February 7 Michael R. Dietrich Department of Biological Sciences Dartmouth College "Making Digital History: Putting the History of Recent Science and Technology Online" Over the past five years the Sloan Foundation and Dibner Funds have funded large-scale collaborative efforts to put the history of recent science and technology online. As part of this project, I and my collaborators were charged to find ways to use the internet to create history -- not just archive information and make it available online. This paper will describe this digital history project and evaluate the effectiveness of current internet technology for creating histories of ongoing scientific and technological research. February 21 Marybeth Campbell Public Education Coordinator Renewable Energy Trust "Renewable Energy Trust K-12 and Public Awareness Initiative" The Renewable Energy Trust's K-12 Initiative works to ensure that renewable energy is incorporated into the curriculums of Massachusetts schools. The Trust has initiated several programs to encourage and make it easy for teachers to teach their students about renewable energy by developing an easily accessible shared body of knowledge on renewable energy education. This year, the Trust awarded three grants for student activities and vocational high school teacher workshops. With these new grants underway, the Trust is confident that we are helping to increase awareness for renewable energy in the classroom. In addition to the Trust's K-12 programs, we recently awarded eight new grants through our Public Awareness Initiative. Our funding supports grassroots organization across the state to increase awareness and support for clean energy. March 7 Bradford C Lister Director, Anderson Center for Innovation in Undergraduate Education Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute "Next Generation Studio: A New Model for Interactive Learning" Next Generation Studio courses combine the benefits of face-to-face, interactive teaching with the power and flexibility of web-based learning. In the NGS model, web sites become "virtual studio classrooms" that engage students in active learning, team work, and communication beyond the confines of scheduled classes. This talk will cover the development, delivery, and assessment of online and in-class content, with particular emphasis on Biology: An Interactive Exploration, an NGS course being developed in collaboration with Thomson Publishing. April 4 Mark Schlesinger Associate Vice President for Academic Technology University of Massachusetts "New Bottles, New Wine?" The University of Massachusetts has introduced electronic technology into all sectors of its operations, including teaching and learning. The adoption of electronic technology has affected us in ways we can grasp only if we step back and examine how the institutional life has changed. Some would dispute whether that life has changed for the better, but none would dispute that the academic enterprise is vastly different. Less clear is the manner in which electronic technology provides not merely a new conduit for old messages and methodologies, but transforms those messages and methodologies, and fundamentally changes our understanding of teaching and learning. Recent developments in hardware and software, by their very adoption, harbor such a change in perspective. This session will briefly explore those developments (including online classes, blended learning, web enhanced learning, inking technology, and electronic portfolios) and their implications, and will update participants on how faculty across the UMass System are using the new technologies. The presenter will ask participants to discuss implications for the K-12 STEM pipeline and teacher training. April 18 Alan R Peterfreund Ken Rath Peterfreund Associates Organizational and education consultants "Multiple Stakeholder Evaluation Strategies and Findings for NSF GK-12 Programs" NSF GK-12 programs provide an interesting opportunity to appreciate the impact of a graduate fellowship program on an array of stakeholders. This presentation will draw upon experiences gained from evaluation of GK-12 programs at San Francisco State, Northeastern, Harvard and Yale. Issues to be discussed will include: impact on graduate fellows, teachers, K12 students, partnering schools and the host university. May 2 S. Maxwell Hines Associate Professor and Graduate Director, Secondary Science Education Hofstra University
"Developing Diversity Sensitive Dispositions in Long Island Science Teachers"
This presentation will focus on the efficacy of developing diversity sensitivity in science teachers, both in general and in situ. It will also include an examination of the history of and methods for moving teacher candidates, most of whom are culturally insular, toward a broader, more inclusive conception of the purpose of science education in the lives of an increasingly diverse student body. The importance of the creation of University-School-Community partnerships and meaningful professional development for inservice science teachers in this process will be considered.