CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Education and Human Resources

Ramon Lopez

and the CISM Education Team

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Scope of ActivitiesTeacher workshopsK-12 Instructional materials developmentPresentations at NSTA, AAPT, SACNASUndergraduate researchResearch in Science EducationUndergraduate instructional materials (Astro 101, Physics 102)Graduate summer schoolWeb presencePlanetarium shows

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

A few details about one activity:The Summer School

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Why a Summer School?

• Need for a national resource for space weather education

• Serve a wide variety of students

• Provide model teaching environment for potential future teachers

• Expose CISM “Faculty” to innovations in education

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Structure of School

• Active Lecture• Afternoon Labs with

space weather models• Continuous assessment• Final integrative

activity as end of course assessment

• Explicit reflection on teaching

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Active Lecture

• Talk for 10 - 15 minutes

• Pose conceptual question to test for understanding and solidify concepts

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Active lecture got really active

• In one case we went outside to model the spiral structure of the IMF

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Afternoon labs

• Built around space weather models

• Keyed to morning lectures

• Collaborative groups of 2/4

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Daily evaluations

• Student evaluated sessions on whether is was (a) engaging and (b) useful

• Labs often, but not always, scored well

• Top score went to final activity, 2nd went to OpenDX lab

• Student groups also posed questions at end of each set of lectures - These were answered in lab

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Final activity• Develop a story line

for an event (March 31, 2001) including use of prediction models

• Jigsaw cooperative structure used

• Home groups all developed concept maps

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Final activity• Share results in a

wisdom walk

• Maps serve as integrative active and end of course assessment

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Response of students• Overall response to

summer school was excellent (4.8/4.5 on 0 to 5 scale)

• Students loved the interactive approach

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Reponse of faculty

• Some were unsure at first how to apply active learning techniques, but were willing to learn. Others were naturals.

• H. Spence is now using these techniques in his classes.

• Constant evaluation kept presenters on their toes, and reinforced active learning approach.

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Revisions to Plan - More internal Education activities

Every year we will bring all CISM graduate students togetherWe will plan a generic, rotating program. Topics will include education one year, management issues and grants the next, etc.A program “Under the hood with the codes” will be developed over the Access GridThere will be an annual Undergraduate REU meeting over the Access Grid. Topics will include UG research projects, research efforts in CISM, and applying to graduate schoolEthics Training to be done over Access Grid. Everyone new must participate.

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Meetings between sitesNovember meeting at BUDiscussed coordination of Education Research program, partnership w/BPSDecember meeting at SSLIn coordination with Solar CISM/MURI science meeting, discussed CISM projects and coordination with Solar group educationJanuary meeting at AAMUDiscussed coordination of Research program, participation in Summer School, AG node setup

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

ActivitiesPresentations at AAPT Winter meeting - Plenary by Lopez, papers by Wiltberger and ReiffStanford solar group investigating proof of concept for “Space Weather Detector”. Dissemination to be modeled on INSPIREOngoing undergraduate researchAstro 101 Sun-Earth Day materials under development; to be disseminated week of March 10Summer School, 2002; Invited paper on 2001 school at AGU 2002 spring meeting Planetarium show (Beta version) exploring viewer misconceptions about space has been developedDeveloping template for professional developmentMentoring AAMU research program

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Current Planned ActivitiesTeacher workshop at SACNAS in Albuquerque; presentation of CISM and Space WeatherSummer teacher interns at BU, UTEP, StanfordSummer teacher workshopsWorkshops at NSTA meetingsPresentation AAPT Summer meetingUndergraduate researchResearch in Science EducationGraduate summer school 2003Planetarium showsWeb activities

CISM Advisory Council Meeting 4 March 2003

Issues/ChallengesRegular communications not yet set up - waiting for AG nodeNew staff - Esther Zirbel hired, need UTEP coordinator, Postdoc Getting new CISM results, especially visualizations