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2015

Peer Instruction, at Exploring Change: Innovative Ways to Create Quality Learning Opportunities -- A Day of Faculty Enrichment, Northwestern Oklahoma State University (Alva, OK), Wednesday, March 25, 2015:
talk_2444.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 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
Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Exploring Change: Innovative Ways to Create Quality Learning Opportunities -- A Day of Faculty Enrichment, Northwestern Oklahoma State University (Alva, OK), Wednesday, March 25, 2015:
talk_2443.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
Educating the Innovators of the 21st Century, at TLT Symposium, Penn State University (State College, PA), Saturday, March 21, 2015:
talk_2412.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
The Principles and Practice of Physics, at Penn State University (State College, PA), Friday, March 20, 2015:
talk_2441.pdf
The Principles and Practice of Physics is a groundbreaking new calculus-based introductory physics textbook that uses a unique organization and pedagogy to allow students to develop a true conceptual understanding of physics alongside the quantitative skills needed in the course. The book organizes introductory physics around the conservation principles and provides a unified contemporary view of introductory physics. In this talk we will discuss the unique architecture of the book, the conservation-laws-first approach, and results obtained with this book.
Flat space, deep learning, at Penn State University (State College, PA), Friday, March 20, 2015:
talk_2442.pdf
The teaching of physics to engineering students has remained stagnant for close to a century. In this novel team-based, project-based approach, we break the mold by giving students ownership of their learning. This new course has no standard lectures or exams, yet students’ conceptual gains are significantly greater than those obtained in traditional courses. The course blends six best practices to deliver a learning experience that helps students develop important skills, including communication, estimation, problem solving, and team skills, in addition to a solid conceptual understanding... Read more about Flat space, deep learning
Designing good assessment questions, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015
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 centers around asking interactive questions, called ConcepTests, that help students build understanding. In this workshop, participants will learn how to design good ConcepTests.
Assessment for learning, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015:
talk_2436.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 for learning
Discussion on Peer Instruction research, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015:
talk_2439.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.
Flat space, deep learning, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015:
talk_2438.pdf
The teaching of physics to engineering students has remained stagnant for close to a century. In this novel team-based, project-based approach, we break the mold by giving students ownership of their learning. This new course has no standard lectures or exams, yet students’ conceptual gains are significantly greater than those obtained in traditional courses. The course blends six best practices to deliver a learning experience that helps students develop important skills, including communication, estimation, problem solving, and team skills, in addition to a solid conceptual understanding... Read more about Flat space, deep learning
Reflection on the implementation of Peer Instruction at SPU, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Monday, March 16, 2015
Part I: Three staff members who attended the Nov 2014 Peer Instruction online workshop will present their experience and challenges and have an open discussion on how to improve the implementation of Flipped with Peer Instruction lessons in their courses with Professor Mazur. See below for suggested structure.

Part II: Three (different) staff members who participated in the Nov 2014 Peer Instruction online workshop will each demonstrate a ConcepTest (format: brief intro, ConcepTest in action, wrap up). Participants will then discuss and reflect on the merits of each ConcepTest.

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