Free ticketed event
A variety of web-enabled tools and resources are available for instructors and students. One relatively new tool to be demonstrated will be the Livescribe smart pen used to create "pencasts." A smart pen captures a person's writing and/or drawing on a notepad along with audio input synchronized with the speech of an individual. Plugging the smart pen into a computer charges it and can convert a "pencast" recording into an audio PDF. The PDF can be made available to students via email, Blackboard or website as an archival, reusable resource for current and subsequent courses. Instructors can use pencasts for flipped classroom mini-lectures, tutorials, frequently asked questions (FAQs), and student Muddiest Point response feedback. Another powerful tool is the Concept Warehouse (CW), cw.edudiv.org, a web-enabled resource developed by Milo Koretsky at Oregon State University that has over 1,600 Conceptest questions, as well as a Muddiest Point data gathering and analysis utility. Previously, collecting Muddiest Point student response data was tedious for small classes and impossible for large classes, since sheets of data had to be entered into an Excel spreadsheet and analyzed by an instructor. Now, data from CW is automatically output in tabular form, with a Muddy Point intensity scale of 0-5, along with a Word Cloud with word size proportional to word frequency, so instructors can instantly identify key words from Muddiest Points feedback. As such, CW can be used to gather real-time student responses with any smart phone, tablet, or computer to get data about responses to concept questions and/or Muddiest Point reflections. The site is free and results can reveal student learning issues, such as misconceptions and difficult concepts. Instructors can use such information to adjust instruction or create student learning resources such as engagement activity interventions, pencast tutorials, or Muddiest Point YouTube videos. Examples in material science are at www.youtube.com/user/MaterialsConcepts. Other web-based student learning resources include Quizlet.com, a free, instructor-created illustrated vocabulary resource, which has electronic flash cards for terms and definitions, as well as challenging vocabulary games. An example for materials science is at http://quizlet.com/MatSciASU. A final learning resource is SlideShare.net, which is a public web site to which slide sets can be uploaded. Examples are the slide sets associated with YouTube Muddiest Point materials videos located at http://www.slideshare.net/mseasuslides.
Participants are encouraged to bring their own laptops to test the sites and participate in activities. Breakout group discussions will be conducted based on issues highlighted by organizers and also solicited by input from participants. Reports out of group meetings will be debated, discussed, and summarized to help potential development of a community of users. Results and outcomes of workshop discussions and surveys will be reported, recorded, and documented for distribution to participants a short time after the workshop is completed.
Stephen Krause is professor in the School of Materials at Arizona State University. He teaches courses in engineering education, materials engineering, polymer science, materials characterization, and engineering design. He conducts research in innovative education in engineering and engineering outreach to the K-12 community. His work includes development of a Materials Concept Inventory, professional development of K-12 teachers on the integration of engineering concepts into K-12 classrooms, and connecting together content and processes in math, physics, chemistry, and engineering for high school teachers in a Math-Science Partnership, Project Pathways. He holds a B.S. in materials science and engineering from Northwestern University, a M.S. in metalurgical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, and a
Ph.D. in materials engineering from the University of Michigan.
Adam Carberry is an assistant professor in the Department of Engineering at the Arizona State University College of Technology and Innovation. He holds a B.S. in materials science engineering from Alfred University and an M.S. in chemistry and Ph.D. in engineering education from Tufts University.
Milo Koretsky is a professor of chemical engineering at Oregon State University. He received his B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of California - San Diego and his Ph.D. from the University of California - Berkeley, all in chemical engineering. He currently has research activity in areas related engineering education and is interested in integrating technology into effective educational practices and in promoting the use of higher-level cognitive skills in engineering problem solving. His research interests particularly focus on what prevents students from being able to integrate and extend the knowledge developed in specific courses in the core curriculum to the more complex, authentic problems and projects they face as professionals.
Cindy Waters is an assistant professor of mechanical and chemical engineering at North Carolina A&T State University. She holds a B.S. and M.S. in materials science and engineering from Virginia Tech and a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from North Carolina A&T State University. Her research interests include biomedical materials, advanced powder materials, structure-property relationships with FEM, electron microscopy, materials processing, and fracture mechanics.