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2011

Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Provost’s Series on University Teaching and Learning, Montclair State University (Montclair, NJ), Wednesday, April 6, 2011:
talk_1731.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
Peer Instruction Workshop, at Joint CSE/IAD workshop, The University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, United Kingdom), Friday, April 1, 2011:
talk_1738.pdf
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 workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction, serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is demonstrated,... Read more about Peer Instruction Workshop
Confessions of a converted lecturer, at e-Science Institute Public Lecture, The University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, United Kingdom), Friday, April 1, 2011:
talk_1737.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
The scientific approach to teaching: Research as a basis for course design, at 3rd Annual Conference of Educational Research Center (Brummana, Lebanon), Sunday, March 27, 2011:
talk_1734.pdf
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.
Improving education through research, at Vanguardia Technológica 2011, World Trade Center of Mexico City (Mexico City, Mexico), Wednesday, March 16, 2011:
talk_1732.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 Improving education through research
Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Teaching and Learning Conference, Missouri S&T (Rolla, MO), Thursday, March 10, 2011:
talk_1728.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
The scientific approach to teaching: Research as a basis for course design, at Special campus-wide event, University of Missouri St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), Wednesday, March 9, 2011:
talk_1727.pdf
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.
Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery, at University of Missouri St. Louis (St. Louis, MO), Wednesday, March 9, 2011:
talk_1726.pdf
We use femtosecond laser pulses to manipulate sub-cellular structures inside live and fixed cells. Using only a few nanojoules of laser pulse energy, we are able to selectively disrupt individual mitochondria in live bovine capillary epithelial cells, and cleave single actin fibers in the cell cytoskeleton network of fixed human fibro-blast cells. We have also used the technique to micromanipulate the neural network of C. Elegans, a small nematode. Our laser scalpel can snip individual axons without causing any damage to surrounding tissue, allowing us to study the function of individual... Read more about Subcellular surgery and nanosurgery
The scientific approach to teaching: Research as a basis for course design, at Tufts STEM Education Lecture Series, Tufts University (Medford, MA), Monday, March 7, 2011:
talk_1699.pdf
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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