Host Member Society: Greece
Short name: Geo-education (TC306)
TC306 focuses on the fundamentals of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering, i.e. topics typically covered in undergraduate curricula. Its primary, but not exclusive, audience is currently active, past and future geotechnical engineering educators. The goal guiding TC306's efforts is the establishment of an active and welcoming geotechnical engineering education community that provides support and resources to all geotechnical engineering educators.
Dissemination venues
Updated information on the activities of TC306, besides being reported in this web portal hosted by ISSMGE, is also available in the following online venues.
The eighteenth episode of International Interactive Technical Talk has just been launched and is supported by TC306. Marina Pantazidou, Charles John MacRobert, Emil Mejlhede Kinslev and Ezra Y. S. Tjung are discussing with Marc Ballouz about “Geo-engineering Education&rdquo
The Conference Geotechnical Engineering Education 2025 (GEE 2025): Charting the path toward the future will be held in Nancy, France, on July 2-4, 2025. The Conference is organized by the Technical Committee TC306 for Geo-engineering Education of the ISSMGE, un
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The attached file is a summary of the paper accompanying the 3rd Blight Honor Lecture delivered by Alonso (2023) at the 8th UNSAT, titled "The positive history of an error. Modelling the heave of a nuclear power station". The summary is meant to play the role of a guide
In the context of the collaboration between TC215 (Environmental Geotechnics), which organizes the 9th Int. Congress on Environmental Geotechnics (9ICEG) in June 25-28, 2023, in Chania, Greece, and TC306 (Geo-Education), creators of any kind of educational material about which th
At the PanAm UNSAT 2021 preconference webinar "Teaching unsaturated soil mechanics at the undergraduate level" (Del Fredlund, Bernardo Caicedo, John McCartney, Katia Bicalho, Gilson Gitirana), we heard about how specialists teach unsaturated soil mechanics in thei
TC306 will miss dearly Waldemar Coelho Hachich, Professor of Geotechnical and Structural Engineering (PEF) at Polytechnic School, University of São Paulo, Brazil, past TC306 chair (2013-2017) and always active member. For TC306, the legacy of Waldemar Hac
The American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) amended its Constitution and added a Vice President for Scholarship to the Board, as voted by the ASEE Board of Directors in February 2022 and approved by the members in a ballot that took place in April-May 2022. According to
The contribution of TC306 to the Time Capsule Project has been uploaded under the tab "Reports" of the TC306 webpage. The contents of the TC306 Time Capsule Report were discussed at the committee meeting of April 2021 and the country-specific contributions were provided
TC306 implemented a new "corner" of its website (a new menu on the left, called GEE posts), devoted to Geotechnical Engineering Education posts specifically written for geotechnical engineering instructors . Any GEE post starts as a short contribution written by a
Technical Committee TC105, Geomechanics from Micro to Macro, organizes five seminars on "Discrete Element Method (DEM) in geotechnical engineering education", on February 8 (Francois Guillard & Benjy Marks), February 22 (Benjy Marks & Francois Guillard), March 2
We are delighted to announce an important distinction for the community of geotechnical engineering education: our application for Scopus listing was approved for the series of the conference proceedings Geotechnical Engineering Education (ISSN 2732-7256), starting with the GEE 2
Most ISSMGE Technical Committees are dedicated to specialized topics within Geotechnical Engineering. TC306 focuses on the key principles and concepts typically covered in undergraduate curricula. Among its aims is to promote the approach of content from a teaching point of view,
Prof. Marina Pantazidou, Chair ot TC306, delivered a Geoenvironmental Engineering Webinar on Teaching Environmental Geotechnics: Behind the Scenes, subtitle "Why both students and teachers can benefit from understanding (a little bit) how the brain works".
TC306 and its Chair Prof. Marina Pantazidou are pleased to launch an educational video on “What happens when soil compresses” using best instructional practices, and make it available through ISSMGE’s Virtual University platform. Specifically:
Here’s a compilation of educational material that starts with the question “how can I motivate the study of Soil Mechanics topics in my class?” and provides answers with a combination of materials drawn from practice, research and education. One of the best ways
Following the unprecedented changes in our personal and professional lives due to Covid-19 and after careful consideration and evaluation of the risks and alternatives, the Organizing Committee of the International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering Education (GEE 2020),
The Conference Geotechnical Engineering Education 2020 (GEE2020) will be held in Athens, Greece, on June 24-25 2020. The Conference is organized by the Technical Committee TC306 for Geo-Engineering Education of the ISSMGE, under the auspices of the Helleni
The following is a synthesis of excerpts from a short article by Lee Shulman that conforms to the 200 word limit allowed by the publisher for free use. Please check out the article here. Lee Shulman is an educational psychologist, professor emeritus at Stanford Graduate School of
The case-study webinar "Porto Tolle test embankment - A full scale experiment on the consolidation of a thick clay layer" delivered by Prof. Carlo Viggiani, Emeritus Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at University of Naples “Federico II” (Italy), is avai
Professor John Burland has developed a suite of five short videos (2 to 6 minutes) on the engineering behavior of soil. The emphasis is on the particulate nature of soils and its implications for soil strength. All videos are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonComme
First John Burland Lecture: "Basic Geotechnical Engineering Skills - What Can Graduates Do?"
Delivered by Prof. John Atkinson, on October 20, 2016, on occasion of SFGE 2016 (Shaping the Future of Geotechnical Education), the International Conference on Geo-Engineering
TC306 focuses on the fundamentals of soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering, i.e. topics typically covered in undergraduate curricula. Its primary, but not exclusive, audience is currently active, past and future geotechnical engineering educators.
Updated information on the activities of TC306 is reported in this main web portal hosted by ISSMGE. Other dissemination avenues include the following:
3.1) Organization of the TC306 conference on geotechnical engineering education and theme workshops and specialty sessions in ISSMGE conferences;
3.2) Organization and promotion of the John Burland Honour Lecture (the 1st John Burland Lecture was delivered by Prof. John Atkinson in 2016);
3.3) Collaborations with other ISSMGE Technical Committees (TCs) for promoting and publicizing education sessions in specialty conferences organized by these TCs.
TC306 aims to foster industry-academia collaboration to produce results that address two main needs expressed by the following questions:
4.1) “How can academia better tailor the teaching of geotechnical basics to the needs of the industry?” – involvement of industry in curriculum development.
4.2) “How can the industry collaborate with academia to co-produce (a) case study material suitable for undergraduate instruction and (b) geotechnical characterization data suitable for the development of course assignments and projects?” – involvement of industry in the development of educational material.
Delivered by Prof. Mark Jaksa on June 23, 2020, during the online International Conference on Geotechnical Engineering Education, GEE 2020, streamed from Athens, Greece.
Delivered by Prof. John Atkinson, on October 20, 2016, on occasion of SFGE 2016 (Shaping the Future of Geotechnical Education), the International Conference on Geo-Engineering Education, organized by TC306 in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Recorded at the Studio of Centro de Apoio à Educação a Distância - CAED/UFMG, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, Camera: Kellison Vinícius and Belchior Thiago, Production: Ernane Oliveira and Fernanda Rosendo, Editing and finalization: Ernane Oliveira
This is the "corner" of TC306 devoted to Geotechnical Engineering Education posts (GEE posts) specifically written for geotechnical engineering instructors. Any GEE post starts as a short contribution written by a TC306 member. The submission is then discussed within the TC. The final post reflects the result of this interaction (consensus is desired but not a prerequisite). It is expected that, with time, some templates attractive to instructors will emerge.