Presentations

    Flat space, deep learning, at Annual Meeting of the Team-based Learning Collaborative (St. Petersburg, FL), Friday, March 6, 2015:
    talk_2364.pdf
    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
    Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Brandeis University (Waltham, MA), Monday, March 9, 2015:
    talk_2410.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
    Confessions of a converted lecturer, at The Education Cooperative (East Walpole, MA), Monday, March 9, 2015:
    talk_2411.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
    Reflection on the implementation of Peer Instruction at SPU, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Monday, March 16, 2015
    Part I: Three staff members who attended the Nov 2014 Peer Instruction online workshop will present their experience and challenges and have an open discussion on how to improve the implementation of Flipped with Peer Instruction lessons in their courses with Professor Mazur. See below for suggested structure.

    Part II: Three (different) staff members who participated in the Nov 2014 Peer Instruction online workshop will each demonstrate a ConcepTest (format: brief intro, ConcepTest in action, wrap up). Participants will then discuss and reflect on the merits of each ConcepTest.

    Engaging Students One-on-One, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Monday, March 16, 2015:
    talk_2440.pdf
    This workshop will familiarize participants to the ideas of Peer Instruction and Just- in-Time-Teaching, two research-based methods for engaging students, improving conceptual understanding, increasing retention in courses and programs, and enhancing academic performance.
    Technology and Peer Instruction, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Monday, March 16, 2015:
    talk_2434.pdf
    Demonstration and discussion of the role of technology in the implementation of Peer Instruction. In particular, we will demonstrate Learning Catalytics as a platform for administering ConcepTests and implementing Just-in-Time-Teaching. We will also demonstrate a social document annotation system to get students prepared for class.
    Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Monday, March 16, 2015:
    talk_2435.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 Memorization or understanding: are we teaching the right thing?
    Designing good assessment questions, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015
    The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method centers around asking interactive questions, called ConcepTests, that help students build understanding. In this workshop, participants will learn how to design good ConcepTests.
    Assessment for learning, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015:
    talk_2436.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 for learning
    Discussion on Peer Instruction research, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015:
    talk_2439.pdf
    Discussions of teaching -- even some publications -- abound with anecdotal evidence. Our intuition often supplants a systematic, scientific approach to finding out what works and what doesn't work. Yet, research is increasingly demonstrating that our gut feelings about teaching are often wrong. In this talk I will discuss some research my group has done on gender issues in science courses and on the effectiveness of classroom demonstrations.
    Flat space, deep learning, at Program on Peer Instruction, Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore), Tuesday, March 17, 2015:
    talk_2438.pdf
    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
    The Principles and Practice of Physics, at Penn State University (State College, PA), Friday, March 20, 2015:
    talk_2441.pdf
    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.
    Flat space, deep learning, at Penn State University (State College, PA), Friday, March 20, 2015:
    talk_2442.pdf
    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
    Educating the Innovators of the 21st Century, at TLT Symposium, Penn State University (State College, PA), Saturday, March 21, 2015:
    talk_2412.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 Educating the Innovators of the 21st Century
    Peer Instruction, at Exploring Change: Innovative Ways to Create Quality Learning Opportunities -- A Day of Faculty Enrichment, Northwestern Oklahoma State University (Alva, OK), Wednesday, March 25, 2015:
    talk_2444.pdf
    The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method has been assessed in many studies using standardized, diagnostic tests and shown to be considerably more effective than the conventional lecture approach to teaching. Peer Instruction is now used in a wide range of science and math courses at the college and secondary level. In this 2-3 hour long workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction, serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is... Read more about Peer Instruction
    Confessions of a converted lecturer, at Exploring Change: Innovative Ways to Create Quality Learning Opportunities -- A Day of Faculty Enrichment, Northwestern Oklahoma State University (Alva, OK), Wednesday, March 25, 2015:
    talk_2443.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
    Peer Instruction, at 2015 Transformative Learning Conference, University of Central Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK), Thursday, March 26, 2015:
    talk_2413.pdf
    The basic goals of Peer Instruction are to encourage and make use of student interaction during lectures, while focusing students' attention on underlying concepts and techniques. The method has been assessed in many studies using standardized, diagnostic tests and shown to be considerably more effective than the conventional lecture approach to teaching. Peer Instruction is now used in a wide range of science and math courses at the college and secondary level. In this 2-3 hour long workshop, participants will learn about Peer Instruction, serve as the "class" in which Peer Instruction is... Read more about Peer Instruction
    The Transformative Impact of Engaged Student Learning — for Students AND Instructor, at 2015 Transformative Learning Conference, University of Central Oklahoma (Oklahoma City, OK), Friday, March 27, 2015:
    talk_2414.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
    Flat space, deep learning, at Pearson Biology Leadership Conference 12 (Austin, TX), Saturday, March 28, 2015:
    talk_2415.pdf
    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
    Turning lectures into learning, at Turning Technologies User Conference (New Orleans, LA), Monday, March 30, 2015:
    talk_2445.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.

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