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1. Taking a Peek at Michigan Tech |
Guidance counselors from high schools all over Michigan will converge on East Lansing today to learn more about the state’s public universities, and Michigan Tech is participating in the event.
The free program is called “Promoting the Publics.” More than 500 high school guidance counselors have registered.
“Guidance counselors play a huge role in the college selection process,” said Allison Granik-Carter, director of admissions. “This is an amazing opportunity for the guidance counselors to learn about schools they may not be familiar with. It also allows us to promote our Teacher/Counselor Visit Program, which gives the counselors a chance to see Michigan Tech and take first-hand knowledge back to their home high schools.”
The event will be at the Kellogg Center on the Michigan State University campus. |
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2. Mini Grants Available through CTLFD |
Mini grants for instructional improvement and innovation are now available through the Center for Teaching, Learning and Faculty Development.
The purpose of these grants is to improve teaching effectiveness and student learning. The grants, maximum of $500, are available to support the instructional mission of Michigan Tech and will be awarded for the purchase of teaching/learning materials, such as software, DVDs or new teaching technology, or travel to a conference to learn new teaching strategies. These grants are not intended to fund routine supplies and equipment that are normally supported by departmental budgets.
The deadline for applying is Friday, Oct. 12. More information and the grant application can be found at www.admin.mtu.edu/ctlfd/grants/index.php . |
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3. Club Indigo Tonight at the Calumet Theatre |
Mu Beta Psi music fraternity is sponsoring Club Indigo at the Calumet Theatre tonight, Friday, Sept. 21. The movie, Fritz Lang's silent masterpiece "Metropolis," is completely restored and backed by its original full-orchestra music. It will be shown at 7:15 p.m., and cost is $5.
A farewell gourmet buffet for, and prepared by, Chef Malcolm Hudson will precede the movie at 6 p.m. Call Calumet Theatre at 337-2610 to check for availability. |
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4. Teaching at Tech: Teaching Science Scientifically—Cognitive Apprenticeship |
This week, we’ll continue our review of Professor Carl Wieman’s article, “Why Not Try a Scientific Approach to Science Education?” in the latest issue of Change. Wieman argues that current instructional methods produce graduates who are unprepared to think or act like scientists. In order to evolve educational methods that will produce more-able graduates, Wieman says science teachers must 1) base teaching practices and making improvements on evidence rather than anecdote or tradition, 2) disseminate the results of their educational experimentation in a scholarly and public way that allows for replication and 3) make full use of the modern technologies that allow humans to extend their senses and expand their ways of knowing.
Wieman cites a large body of research that unequivocally demonstrates that classroom lectures are largely ineffective in producing the kinds of growth and development that results in the propensity and capacity to reason scientifically. Students may be able to recall science facts and canned problem-solving protocols well enough to pass exams, but graduates are unable to approach problems using what Wieman calls a “mental organization structure” of networked concepts that would enable them to think like expert physicists, biologists or chemists.
Citing a body of research that focused on physics graduates’ capacity to understand fundamental concepts in deep and durable ways, Wieman writes that students in traditional lecture courses master only about 30 percent of foundational concepts. Using instruments designed to characterize a student's use of physics concepts from novice to expert, Wieman found that many students were more able to evidence expert thinking before a physics course than after.
Wieman says physics teachers have engaged in wishful thinking in imagining that this overarching “mental organization structure” necessary to think like a physicist would somehow emerge as a freebie as a result of students mastering basic concepts in physics. Citing work in cognitive neuroscience that indicates that pre-existing mental misconceptions about a subject can profoundly interfere with long-term deep and durable mastery and application of a new gestalt of ideas, Wieman says that a student who does not go through an extended mental reconstruction process of physics-related ideas and constructs will not perform like an expert thinker, regardless of one’s ability to pass physics exams.
So why can’t most beginning graduate students do physics? Wieman says it is because the way we teach physics does not produce the very sort of ongoing, carefully staged cognitive apprenticeship necessary for the nurture and development of a person who can think like a scientist. In the lab, they stop memorizing physics tidbits, and they are patiently guided and prodded by an expert thinker to gradually pick up the reins and direct their own courses of inquiry.
Wieman then endeavored to take these ideas back into the undergraduate classroom for purposes of reshaping the learning environment. He knew he couldn’t provide a one-on-one apprenticeship program for each of his students. So the question became, “How can I create the experience of cognitive apprenticeship in a classroom setting?”
Wieman took two hints from the cognitive neuroscience literature. First, he reduced the “cognitive load.” Recognizing the limited capacity of short-term learning, Wieman slowed the pace, improved the clarity and enriched the modes of instruction so that basic concepts could be mastered more deeply, understood more distinctly and mentally represented more richly.
Second, he intentionally set about to uncover and address his students’ preconceptions about physics-related concepts and principles. His research group set about to develop and deliver explicit explanations such as 1) why course topics were worth learning, 2) how the principles operate in the real world, 3) why the new material “makes sense” and 4) how the new ideas connect with previously learned conceptions.
Doing just those two things eliminated the “expert-novice” decline noted in traditional instruction and even resulted in small gains in their capacity to think and act like expert scientists.
Next week, we’ll examine more of Wieman’s metacognitive musings. |
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5. New Staff |
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Doaa H. Abdelrasoul has joined the Institutional Analysis staff as a planning analyst. Abdelrasoul holds a B.S. in Computer Science from Cairo University in Egypt. She is married to Assistant Professor Ossama Abdelkhalik (MEEM); has two children, Ganna, age five and a half, and Noureddean, age four; and lives in Houghton. |
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6. Michigan Tech Notables |
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Doctoral student Lauren Fry (Environmental Engineering) has been awarded a graduate scholarship from Qualitative Environmental Analysis (QEA), an environmental engineering consulting firm. Fry, formerly a Peace Corps volunteer in Cameroon, has developed a research program that focuses on the barriers to sanitation coverage in developing countries, including the impacts of global change. QEA initiated its scholarship program in 2006 to support graduate student education in environmental analysis of natural systems. |
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7. In Print |
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Professor Jennifer Daryl Slack (Humanities) published "Duel to the Death?" in Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, September 2007. |
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