Workshop - Technology and Student Engagement - How to increase (or decrease) Student Learning in classrooms and planetariums.
11:30 - 12:30
I would like to present key results from the Discipline-Based Education Research (DBER) Group at the Univ. of Colorado, the world's leading group researching college science teaching. Our PHeT applets (phet.colorado.edu) have been used 360 million times! I just finished an invited AIP review article, Technology and Engagement in the University Classroom" (in press) and I would talk about: 1. Those who teach astronomy overestimate learning. 2. Student engagement is critical. 3. How technology such as "clickers"" and simple methods such as colored cards can significantly increase learning (with extensive data!) 4. The circumstances under which technology REDUCES student learning. 5. The key discovery that many student misconceptions repeat year after year, and so can be addressed in particular, effective, inexpensive ways 6. How to bring more active learning to planetarium settings or to science-teaching videos. 7. If desired, my latest research on how texting during class influences student behavior and grades, and what to do about that
