CENTER FOR RESEARCH
ON COLLEGE SCIENCE
TEACHING AND LEARNING
CRCSTL SEMINAR SERIES
Fall 2009
TIME: Mondays, 4-5:00 PM PLACE: 105 Natural Science, unless otherwise noted **
Note: The Seminar Series features guest & internal speakers.
Informal Research Meetings (when there is no scheduled speaker). Please join the CRCSTL postdocs and their mentors in a weekly informal meeting about various groups' progress on research.
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**September 10, 2009, Thursday - SPECIAL EVENT
A Lilly Seminar Series Workshop: "Moving from Effective Teaching to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)" Facilitator - Karl Smith
Location: Kellogg Hotel and Conference Center, Michigamme Room
Registration: 8:45 am. Seminar is 9-12 Noon.
SoTL, which promotes teaching as a scholarly endeavor and worthy subject for research, has received increased attention in higher education as many faculty embrace more scholarly approaches to teaching and learning. In this seminar, participants will explore the Hutchins and Shulman (1999) SoTL continuum and learn strategies to progress from effective teachers to scholarly teachers who root their instructional decisions on the research on teaching and learning to teachers who advance the scholarship of teaching and learning. Register online at: http://fod.msu.edu/cregistration.asp
September 14, 2009
Speaker: Professor Jennifer Kaplan, MSU, DSME, Statistics & Probability, Education
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title of Talk: What do students hear when we say "random" and "association"?: Empirical results from a study of lexical ambiguity. Co-authors: Neal Rogness of Grand Valley State University and Diane Fisher of University of Louisiana-Lafayette.
Abstract: Language plays a crucial role in the classroom. The use of specialized language in a domain can cause a subject to seem more difficult to students than it actually is and impede students from learning what we hope they will learn. Everyday English words that are used differently in a domain are said to have lexical ambiguity. Studies in other fields, such as mathematics and chemistry education, suggest that in order to help students learn vocabulary, instructors should exploit the lexical ambiguity of the words. This presentation is part of a sequence of studies designed to understand the effects of and develop techniques for exploiting lexical ambiguities in the statistics classroom. The talk will present a method for studying language use by undergraduate students and empirical results of students' pre-existing and developed definitions of the words "random" and "association", contrasting students' uses of the words with the statistical definitions.
September 21, 2009
Informal Research Meeting
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: "A Report from the Geocognition Lab"
September 28, 2009 - NO CRCSTL MEETING
**October 1, 2009, Thursday, 8:30 am - 3:30 pm - SPECIAL EVENT
MSU's 2009 STEM Symposium, MSU Union/Gold Room
Advances in STEM Education. Co-sponsored by the College of Education; CRCSTL; Undergraduate Education, Office of the Provost; and F&OD. Open to faculty, academic administrators, staff, graduate students, and non-MSU faculty.
1:30-2:15 pm "Front Line Reflections: The First Ten Years of the Ohio State University First Year Engineering Program" by Robert J. Gustafson, Ohio State University.
2:15 - 3:15 pm "Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (STEM) Education in Five Years of Sooner" by Richard Felder, North Carolina State University.
3:15 - 4:00 pm "Creating a Culture for Scholarly and Systematic Innovation in Engineering Education" by Jack R. Lohmann, Georgia Institute of Technology.
For more details and to register go to: http://fod.msu.edu/FacDevOpportunities/stem/about.asp
October 5, 2009
Informal Research Meeting
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title:
October 12, 2009
Speaker: Professor Shirley L. Yu, University of Houston, Department of Educational Psychology
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: The Relations of Ethnic Identity and Belonging to Women’s Motivation in Engineering: An Achievement Goal Theory Perspective
Abstract: Females and students from ethnic minority groups are underrepresented in undergraduate engineering programs, with shortcomings in both recruitment and retention. Understanding the motivation of students majoring in engineering is crucial if researchers and educators are to address these disparities. This study utilizes an achievement goal theory perspective on motivation in engineering and examines individual perceptions of ethnic identity and school belonging as predictors of motivation among a diverse sample of women. Ethnic identity, or the extent to which a student identifies with one’s ethnic group, is a cultural factor representing a key substantive issue for researchers in motivational science. Sense of school belonging, or students’ perceptions of being respected by others and feelings of pride in belonging to one’s school has been shown to contribute to academic motivation and achievement. In this presentation, I will report on empirical data collected as part of a multidisciplinary project led by faculty collaborators in educational psychology, engineering education, and human resource development.
October 19, 2009 -- No seminar/meeting.
October 26, 2009 -- No seminar/meeting.
November 2, 2009
Speaker: Professor Duncan Sibley, Geological Sciences, CRCSTL, MSU, DSME
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: Putting Theory into Practice in an Online Course.
Abstract:
Building an online course is my attempt to construct a course that reflects research on how people learn. An advantage of building an online course is that I can review and edit each minute of class. Also, as I build the class, I’ve found it useful to change earlier lectures in light of issues that arise while creating later lectures. The end product is intended to be a course in which students practice using a few principles to explain the causes and effects of global climate change. For example, one principle students are expected to remember is that all matter on earth can be considered to reside in reservoirs and there is a constant flux of matter from one reservoir to another. Another principle is that all movement and change requires a source of energy. Given these principles, I expect students to be able to explain how increases in atmospheric CO2 will change carbon in other reservoirs on time scales from 100’s to millions of years and how these changes will effect climate.
Delivery online is very different from a classroom. I use a large number of formats to engage students. Character, animations, expert interviews, discussions of ethical and political issues, drawings and videos are intended interest and motivate students.
In the seminar you’ll watch about 15 minutes of the class and then we’ll ask whether or not the lesson meets my objectives to:
· Begin and end with concrete observations
· Address clear objectives
· Help students appropriately use multiple representations of matter (calcium in this case) from the
molecular scale to the global scale
· Maintain interest and motivation.
November 9, 2009
Speaker: Professor Melanie M. Cooper, Clemson University,
Department of Engineering and Science Education
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: Assessment and Improvement of Problem Solving
Improvement of Problem Solving Problem solving is one of the most important goals of any science course. However it is notoriously difficult to improve these skills, and many students never develop competence. A great deal of effort has been devoted to developing heuristics to help students solve problems, but there is little evidence that these methods result in improvements that transfer to new situations. That is: students often learn to solve a specific type of problem by applying an algorithm or by analogy to a more or less identical problem from the text. While these activities may result in high test scores, they are not in fact very useful skills, since employers rarely need scientists and engineers who cannot solve problems in a more global sense. Our work has centered on the development of methods to assess general problem solving skills, and the use of these assessments to probe the effects of interventions designed to promote and develop intrinsic problem solving skills in students. We find that providing students with learning environments where they must plan, monitor and evaluate their activities results in measurable improvements in problem solving strategies and abilities.
November 16, 2009
Speaker: Professor Perry Samson, Associate Chair & Professor,
Atmospheric, Oceanic & Space Sciences, University of Michigan
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: "Let them Bring Their Laptops! Engaging Students in Large Classes Using
Technology"
November 23, 2009
Speaker: Dr. Mark Urban-Lurain, MSU, Division of Science & Math Education
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: "Beyond Multiple Choice Exams: Using computerized Lexical Analysis to
Understand Students' Conceptual Reasoning in STEM Disciplines"
Abstract:
Constructed response questions, in which students must use their own language in order to explain a phenomenon, create more meaningful opportunities for instructors to identify their students' learning obstacles than multiple choice questions. However, the realities of typical large-enrollment undergraduate classes restrict the options faculty have for moving towards more learner-focused instruction. We are exploring the use of computerized lexical analysis of students' writing in large enrollment undergraduate biology and geology courses. We have created libraries that categorize student responses with >90% accuracy. These categories can be used to predict expert ratings of student responses with accuracy approaching inter-rater reliability among expert raters. These techniques also provide insight into students' use of analogical thinking, a fundamental part of scientific modeling. These techniques have potential for improving assessment practices across STEM disciplines.
November 30, 2009
Informal Research Meeting
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title:
December 7, 2009
Informal Research Meeting
Location: 105 Nat. Science
Title: