2015

Confessions of a converted lecturer, at 1st Leiden University Conference on Educational Innovation, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Leiden, Netherlands), Monday, November 23, 2015:
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
Flat space, deep learning, at 1st Leiden University Conference on Educational Innovation, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden (Leiden, Netherlands), Monday, November 23, 2015:
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
Nonlinear optics in on-chip zero-index metamaterials, at Engineering Physics seminar, Universite de Montreal (Montreal, QC, Canada), Monday, November 23, 2015:
Optical metamaterials - composite materials whose electromagnetic properties are finely engineered by designing their constituents - have been shown to exhibit strange and exotic properties, such as negligible or negative indices of refraction and the direct control of the amplitude and phase of light. These properties have been used for innumerable applications, such as flat lenses, invisibility cloaks as well as previously unseen nonlinear interactions. Recently, our group has demonstrated the first on-chip metamaterial with a refractive index of zero. These isotropic structures exhibit a... Read more about Nonlinear optics in on-chip zero-index metamaterials
Peer Instruction, at Workshop for New Physics and Astronomy Faculty (College Park, MD), Thursday, November 19, 2015:
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
Teaching Physics, Conservation Laws First, at Workshop for New Physics and Astronomy Faculty (College Park, MD), Thursday, November 19, 2015:
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.
Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?, at National Meeting of the American Association of Physics Teachers Mexican Section, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (Mexico City, Mexico), Friday, November 13, 2015:
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 Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?
Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Pearson Author Event (Warsaw, Poland), Tuesday, October 27, 2015:
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.

I will demonstrate the approach I developed, Peer Instruction, using a new web-based software called Learning Catalytics. Bring your web...

Read more about Confessions of a converted lecturer
Teaching Physics, Conservation Laws First, at Pearson Author Event (Warsaw, Poland), Tuesday, October 27, 2015:
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.
Turning Lectures into Learning, at Turning Technologies User Conference, Akademia Finansów i Biznesu Vistula (Warsaw, Poland), Monday, October 26, 2015:
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.
Less is More: Extreme Optics with Zero Refractive Index, at United States Coast Guard Academy (New London, Connecticut), Monday, October 26, 2015:
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

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