Graduate student Orientation session

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Graduate student Orientation session Fall
2007 Thursday evening 8 November Educational
Outreach at Notre Dame
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Ref http//www.nd.edu/nismec/right11.htm
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Physics Department Education Outreach
RET Research Experiences for Teachers
(local) NSF-funded (through Quarknet) summer
(2 months) plus regular meetings during the
school year REU Research Experiences for
Undergraduates NSF-funded 2 months in the
summer (residential) NDErC Graduate students
visit school classrooms during the academic
year. Work on research and education projects
in the summer . NSF-funded NISMEC Summer
workshops for K-12 teachers in Guided Inquiry in
Math and Science funding from Indiana BOE,
ISTEM, and Siemens education research into
teaching techniques. Science Fair One Saturday
in March (just after semester break) need
volunteers to judge exhibits
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• Problem 1
• Assume we can set up a Foucault pendulum in the
  atrium of the Jordan Hall of Science
• What is a Foucault pendulum? Ask your neighbour
  if you dont know
• You set the pendulum swinging at noon in (say)
  the north-south plane along the axis of the hall
• What plane will the pendulum be swinging at noon
  the following day?
• First write down your own answer with a brief
  justification
• Discuss with your neighbour your answer and
  his/her answer
• We will all discuss the experiment, and if time,
  go and do it.

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Problem 2 (a) Who are the scientists honored
with statues on/in/outside the Jordan Hall of
Science? (b)
A hemispherical light interceptor Notre Dame
Clear-Dome used by the Middle-school teachers.
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Guided Inquiry is our Focus
Adapt to (every) level of learning
Not this way!
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• A research-based text on the use guided inquiry
  in physical science, used for preservice science
  education majors.
• The University of Washington group of Physics
  Education Research (PER)

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• Interactive-engagement vs traditional methods A
  six-thousand-student survey of mechanics test
  data for introductory physics courses
• by Richard R. Hake
• Note normalized gain
• G(Nf Ni)/(100-Ni)

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DIMENSIONS OF LEARNING STYLE (Richard M. Felder
see refs.) A student's learning style may be
defined in part by the answers to five questions
1. What type of information does the student
preferentially perceive sensory---sights,
sounds, physical sensations, or
intuitive---memories, ideas, insights? 2.
Through which modality is sensory information
most effectively perceived visual--- pictures,
diagrams, graphs, demonstrations, or
verbal---sounds, written and spoken words and
formulas? 3. With which organization of
information is the student most comfortable
inductive---facts and observations are given,
underlying principles are inferred, or
deductive---principles are given, consequences
and applications are deduced?. 4. How does the
student prefer to process information
actively---through engagement in physical
activity or discussion, or reflectively---through
introspection?. 5. How does the student
progress toward understanding sequentially---in
a logical progression of small incremental steps,
or globally---in large jumps, holistically?