Bulletin of the American Physical Society
APS March Meeting 2013
Volume 58, Number 1
Monday–Friday, March 18–22, 2013; Baltimore, Maryland
Session Z3: Invited Session: Integration of Research and Teaching Excellence: Cottrell Scholars |
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Sponsoring Units: FEd Chair: Richard Wiener, Research Corporation Room: Ballroom III |
Friday, March 22, 2013 11:15AM - 11:51AM |
Z3.00001: Cottrell Scholars Collaborative -- Integrating Research and Teaching Invited Speaker: Jairo Sinova Higher education reform needs to move towards a more interactive and integrated model, in which there is greater curricular emphasis in skill development, multi-discipline integration, and innovative connectivity, rather than traditional content driven curricula. This is even more crucial in STEM education, given our current slow down relative to other countries and the need to remain competitive in a global environment. Successful reforms require a seamless integration of research and teaching where education excellence and research excellence are not viewed by faculty as a zero sum game but as mutually benefitting ingredients of academic success. Cottrell scholars are selected among top ranking young academics with an equal passionate commitment to research excellence and education. Recently, these national group of academics sponsored by the Research Corporation for Science Advancement have created the Cottrell Scholars Collaborative (CSC) which aims at creating a self-supporting group that promotes integration of research and teaching at a national level with different initiatives. I will describe in these talk the aim of this group and the different sponsored projects that CSC is undertaking and the types of collective and individual efforts that are making a difference in sustainable education reform. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 22, 2013 11:51AM - 12:27PM |
Z3.00002: Optics for Biophysics: An Interdisciplinary course in Optics for Physicists and Life Science Students Invited Speaker: Jennifer Ross Optics is an applied sub-field of physics that life science researchers utilize daily. Indeed, one cannot open a biological science research journal without seeing five beautiful images of cells. To bridge the gap and educate more life science students in the field of physics, I have developed a new course called ``Optics for Biophysics,'' an interdisciplinary course engaging students from physics, chemistry, life science, and engineering. The course is a team-based learning or studio physics approach combined with a semester-long project. Mini-lectures of 20 minutes are given before students do hands-on group work to understand the concepts. In the project, the students design and build a modern transmitted light microscope. The final aspect of the project is to build a unique module onto the microscope to address a specific biological question. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 22, 2013 12:27PM - 1:03PM |
Z3.00003: Stimulating Creativity by Integrating Research and Teaching Across the Academic Disciplines Invited Speaker: Richard Taylor Creativity is a human adventure fueled by the process of exploration. But how do we explore our intellectual interests? In this talk, I'll propose that we seek out our creative opportunities using an inherent natural process. This process might, therefore, exploit search strategies found across diverse natural systems -- ranging from the way animals forage for food to the way the human eye locates information embedded within complex patterns. The symbolic significance of this hypothesis lies in its call for educational institutes to provide environments that encourage our natural explorations rather those that stamp restrictive, artificial `order' on the process. To make my case, I'll review some of my own research trajectories followed during my RCSA Cottrell Scholarship at the University of Oregon (UO). My first conclusion will be that it is fundamentally unnatural to declare divides across disciplines. In particular, the infamous `art-science divide' is not a consequence of our natural creative searches but instead arises from our practical inability to accommodate the rapid drive toward academic specialization. Secondly, divides between research and teaching activities are equally unnatural -- both endeavors are driven by the same creative strategy and are intertwined within the same natural process. This applies equally to the experiences of professors and students. I will end with specific success stories at the UO. These include a NSF IGERT project (focused on accelerating students' transitions from classroom to research experiences) and a collaboration between architects and professors to design a building (the recently opened Lewis Integrative Science Building) that encourages daily encounters between students and professors across research disciplines. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 22, 2013 1:03PM - 1:39PM |
Z3.00004: Integrated Concentration in Science (iCons): Undergraduate Education Through Interdisciplinary, Team-Based, Real-World Problem Solving Invited Speaker: Mark Tuominen Attitude, Skills, Knowledge (ASK) -- In this order, these are fundamental characteristics of scientific innovators. Through first-hand practice in using science to unpack and solve complex real-world problems, students can become self-motivated scientific leaders. This presentation describes the pedagogy of a recently developed interdisciplinary undergraduate science education program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst focused on addressing global challenges with scientific solutions. Integrated Concentration in Science (iCons) is an overarching concentration program that supplements the curricula provided within each student's chosen major. iCons is a platform for students to perform student-led research in interdisciplinary collaborative teams. With a schedule of one course per year over four years, the cohort of students move through case studies, analysis of real-world problems, development of potential solutions, integrative communication, laboratory practice, and capstone research projects. In this presentation, a track emphasizing renewable energy science is used to illustrate the iCons pedagogical methods. This includes discussion of a third-year laboratory course in renewable energy that is educationally scaffolded: beginning with a boot camp in laboratory techniques and culminating with student-designed research projects. Among other objectives, this course emphasizes the practice of using reflection and redesign, as a means of generating better solutions and embedding learning for the long term. [Preview Abstract] |
Friday, March 22, 2013 1:39PM - 2:15PM |
Z3.00005: Living the good life: pursuing excellence as a scientist and as a teacher Invited Speaker: Erica Carlson Do research and teaching represent competing demands on our time and energy, or have we bought into a false dichotomy? As a scientist, my job is to find truth. As a teacher, my job is to teach the next generation how to find truth. In this talk, I discuss the ways in which research and teaching have been synergistic in my experience, as well as the tension commonly felt among professors (myself included) as to how to ``split our time'' between the two. I will share a brief synopsis of my teaching philosophy, and I hope to give some insight into what (in my opinion) makes or breaks you as a teacher. I will also share some of my experience in this great adventure we call scientific progress. [Preview Abstract] |
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