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Keynote or Plenary

Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at Irish Science Teacher's Associations Annual Conference (Limerick, Ireland), Saturday, April 9, 2016:
talk_2631.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
Educating the Innovators of the 21st Century, at Dell Solution Center (Limerick, Ireland), Friday, April 8, 2016:
talk_2599.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 Educating the Innovators of the 21st Century
Creating the Ultimate Flipped Classroom: A Step-by-step Guide to Peer Instruction, at Word Educational Leadership Summit (Singapore), Wednesday, April 6, 2016:
talk_2533.pdf
This short-course introduces participants to the ideas of Peer Instruction (PI) and Just- in-Time-Teaching (JiTT), two research-based methods for engaging students, improving conceptual understanding, increasing retention in courses and programs, and enhancing academic performance. Participants will also learn about a new approach to instructional design. Finally, participants will apply the knowledge gained to a specific course module they are (or will be) teaching, by re-designing (or designing) the syllabus for this course module and developing a plan for implementing PI and JiTT.

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Read more about Creating the Ultimate Flipped Classroom: A Step-by-step Guide to Peer Instruction
Creating the Ultimate flipped classroom: Using Peer Instruction to Revolutionize Learning, at Word Educational Leadership Summit (Singapore), Monday, April 4, 2016:
talk_2531.pdf
Education is more than just transfer of information, yet that is what is mostly done in large introductory courses -- instructors present material (even though this material might be readily available in printed form) and for students the main purpose of lectures is to take down as many notes as they can. Few students have the ability, motivation, and discipline to synthesize all the information delivered to them. Yet synthesis is perhaps the most important -- and most elusive -- aspect of education. I will show how shifting the focus in lectures from delivering information to synthesizing... Read more about Creating the Ultimate flipped classroom: Using Peer Instruction to Revolutionize Learning
Assessment: The double-edged sword of learning, at Word Educational Leadership Summit (Singapore), Monday, April 4, 2016:
talk_2532.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 double-edged sword of learning
Why you can pass tests and sill fail in the real world, at 2016 Educating for Careers Conference, Sacramento Convention Center (Sacramento, CA), Tuesday, March 8, 2016:
talk_2614.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 Why you can pass tests and sill fail in the real world
Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at American Association of Publishers 2016 General Annual Meeting, New York University (New York, NY), Tuesday, March 1, 2016:
talk_2586.pdf
Over the past decades there has been a concerted push away from passive lecturing to active engagement in the classroom. A successful implementation of the so-called flipped classroom requires students to come to class prepared, either by reading the textbook or watching a pre-recorded video. A variety approaches have been devised to get students to take responsibility for this information transfer, but none manage to get all students to participate, compromising the in-class activities. I will present a new approach to get every student to prepare for every class using a new social learning... Read more about Innovating Education to Educate Innovators
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at Annual Meeting of the Physical Society of the Republic of China 2016, National Sun Yat-sen University (Kaohsiung, Taiwan), Monday, January 25, 2016:
talk_2541.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
Getting every student ready for every class, at Education Summit 2016, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (Santiago, Chile), Wednesday, January 13, 2016:
talk_2598.pdf
Over the past decades there has been a concerted push away from passive lecturing to active engagement in the classroom. A successful implementation of the so-called flipped classroom requires students to come to class prepared, either by reading the textbook or watching a pre-recorded video. A variety approaches have been devised to get students to take responsibility for this information transfer, but none manage to get all students to participate, compromising the in-class activities. I will present a new approach to get every student to prepare for every class using a new social learning... Read more about Getting every student ready for every class
Des Questions aux Concepts, at Turning Technologies User Conference: Conférences sur la pédagogie inversée, Université Nice Sophia Antipolis (Nice, France), Friday, December 11, 2015:
talk_2567.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.

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