It would be a serious mistake to underestimate the value of the personal interactions between students and coach and between students and students. In my experience, this is where much of the higher-order learning takes place. Below is a listing of what I think are the main advantages and disadvantages to the introductory geophysics course taught at the Colorado School of Mines using the materials described in the workshop. The use of interactive tools to model the response of geophysical measurements to simple geologic structures allows students to develop a conceptual understanding of the underlying physics at an intuitive level. The implementation is inherently problem based.
Students learn content through the exploration of specific problems and data sets.
The interactive case study approach is one that incorporates many aspects of game playing. Chief among these is the ability of the course to tap into a student's natural competitive spirit. Students invest time in the course not only because they need to in order to pass the course, but because they want to design the optimum survey and generate interpretations from the acquired data sets that are the most accurate, and be recognized for having done so by their peers. One of the primary advantages of using computer simulations is that it allows students to collect data over a known geologic structure many times. Given time and cost limitations, both of these educational outcomes are difficult to achieve when you attempt to collect and interpret real, field observations in a classroom environment.