Team-Based Online Multidisciplinary Education on Big Data + High-Performance Computing + Atmospheric Sciences

Given the context of many institutions moving to online instruction due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, we share our experiences of an online team-based multidisciplinary education program on big data + high performance computing (HPC) + atmospheric sciences (cybertraining.umbc.edu). This program focuses on how to apply big data and high-performance computing techniques to atmospheric sciences. The program uses both an instructional phase with lectures and team-based homework in all three areas and a multidisciplinary research experience culminating in a technical report and oral presentation. The paper discusses how our online education program can achieve the same learning objectives as face-to-face instruction via pedagogy and communication methods including flipped classroom, online synchronous meetings, and online asynchronous discussion forum.