All cordially invited to a colloquium talk featuring Dr. Tom Dickinson, Department of Physics and Astronomy, WSU. Dr. Dickinson will present his talk, “Undergraduate Education: ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’?” on Tuesday, Sept. 8, at 4:10 p.m. in Webster B17.
Meet with our guest speaker and enjoy refreshments before the talk at 3:45-4:10 p.m. in the foyer on floor G above the lecture hall.
Abstract:
A number of new (and not so new) learning formats and practices applied to undergraduate education are being pursued at most colleges and universities in the U.S. and throughout the world.
(A) In many cases these experiments focus on providing intense active-learning experiences. The latter are aimed at improving students:
– in-depth understanding of concepts
– abilities in problem solving and critical thinking
– abilities to interpret results and draw conclusions from them
(B) Simultaneously, there are a number of societal and political forces being applied to institutions of higher education that are resulting, in some cases, radical responses.
In this talk I will give (from the view of a physicist) an overview of the good and the bad of some of these drivers for change and describe various higher ed reactions.
Related primarily to (A) above, I will also give some examples of my efforts to make the face-to-face time in undergraduate physics classrooms more effective.
Finally, I’ll comment on the question: Are ‘The Times a-Changin’ in Higher Education?
