year. There are three ways in which this happens:
• Research students should receive a questionnaire before the start of the Michaelmas Term
seeking their availability for specific courses.
• You may be approached by Morag Hunter or the staff member responsible for the course.
• You can volunteer your name to either Morag Hunter or the staff member responsible for
the course.
In any case, your inclusion on a particular course cannot be guaranteed until a few weeks
beforehand, because of the need to balance numbers and expertise between all the
Department’s courses.
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2.4. Preparation
Your agreement to demonstrate on a field course also commits you to preparing properly for
it. This preparation includes safety components which are, in practical and legal terms, more
vital even that the geological components.
• If you are being asked to drive a Department vehicle on the field trip, particularly a
minibus, you must take a preliminary training drive and test. These will be arranged by
Celia Hobbs <chob07@esc.cam.ac.uk>. The test ensures that you meet the standards of
competence for driving a student-laden vehicle.
• You will be asked to attend a First Aid course run within the Department, usually lasting
for one afternoon in February. This course provides the essentials of resuscitating and
stabilising casualties of typical field accidents.
• The course leaders will inform you of any geological preparation necessary for the
course. This may include a preliminary briefing meeting and a list of reading. It is
essential that you have adequate geological knowledge to deal confidently with students’
problems. This may involve you in some reading on the appropriate regional geology or
geological processes.
• It is your responsibility to attend the trip properly clothed and equipped, particularly
where, as with waterproofs and footwear, this has safety implications. The Department
will normally provide you with a hard hat. You should also check that you bring
appropriate documents such as driving licence or passport.
• You may be asked by the course leaders to help with preliminary arrangements such as
collecting hired vehicles or loading kit. Check that you know the correct time and place of
departure for the trip.
2.5. Demonstrating in the field
Demonstrating in the field involves many of the same skills as in the laboratory (Section 1.5).
However, the outdoor setting introduces special safety considerations (Section 2.6) and
practical situations requiring special attention.
• Make sure that all members of the party assemble for any introduction or debriefing given
by the party leader. In particular, do not carry on a subsidiary conversation yourself with
other demonstrators or students whilst this is happening.
• When a party disperses to make observations at an outcrop, move between groups and
offer help and advice. This is even more important than in a lab setting.
• Help students develop their own observational skills. Observing the relevant features of
rocks is difficult, particularly seeing through the distractions of surface weathering,
fractures and vegetation. Guiding students through a few observations and their
interpretation is useful teaching method.
• Ask as many questions as you answer. ‘What minerals can you see in this rock?’ ‘Which
way up are these beds?’ ‘How do you know these are marine deposits?’ Such questions
encourage students to look and think for themselves.
• Don’t overwhelm students with your own observational and interpretive skills. Whilst
you are explaining about undersaturation in basaltic magmas, they may simply be
wondering why the rock is igneous rather than sedimentary.
• Respond sympathetically to students who reveal the large gaps in factual knowledge that
field work often exposes. Be prepared to go back to basics to explain something.
• Don’t become immersed in geological discussions with other demonstrators to the
detriment of students. Witnessing some research-level discussion can be stimulating and
motivating to students, but not when they are trying to get simple questions answered.
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If you disagree with the explanations of a party leader, do this to students in a
constructive way. It is good for them to realise that healthy controversy exists about
almost everything geological, but not for them habitually to distrust what they are told.
During some field exercises, for instance where a small group of students has been
allocated to you, it can be an effective teaching strategy to make your own notes, maps or
logs as a worked example. This is particularly so for field mapping exercises. It ensures
that you engage fully with the technical as well as geological problems that students are
encountering.
2.6. Safety
Some components of geological fieldwork are potentially hazardous. Minimising the
resulting risks to students and teachers should always be a priority, even if this means some
loss of quantity or quality in the geology seen.
• Everyone in the party shares a responsibility for communal safety, although individual
students should follow safety instructions given by party leader and, if working in smaller
groups, by a group leader who may be a demonstrator.
• Carry a first-aid kit, provided by the Department for each field trip. Staff and minibuses
will usually have more comprehensive kits.
• As a demonstrator, you should be aware of the general hazards presented by the field trip
area, and of any specific hazards at each locality. These will be described orally by the
leader at the beginning of the trip, or at each specific locality if appropriate.
• Each field trip has a written Hazard Assessment document. Leaders should issue these to
demonstrators as well as staff.
• The leaders also have other appropriate safety-related documentation such as tide-tables,
and registers of students, their home addresses and their special medical problems. You
should also be given copies of these if you are likely to be in a position to need them.
• Assist the party leaders in the field by keeping a large party together en route to and, if
appropriate, at each outcrop. You may be asked to act as a back-marker to a large party,
or to assist a slow or unsure student.
• Never require any student to carry out any activity that they feel to be beyond their safe
capability.
• Forbid any potentially hazardous activities such as rock climbing or bathing without
explicit prior permission from the party leaders. The leaders might be held responsible for
accidents during the field day, even if they result from non-geological pursuits.
• Discourage dangerous or irresponsible behaviour on the field trip at any time. It might be
legally debatable whether you or other teachers take responsibility for student escapades
not connected with field work. However such extracurricular activities are just as likely to
result in accidents, invariably reflect badly on the Department and the University, and
may jeapordise the running of the field trip in future years. Your active involvement in
such pursuits will prejudice your demonstrating on future trips.
• Take particular care when driving a vehicle. Do not indulge in conversations or activities
which might distract your attention from driving. Calm any excessive noise or
disturbance in the vehicle which might distract you. Take particular care on the narrow
and winding roads that grace many field areas. Remember than a laden minibus cannot be
safely stopped in the same distance as a car.
2.7. Feedback
Field trips evolve in response both to the changing aims and content of the course and to the
suggestions of students and demonstrators. There are two routes for constructive feedback:
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Most effectively, direct comments to the party leaders during the field trip.
A written list of comments to the party leaders or overall course organiser at the end of
the trip.
2.8. Payment
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You are paid for demonstrating on the basis of 1 field day = 2 hours. The hourly rate will
vary depending on whether you are a research student with no previous experience, an
experienced research student, or a post-doctoral worker.
You need make no claim Julie Blackwell (julie@esc.cam.ac.uk, 33418) will arrange for
payment to those recruited for the course. See her in the first instance if you think that
you have been incorrectly paid.
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