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Keynote or Plenary

Assessment: The silent killer of learning, at Faculty Seminar Day, Mercy College (Dobbs Ferry, NY), Tuesday, March 14, 2017:
talk_2673.pdf
Why is it that stellar students sometimes fail in the workplace while dropouts succeed? One reason is that most, if not all, of our current assessment practices are inauthentic. Just as the lecture focuses on the delivery of information to students, so does assessment often focus on having students regurgitate that same information back to the instructor. Consequently, assessment fails to focus on the skills that are relevant in life in the 21st century. Assessment has been called the "hidden curriculum" as it is an important driver of students' study habits. Unless we rethink our approach to... Read more about Assessment: The silent killer of learning
Assessment For and Not Just of Learning, at ICTCM 2017 (Chicago, IL), Saturday, March 11, 2017:
talk_2696.pdf
Why is it that stellar students sometimes fail in the workplace while dropouts succeed? One reason is that most, if not all, of our current assessment practices are inauthentic. Just as the lecture focuses on the delivery of information to math and statistics students, so does assessment often focus on having students regurgitate that same information back to the instructor. Consequently, assessment fails to focus on the skills that are relevant in life in the 21st century. Assessment has been called the "hidden curriculum" as it is an important driver of students' study habits. Unless we... Read more about Assessment For and Not Just of Learning
The pedagogy behind Learning Catalytics, at Mastering Leadership Community Summit (Tucson, AZ), Saturday, February 25, 2017:
talk_2682.pdf
I thought I was a good teacher until I discovered my students were just memorizing information rather than learning to understand the material. Who was to blame? The students? The material? I will explain how I came to the agonizing conclusion that the culprit was neither of these. It was my teaching that caused students to fail! I will show how I have adjusted my approach to teaching and how it has improved my students' performance significantly
Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at Joint 13th Asia-Pacific Physics Conference (APPC) and 22nd Australian Institute of Physics Congress (AIP) (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), Monday, December 5, 2016:
talk_2660.pdf
Can we teach innovation? Innovation requires whole-brain thinking — right-brain thinking for creativity and imagination, and left-brain thinking for planning and execution. Our current approach to education in science and technology, focuses on the transfer of information, developing mostly right-brain thinking by stressing copying and reproducing existing ideas rather than generating new ones. I will show how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering information to team work and creative thinking greatly improves the learning that takes place in the classroom and promotes independent... Read more about Innovating Education to Educate Innovators
Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at AAC&U Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education Conference (Boston, MA), Thursday, November 3, 2016:
talk_2633.pdf
Can we teach innovation? Innovation requires whole-brain thinking — right-brain thinking for creativity and imagination, and left-brain thinking for planning and execution. The prevalent approach to education in science and technology focuses on the transfer of information, developing mostly right-brain thinking by stressing copying and reproducing existing ideas rather than generating new ones. I will show how focusing in class on questioning and promoting social interaction leads to deeper learning and independent thinking. I will also present a new approach to get every student to... Read more about Innovating Education to Educate Innovators
Turning Lectures into Learning, at Turning Technologies User Conference (Leiden, Netherlands), Wednesday, October 26, 2016:
talk_2659.pdf
The world is abuzz with talk about "clickers" or classroom response systems. Clicker are not just simple polling tools, but can be used to achieve significant learning gains. In this presentation we explore using clickers with Peer Instruction, a pedagogy that encourages students to interact and solve problems during class.
Turning Lectures into Learning, at Turning Technologies User Conference (London, UK), Monday, October 24, 2016:
talk_2658.pdf
The world is abuzz with talk about "clickers" or classroom response systems. Clicker are not just simple polling tools, but can be used to achieve significant learning gains. In this presentation we explore using clickers with Peer Instruction, a pedagogy that encourages students to interact and solve problems during class.
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at International Conference on Nanojoining and Microjoining 2016 (Niagara, ON, Canada), Sunday, September 25, 2016:
talk_2555.pdf
Nanotechnology has enabled the development of nanostructured composite materials (metamaterials) with exotic optical properties not found in nature. In the most extreme case, we can create materials which support light waves that propagate with infinite phase velocity, corresponding to a refractive index of zero. This zero index can only be achieved by simultaneously controlling the electric and magnetic resonances of the nanostructure. We present an in-plane metamaterial design consisting of silicon pillar arrays, embedded within a polymer matrix and sandwiched between gold layers. Using an... Read more about Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index

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