Tag Archives: sbuittravel

Stony Brook University’s first local Summer Institute

Faculty using low tech response cubes during a presentation
Faculty using low tech response cubes during a presentation

Attending the Summer Institute here on campus this week, primarily in the role of technology support and as a representative of TLT, was a really great experience.  There were many informative presentations given to prime the participating faculty for the workshop work that they would be diving into, including one given by Jennifer Frederick from Yale University’s Center for Scientific Teaching. The possibly confusing point here, is that while these Summer Institute sessions are all aimed at the departments involved in STEM education, and so therefore you are addressing a room filled with Biologists, Physicists, Mathematicians, Computer Scientists, Chemists, Engineers, etc….  “scientific teaching’ is not about teaching science, but rather teaching using effective methods that have been proven using scientific methodology.

It makes a lot of sense. These are primarily researchers. Don’t stand in front of them and tell them what they are doing wrong in the classroom and how to change it.  Show them what years of data have  to say about different aspects and strategies in teaching. Show them where they can find out data about the schools that their students are coming from (a great reason to hold these events at an individual institution or region is how you can really drill down to local issues – did you know that no schools in the Bronx even offer Physics in high school? (other than a charter school that doesn’t count because the students that go to that school don’t actually live in the Bronx)).

As soon as studies and data started to be presented to the faculty participating, I could feel them losing up and the defences coming down.  They became more comfortable and realized that they were home among their peers.

Structure of the Summer Institutes

Participants:

  • Engage in teaching and learning through interactive presentations, mini-seminars, group work, and discussions
  • Work in small groups to develop instructional materials for a general topic area
  • Design and adapt instructional materials that integrate active learning, assessment, and diversity and that have clear learning goals
  • Present and revise instructional materials based on fellow participants’ review and feedback

Three tenets of scientific teaching were explored everyday.

Active Learning (or Teaching)
Diversity
Assessment

Common activity teaching techniques that were demonstrated and then used in the faculty presentations included:

Think – Pair – Share
Student Response Systems (traditional clickers and low tech response cubes)
POE (Predict Observe Explain)
Demonstrations

IMHO the event went very well and CESAME did a great job bring it to SBU.  I hope everyone involved was happy with the outcomes and that the participants feel a bit revitalized the next time they are stepping into a classroom.

Coursera Partner’s Conference

Dr. Meg Schedel is over in London presenting for Stony Brook University at the Coursera Partner’s Conference.

Meg's selfie at our poster.
Meg’s selfie at our poster.

31 March – 1 April, 2014   |   London, England
Co-hosted by the University of Edinburgh and the University of London

The second annual Coursera Partners’ Conference brings together university officials, faculty members, instructional designers, program managers, technology specialists, and teaching support staff from across our partner organizations for two days of lively discussion about MOOCs, online and blended pedagogy, and emerging trends in higher education. It is intended to provide an opportunity for members of the Coursera community to learn from each other and share their experiences in designing, creating, and delivering MOOCs, and to discuss the rapidly transforming landscape in higher education.

 

TEDActive 2014 “The Next Chapter”

As the principal license holder for TEDxSBU, I had to attend a full blown TED event in order to raise our attendee and sponsorship caps at our own event. So – I went to TEDActive in Canada. TEDActive is kind of like a regular TED conference wrapped in a makerish package — but more than anything else, it’s a younger and far more of a social crowd. I, myself, am not all that terribly social – so that part was largely lost on me.  (Plus, I’m getting older – but let’s not go there.) Also, I’m not looking to network to find a new job and some of that was happening as well.

However, I did benefit from Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman being lured to the satellite location based on the promise of it being more fun – so WIN!

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Some other things that I learned about TED…  one never goes to TED.com and then searches for a talk about juggling or magic tricks (at least I can’t imagine many people doing this sort of thing, without also picturing them piling out on mass from a VW bug while wearing funny shoes).  BUT IF YOU WERE TO DO SO…  you would find many talks, including some from these fellows who have been invited to TED 6 times now:

 

There were however the standard talks of “ideas worth spreading” and I certainly enjoyed those.  Some of them have been released into the wild now including:

 

and

 

I’ll post more of my favorites as they are released.

SLN SOL Summit 2014

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Margaret Schedel, Alexandra Pickett, Jennifer L. Adams

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Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher, Dr. Frank Mayadas
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J.L. Adams
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Dr. Margaret Schedel, Lisa Stevens, Jennifer L. Adams
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Nancy Wozniak, Linda Unger, Jennifer Jaiswal
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Carey Hatch et.al.
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J.L.A., Lisa Stevens, Margaret Schedel
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J.L.A.
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Alexandra Pickett, J.L.A., Margaret Schedel
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Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher

full flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/74869634@N08/tags/slnsolsummit2014/show
Video Recordings: http://slnsolsummit2014.edublogs.org/mediasite/ and http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrSUIV-q1uFVD7Zg1Gn7Nfm55KPWPU3AZ