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2002

Memorization or Understanding: Are we teaching the right thing?, at Physics Colloquium, University of Colorado (Boulder, CO), Wednesday, August 28, 2002:
talk_431.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. Students get frustrated because they are unable to grasp simple concepts. Instructors get... Read more about Memorization or Understanding: Are we teaching the right thing?
Femtosecond laser-structured silicon: properties and structure, at Gordon Conference on Laser Interactions With Materials (Andover, NH), Tuesday, July 23, 2002:
talk_440.pdf
Silicon surfaces that are microstructured with femtosecond laser pulses in a sulfur hexafluoride environment exhibit several remarkable properties, including near-unity below-band gap optical absorption (C. Wu et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 78, 1850 (2001)). We report new structural and chemical characterization of this material, including cross-sectional TEM images of the microstructures. Our results indicate that the below-band gap absorption most likely comes from a surface layer of polycrystalline silicon roughly 1 micrometer thick, which includes nanopores, nanocrystals, and a high... Read more about Femtosecond laser-structured silicon: properties and structure
Do students learn more from some demonstrations than others?, at 2002 National Summer Conference: "Integrating Science and Mathematics Education Research into Teaching", University of Maine (Orono, ME), Monday, June 24, 2002:
talk_428.pdf
We previously compared the effectiveness of different modes of performing classroom demonstrations and found that students who passively observe demonstrations understand the underlying concepts no better than students who do not see the demonstration at all.* Furthermore, students who simply predict the demonstration outcome before seeing it display significantly greater understanding. Here, we extend this study to examine the role of pedagogy with demonstrations developed as part of a research-based curriculum designed to address student misconceptions. We selected individual demonstrations... Read more about Do students learn more from some demonstrations than others?
Peer Instruction in Large (and small!) Lectures, at Studiedag Onderwijsvernieuwing, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Leuven, Belgium), Tuesday, June 4, 2002:
talk_479.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. Students get frustrated because they are unable to grasp simple concepts. Instructors get... Read more about Peer Instruction in Large (and small!) Lectures
Ultrafast Lattice-Bonding Dynamics in Tellurium, at CLEO/QELS 2002 (Long Beach, CA), Tuesday, May 21, 2002:
talk_429.pdf
We measure the ordinary and extraordinary dielectric function of Te with femtosecond time resolution after coherent phonons are generated with an ultrashort laser pulse. The results reveal oscillatory behavior in the bonding-antibonding split at ~ 3 THz.

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