BIP-M Bridging: Preparing for BIP-M studies Bruce Muller CALMet XII 2017

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About 2 years ago, several folks from COMET, BoM, WMO, NWS, University of Hawaii, University of the South Pacific, and SPREP (Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme) gathered in Fiji for an informal review of regional training programs and needs. We heard about many successful past and current programs focused on bolstering the meteorological capabilities and capacities of the regional met, hydro and climate services. We also met with folks that are enthusiastically proposing to set up a RTC at the University of the South Pacific in Fiji - an interesting prospect for the Pacific Islands. One area of discussion was centered around current BIP-M level programs. Specifically the BoMTC’s diploma program. It currently serves as one of the primary venues for folks in the region to obtain a BIP-M level certification. It is an accredited, graduate degree-granting program run here in Melbourne. If you’re interested in learning more about it, no doubt there are several folks here that would be happy to talk to you :-)

Survey How many of you are involved in supporting basic BIP-M qualification courses? (Survey link for results) Before I go on….BIP-M studies seem to be a major focus for many of our training organizations. How many of you are involved in these types of courses? Review results...

These BIP-M programs, pretty obviously, are meant to get someone with no or little meteorology background to a BIP-M level of understanding. That path is not always easy! One of the issues that came up at the Fiji meeting in regards to the BoM’s program, is that participants are not always well prepared to jump into the rigors of the program’s maths, physics, and basic meteorology studies. The instructors end up needing to provide a fair bit of remedial studies and tend to have a split in the capabilities of the student body, making it challenging to keep everyone on pace. Another issue: the cost of hosting and housing students in Melbourne. So, the idea was floated to develop a BIP-M Bridging course or series of courses: courses that review the background content required to successfully participate in a BIP-M level program as well as meet some of the BIP-M learning outcomes. By running these courses as online prerequisites to the diploma program, participants would be coming to Melbourne with a similar knowledge base and the length of the face to face component could be shortened and more closely focused on operational skills. Last year, BoM and COMET collaborated to conceptualize what such a series of courses would look like and began development of the initial course packages.

Survey Which topic areas are participants least prepared for? (Survey link for results) Before I continue, it would be interesting to know which topic areas present the biggest challenges for those of you teaching BIP-M level courses. Please select the topics that are the biggest challenge for your learners…. Share results….

Here’s an outline of the course series Here’s an outline of the course series. Not surprisingly, it looks very much like an outline of the BIP-M :-) The two main areas of focus are: Prerequisite Topics, and Foundations of Meteorology. Together, completion of these courses will provide a bridge to certification for BIP-M.

Course package format Course package format: The course packages are envisioned to be primary source material for an instructor to use as they see fit. We plan to develop them as Moodle course sites that can be cloned and adapted to a program’s needs and pedagogical approach. They can serve as the basis for face-to-face, online, or blended facilitated offerings. They are not being designed as stand-alone instruction.

Developed courses So where are we so far in this effort? We just completed the development of the Maths and Physics courses through funding and in collaboration with the BoMTC. Big kudos to Mick Pope and Bodo Zeschke and a couple of their colleagues for a focused effort in May and June to pull these together. They mainly make use of open educational resources, such as Khan Academy and University of Colorado’s PhET widgets. Currently, the courses contain a suggested review of material with exercises and references. Assessments are still in the works. A third course package, on tropical synoptic meteorology, was developed several years ago at COMET through our National Weather Service international funding. It makes extensive use of MetEd’s Introduction to Tropical Meteorology online textbook and includes case study exercises.

Where to from here? See the COMET/BoM Bridging Course report for more info and course outlines And two more survey questions... We are trying to figure out how to build out this resource as a collaborative effort, as a Global Campus effort. BoM and COMET do not have the resources to complete this in any kind of timely manner. And since we would like it to be an openly available resource, the more we collaborate, the better the end product will be at meeting our collective needs. So let’s take a few minutes and gather input from you on two things: Is this resource of interest to you? And if so, how can you or your institution support the build-out and maintenance of the course packages? Launch survey...