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Furlong's students enjoy his challenges
Thursday, April 15, 2004
Editor's note: This is the third in a series of stories that will profile outstanding teacher/researchers working at the University.
Kevin Furlong, professor of geosciences, tells the following story about the influence professors can have on students.
He was waiting at the University Park Airport a couple of years ago when members of the women's volleyball team, en route to a tournament, came up to chat. The women were students in his 100 level class, "Natural Disasters: Hollywood vs. Reality." Before Furlong got on his plane, the coach stopped the professor and told him he was dying to meet him because the team "is always talking about your class at practice."
"As a scientist," Furlong said, "that is so wonderful that a mixed group of students, none of whom are scientists, think what you talk about is so important that it is the focus of their discussions."
Furlong, who is marking his 20th year of teaching at Penn State, is one of the many professors at the University who balance research and teaching duties. Furlong's research area is lithospheric geodynamics, the study of modern tectonics and what happens at plate boundaries. He recently returned from the Australian Geological Society Meeting where he spoke at a special symposium on New Zealand's plate boundaries.
Furlong is the recipient of several University teaching and research awards and in 2002, he was a Fulbright Senior Scholar in New Zealand.
He is teaching two sections of one class this spring, the 400 level, "Natural Disasters," a course he characterized as a "writing-intensive" look at hurricanes, floods, tsunamis, quakes, landslides, etc. He has a total of 55 students, mostly from the meteorology, geography and geosciences departments.
The professor teaches "Natural Disasters: Hollywood vs. Reality" in the fall, and he also teaches a specialty course in geodynamics for graduate students.
Furlong described the upper-level course as "mostly chaos." The group meets twice a week. They do five case studies working from primary data. For example, they study Hurricane Agnes data and calculate when and where flooding occurred. The students are developing an expertise they can apply elsewhere, such as developing a preliminary flood analysis for another city.
Furlong lectures for awhile, then sets the students to working on their problems. "Two hours of lecture would drive me insane and them, too," he said.
The scientific goal of his class is to have the students work with real data and reach conclusions.
"I'm of the mindset to think who I'm aiming for," he said. "Students at the 400 level are sophisticated enough to understand that there isn't a single formula; they learn to work with real data sets.
"Too often we give students laundered data to give guaranteed results — simple systems of data cleaned up. This is misleading. Students coming into geosciences learn that the Earth is messy. We can't control all the variables."
"Kevin has the ability to translate complex scientific concepts into language that nonscientists understand, but he's able to do it without diluting the meaning or the importance of the work," according to Tanya Furman, associate head for undergraduates in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. "You read a lot of textbooks that have oversimplified things until someone in the business looks at it and says, 'this isn't quite right,' and Kevin avoids that trap."
During a recent class, students were seated around a series of conference tables. They picked up their nametags as they arrived. Furlong insists on the nametags to help familiarize the class with each other since students work as cohorts.
The professor reviewed calculations to track the flow of lahar, volcanic mudflow, down a New Zealand mountainside, based on the slope. Then, the group flipped open calculators and laptops to do the work. Each table had a topographical map of the site. The mountain featured a crater lake and glacial ice pack at the top. The students' job was to calculate the slope and predict the flow. As they worked their calculations, Furlong walked among the tables offering encouragement and advice. He reminded them of what he called "gotchas," things that could skew their calculations, such as negative numbers. "We want numbers that make us happy," he said. "We don't want results that are bogus."
Sarah Knuth, a senior in earth sciences, was hunched over a map plotting coordinates with Andrew Boyce-Lewis, a senior in letters, arts and sciences. She said she was enjoying the course. "It's a lot of hands-on work," she said. "It's good in that way. It's not a sit-in-the-class-and listen-to-lectures-style class."
The professor said he finds teaching rewarding, joking, "I do it for the money and fame."
"I never have been a fan of typical introductory classes," he remarked. "I find it depressing. There seems to be a tacit assumption that students outside our own disciplines are stupid. We water things down so they can understand."
He disagrees. Furlong said students sign up for his classes even though the requirements are rigorous. "They don't know they're working hard because they're enjoying it. That kind of class is rewarding."
As a teacher, Furlong said he has learned to tap into student motivation. "Academics may not be what's driving them but they are willing to commit themselves," he said. "Everyone's got something that drives them. If you tap into it, you're in great shape."
The students have taught him to be a little less arbitrary. "You need to get inside their heads and find out why they're doing things," he said.
Furman said, "Kevin cares deeply and personally about students and their learning and that's reflected in the respect he brings to the classroom and that inspires them to approach the material respectfully and thoughtfully."
To keep his courses fresh, Furlong said he is constantly revising and modifying them. In regards to integrating research and teaching, Furlong said faculty should teach classes they are passionate about. "Courses should be based on the expertise and passion of the faculty," he said. "Students do better if they learn about the things that drive their faculty."
Otherwise, "we are misleading students about what we value."
Teaching assistant Gavin Hays spent a year at Penn State while he was an undergraduate at Leeds University in Great Britain and took the "Natural Disasters" class. As a result, he's now working on a doctoral degree in geodynamics here. About Furlong, he said, "I think he's got a great teaching style. He really involves students in his class. I think it gives people a different perspective. I think it's something they're going to remember down the line. If you just sit in a class where they're talking at you, you're going to switch off after awhile. If you get involved, you're really going to remember it."