News
NCEER Newsletters:
NCEER Newsletter Number 2 - July 29, 2009
NCEER Newsletter Number 1 - March 13, 2009
Conference Announcements:
The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) is holding their annual Conference on the State of Higher Education on June 9-12, 2010 in Washington, D.C., at the Omni Shoreham Hotel. The goal of the conference is to provide a faculty perspective on critical issues in higher education presented in a format accessible to the general public. Presenter proposals are currently being accepted. Presenters are invited to propose a wide range of issues related to academic freedom, governance, faculty work life, rights and responsibilities. The conference will also include special AAUP-sponsored workshops on: Protecting an Independent Faculty Voice at Public Institutions, Winning Anti-Discrimination Policies, and The Ratcheting Up of Expectations for Tenure: Are Faculty Their Own Worst Enemy?
Full information is available at: http://www.aaup.org/AAUP/about/events/anconf/default.htm. The deadline for proposal submissions is October 31, 2009. Conference registration deadline is April 1, 2010.
Fellowship Opportunities:
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is currently accepting applications for Science and Technology Policy Fellowships. The Fellowships help to establish and nurture critical links between federal decision-makers and scientific professionals to support public policy that benefits the wellbeing of the nation and the planet. Fellows serve in Congressional offices or federal agencies for one year, often renewable for a second, beginning in September. Applicants must be US citizens and hold a doctoral degree in a scientific or technical field. Fellows are paid stipends of between $73,000 and $95,000 per year.
Full information and online application is available at: http://fellowships.aaas.org. Application deadline is December 15, 2009.
Nominations:
2009 Premier Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Courseware:
NEEDS, John Wiley & Sons, Microsoft Research, Techsmith and Autodesk are pleased to announce the 2009 Premier Award competition. The Premier Award recognizes high-quality, non-commercial courseware designed to enhance engineering education. Beyond just recognizing outstanding courseware, the Premier Award evaluates and acknowledges exceptional learning experiences. Since 1997, 29 outstanding courseware packages and learning experiences have been rewarded. If you or someone you know has developed non-commercial courseware or exceptional web sites designed to enhance engineering education, please consider submitting for the Premier Award. Visit http://www.engineeringpathway.org/premier/ for more information; the Premier Award call for submission flyer is at http://www.engineeringpathway.com/ep/about/download/PAW09_Call.pdf.
The winner(s) will be announced and prizes awarded at the 2009 Frontiers in Education Conference on October 18-21, San Antonio, Texas.
Selected Notable Publications in Engineering Education:
Spring 2009: Developing Metrics for Assessing Engineering Instruction: What Gets Measured and What Gets Improved
A recent study by the National Academy of Engineering, funded by the National Science Foundation, examines existing methods to evaluate and improve the teaching effectiveness of engineering faculty. The report also makes recommendations for the development of new metrics and faculty development programs. The report concludes that only if thoughtfully designed and agreed-upon methods of evaluating teaching effectiveness are developed will teaching and mentoring be seen as an important component of tenure and promotion decisions. This would provide faculty members with a powerful incentive to invest time and effort in becoming better teachers. It noted that faculty development programs should not be carried out by those making tenure and promotion decisions, as that would discourage faculty from seeking help to improve their teaching effectiveness.
2007: Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering
Women are a small portion of the science and engineering faculty members at research universities, and they typically receive fewer resources and less support than their male colleagues. The representation of women in leadership positions in our academic institutions, scientific and professional societies, and honorary organizations is low relative to the numbers of women qualified to hold these positions. It is not lack of talent, but unintentional biases and outmoded institutional structures that are hindering the access and advancement of women.
NCEER Events
NCEER hosted a seminar with Professor Daniel Schwartz of the Stanford University School of Education on April 27, 2009. Professor Schwartz's talk was entitled "Why Direct Instruction Earns a C- in Transfer". A copy of the paper is available here. An abstract of the talk and Prof. Schwartz's bio are below.
Abstract
Educators count on students to transfer learning from class to class, year to year, from home to school, and school to work. An empirical study with students learning science indicates that, compared to a control condition, direct instruction inadvertently undermines transfer, because it focuses students on taught procedures rather than deep problem structures, leaving the students with memory for formulas and obvious surface features. Direct instruction, and not problem surface features, causes the failed transfer. The poor transfer of direct instruction matters because transfer helps students to learn in the future and to adapt to novel situations. There are three ways to improve instruction for transfer. First, brief activities that initially have students try to invent solutions to well-structured, contrasting cases can prepare students to learn from subsequent direct instruction and other expository materials, without sacrificing procedural fluency. Second, 75% of all transfer studies in the past 5 years employed direct instruction for both control and treatment conditions. The current research regime should shift to examine more effective ways to improve transfer outside of direct instruction. Finally, assessments of transfer can help educators clarify the goals of education, which in turn, can help us to entertain other forms of instruction that may better prepare students to develop the adaptive expertise that will be necessary for the rapid pace of change in the 21st-century.
Schwartz Bio
Daniel Schwartz is a Professor of Education at Stanford University and co-director of the NSF Science of Learning Center – Learning in Informal and Formal Environments. Prior to graduate school, he taught secondary school in Kenya, inner-city Los Angeles, and the Alaskan bush. His research examines student understanding and representation and the ways that technology can facilitate learning. He works at the intersection of cognitive science, computer science, education, and more recently neuroscience, by examining cognition and instruction in individual, collaborative, cross-cultural, and technological settings. A theme throughout Dr. Schwartz's research is how people's facility for spatial thinking can inform and influence processes of learning, instruction, assessment and problem solving. He finds that new media make it possible to exploit spatial representations and activities in fundamentally new ways, offering an exciting complement to the verbal approaches that dominate educational research and practice.
Job Opportunities
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