Instructor feedback - available to participants after the completion of each topic

3. End of Part 2 Instructor feedback

After a very busy and informative 2 weeks of Mesoscale features, we now have to summarize what the participants experienced, and the instructors. Before getting to the feedback, I must first Thank Sarah for her brilliant Web Briefing, and I see most participants enjoyed it as well. There is a call for another session from Sarah :)

 

There seem to have been a few technical issues with access to the course in recent week, with network stability and connectivity being the main reasons for this. On average though, access seemed straight forward  for most participants. I am please to read that the convective work was well received and that participants seem to learn a lot from the satellite imagery being used and that the weather briefing was a fantastic addition to the resources that were provided. The ASMET 5 module was mentioned in particular, as a valuable resource. The participants are also pleased to be conversing with one another and learning from one another. Of course, more live Weather briefings are always requested, and will be considered for the next course.

In terms of improvements and changes to the course in future, there are requests for the course to take place over a longer time period, to allow for operational rotations and work schedules. Also, the addition of more case studies to learn from for the participants. An interesting addition, was that one participant noted that they should have interacted earlier in the discussions, in order to gain more feedback and conversation. To me, this is a very important point, as the nature of the online course is such that we can all communicate, learn and teach one another. It seems like many people spent a lot of time on this part of the course, yet still found time to fit it in between their regular work. I appreciate each participants dedication to the course, even though time can be very difficult to find.

As I was reviewing each participants inputs, I always find it fascinating to learn about the impacts that are felt from phenomena such as thunderstorms, rainfall and Fog. Thank you all for sharing your experience with me. There were a few gaps in mentioning the use an value of the satellite imagery with mesoscale features, but hopefully our guidance can help you all with that.

Thank you to all who participated and I look forward to meeting some of you in Pretoria