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2016

Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at Joint 13th Asia-Pacific Physics Conference (APPC) and 22nd Australian Institute of Physics Congress (AIP) (Brisbane, Queensland, Australia), Monday, December 5, 2016:
talk_2660.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 Innovating Education to Educate Innovators
Peer Instruction, at Physics and Astronomy New Faculty Workshop (College Park, MD), Thursday, November 17, 2016:
talk_2667.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 Peer Instruction
Innovating Education to Educate Innovators, at AAC&U Transforming Undergraduate STEM Education Conference (Boston, MA), Thursday, November 3, 2016:
talk_2633.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. The prevalent 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 focusing in class on questioning and promoting social interaction leads to deeper learning and independent thinking. I will also present a new approach to get every student to... Read more about Innovating Education to Educate Innovators
Assessment: The silent killer of learning, at Science Week Lecture, University of Texas Arlington (Arlington, TX), Tuesday, November 1, 2016:
talk_2666.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: The silent killer of learning
Turning Lectures into Learning, at Turning Technologies User Conference (Leiden, Netherlands), Wednesday, October 26, 2016:
talk_2659.pdf
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.
Turning Lectures into Learning, at Turning Technologies User Conference (London, UK), Monday, October 24, 2016:
talk_2658.pdf
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.
Assessment: The silent killer of learning, at Enhancing Teaching Effectiveness, Nyack College (Nyack, NY), Friday, October 21, 2016:
talk_2657.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: The silent killer of learning
Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Enhancing Teaching Effectiveness, Nyack College (Nyack, NY), Friday, October 21, 2016:
talk_2656.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
Laser doping and texturing of silicon for advanced optoelectronic devices, at Frontiers in Optics (FiO)/Laser Science (LS) Conference (Rochester, NY), Monday, October 17, 2016:
talk_2641.pdf
Irradiating a semiconductor sample with intense laser pulses in the presence of dopants drastically changes the optical, material, and electronic properties of the sample. The resulting material has applications for photodetectors and, potentially, intermediate-band solar cells.
Assessment: The silent killer of learning, at College of Science Distinguished Speaker, Rochester Institute to Technology (Rochester, NY), Monday, October 17, 2016:
talk_2652.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: The silent killer of learning

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