Inspiring thoughts from Alberto and Emil

[Marina Pantazidou]

Hello members of the TC306 discussion group,

I would like to inaugurate the list created by Michele for our discussions with two thoughts on geotechnical engineering instruction by TC306 members Alberto Ledesma and Emil Kinslev. The thoughts were expressed independently, yet they appear to be in dialogue with one another! This “coincidence” may be a hopeful sign that geotechnical engineering instructors are getting ready to move forward along the direction envisioned by Emil and Alberto.

In his presentation during TC306’s Interactive Technical Talk, Kinslev (2024) offers to our community the question “where should teaching be in relation to the state of practice and state of the art?”. A difficult question, which we will have to address topic-by-topic. Then, in his paper on how we teach shear strength, in the special issue of Soils & Rocks edited by Katia Bicalho, Ledesma (2024) concludes as follows: “It is not appropriate to present concepts without a supporting theoretical framework that is nowadays available, so we are committed to adapt those theories to the undergraduate level.”

Marina

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References

Kinslev, E. M. (2024). State of the art vs. engineering practice vs. what we teach, an example: Compressibility. ISSMGE Interactive Technical Talk, Geo-engineering Education (TC306), May 21.

Ledesma, A. (2024). The difficult task of teaching shear strength of soils, Soils and Rocks, 47(2), https://doi.org/10.28927/SR.2024.003424