Seminar

Flipped Classrooms 101, at Syracuse University (Syracuse, NY), Thursday, April 25, 2013:
Instructors all over the globe are turning their students' worlds around by flipping their classrooms. In a flipped class, teachers move information coverage out of the lecture hall so that they can better leverage in-class time to address student difficulties and misconceptions. In this interactive session, Dr. Julie Schell will flip the workshop by providing brief introductory, pre-workshop activities to participants. She will use responses from these activities in the workshop and discuss the why, what, and how of flipped classrooms by confronting and resolving a series common myths about... Read more about Flipped Classrooms 101
Black silicon and the quest for intermediate band semiconductors, at iCone Seminar, University of North Carolina Charlotte (Charlotte, NC), Friday, February 15, 2013:
Shining intense, ultrashort laser pulses on the surface of a crystalline silicon wafer drastically changes the optical, material and electronic properties of the wafer. The resulting textured surface is highly absorbing and looks black to the eye. The properties of this 'black silicon' make it useful for a wide range of commercial devices. In particular, we have been able to fabricate highly-sensitive PIN photodetectors using this material. The sensitivity extends to wavelengths of 1600 nm making them particularly useful for applications in communications and remote sensing.
The Tyranny of the Lecture, at 2013 Swenton-Ouellette Lecture, Ohio State University (Columbus, OH), Thursday, February 14, 2013:
Most -- if not all -- of the important skills in our life are acquired outside the traditional classroom setting. Yet we continue to teach using lectures where students passively take down information. Instead, we should really focus on the assimilation of that information and shift the focus from teaching to helping students learn. Over the past 20 years, instructors world-wide have begun to adopt Peer Instruction to get students to think in class. With the advent of new technology the process can be significantly improved. A new data-analytics driven audience response system does away with... Read more about The Tyranny of the Lecture
Black silicon, at 2013 Swenton-Ouellette Lecture, Ohio State University (Columbus, OH), Thursday, February 14, 2013:
Shining intense, ultrashort laser pulses on the surface of a crystalline silicon wafer drastically changes the optical, material and electronic properties of the wafer. The resulting textured surface is highly absorbing and looks black to the eye. The properties of this 'black silicon' make it useful for a wide range of commercial devices. In particular, we have been able to fabricate highly-sensitive PIN photodetectors using this material. The sensitivity extends to wavelengths of 1600 nm making them particularly useful for applications in communications and remote sensing.
Black silicon, at Physics Seminar, Wright State University (Dayton, OH), Friday, November 30, 2012:
Shining intense, ultrashort laser pulses on the surface of a crystalline silicon wafer drastically changes the optical, material and electronic properties of the wafer. The resulting textured surface is highly absorbing and looks black to the eye. The properties of this 'black silicon' make it useful for a wide range of commercial devices. In particular, we have been able to fabricate highly-sensitive PIN photodetectors using this material. The sensitivity extends to wavelengths of 1600 nm making them particularly useful for applications in communications and remote sensing.
Black silicon, at Optoelectronics Research Centre Seminar, University of Southampton (Southampton, UK), Wednesday, November 7, 2012:
Shining intense, ultrashort laser pulses on the surface of a crystalline silicon wafer drastically changes the optical, material and electronic properties of the wafer. The resulting textured surface is highly absorbing and looks black to the eye. The properties of this 'black silicon' make it useful for a wide range of commercial devices. In particular, we have been able to fabricate highly-sensitive PIN photodetectors using this material. The sensitivity extends to wavelengths of 1600 nm making them particularly useful for applications in communications and remote sensing.
Flipping the Science Classroom: How to Turn your Students' Worlds Upside Down, at The Center for Scientific Teaching: Science Education Speakers Series, Yale University (New Haven, CT), Thursday, November 1, 2012:
In a flipped classroom, instructors typically move information coverage outside the classroom so that they can better leverage in-class time to address student misunderstandings and misconceptions about subject matter. The most basic and popular iteration of a flipped class is pre-recording lectures on key concepts, called screencasting, and putting them online for viewing and engagement before class. In this workshop, Dr. Julie Schell will provide an overview of the history of the flipped classroom and introduce a set of innovative tools that go beyond screencasting, tools that instructors... Read more about Flipping the Science Classroom: How to Turn your Students' Worlds Upside Down
Flipping the Classroom: How to turn your students' worlds upside down, at Computer Science Faculty Lunch, University of Texas at Austin (Austin, TC), Wednesday, October 24, 2012:
In a flipped classroom, instructors typically move information coverage outside the classroom so that that they can better leverage in-class time to address student misunderstandings and misconceptions about subject matter. The most basic and popular iteration of a flipped class is pre-recording lectures, called screencasting, on key concepts for students and putting them online for viewing and engagement before class. In this seminar, Dr. Julie Schell will provide an overview of the history of the flipped classroom and introduce a set of innovative tools that go far beyond screencasting,... Read more about Flipping the Classroom: How to turn your students' worlds upside down
Peer Instruction: Engaging Students in the Classroom, at MECESUP Program on Innovative Teaching and Learning, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), Wednesday, October 3, 2012:
The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method has been assessed in many studies using standardized, diagnostic tests and shown to be considerably more effective than the conventional lecture approach to teaching. Peer Instruction is now used in a wide range of science and math courses at the college and secondary level. In this 2-3 hour long workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction, serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is... Read more about Peer Instruction: Engaging Students in the Classroom
The scientific approach to teaching: Research as a basis for course design, at Department of Physics and Astronomy Seminar, Youngstown State University (Youngstown, OH), Thursday, September 27, 2012:
Discussions of teaching -- even some publications -- abound with anecdotal evidence. Our intuition often supplants a systematic, scientific approach to finding out what works and what doesn't work. Yet, research is increasingly demonstrating that our gut feelings about teaching are often wrong. In this talk I will discuss some research my group has done on gender issues in science courses and on the effectiveness of classroom demonstrations.

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