SEI Research
This page highlights various research projects conducted by the members of CWSEI and CU-SEI that have resulted in publications, poster presentations, workshops, or talks.
General
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Improved Learning in a Large Enrollment Physics Class Louis Deslauriers, Ellen Schelew, and Carl Wieman (Physics & Astronomy and CWSEI, UBC) Science, Vol. 332, no. 6031 pp. 862-864 (May 2011) |
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How Not to Lose Your Students with Concept Maps Francoise Benay Bentley, Sarah Kennedy, and Katharine Semsar (Integrative Physiology, CU) Journal of College Science Teaching, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 61-68 (2011) |
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A Thoughtful Approach to Instruction: Course transformation for the rest of us Stephanie Chasteen, Katherine Perkins, Paul Beale, Steven Pollock, & Carl Wieman (Physics, CU) Journal of College Science Teaching, Vol. 40, pp. 24-30 (2011) |
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Development and Validation of Instruments to Measure Learning of Expert-Like Thinking Wendy Adams and Carl Wieman (CU-SEI and CWSEI) International Journal of Science Education, published on: 27 October 2010 (iFirst) |
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Considering the Student Perspective: Factors that Undergraduates Perceive as Influential to their Academic Performance in Science Ashley Welsh (CWSEI and Curriculum Studies, UBC) Master's Thesis (October 2010) |
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Transforming Science Education at Large Research Universities: A Case Study in Progress Carl Wieman, Katherine Perkins and Sarah Gilbert (CU-SEI & CWSEI) Change, pp. 7-14 (March/April 2010) |
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"At the end of my course, students should be able to..:" The benefits of creating and using effective learning goals Michelle Smith (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) and Katherine Perkins (Physics, CU) Microbiology Australia (March 2010) |
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What is the Value of Course-Specific Learning Goals? Beth Simon (Computer Science, UCSD) and Jared Taylor (Life Sciences, UBC) Journal of College Science Teaching (November/December 2009) |
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Why peer discussion improves student performance on in-class concept questions Michelle Smith, William Wood, Wendy Adams, Carl Wieman, Jenny Knight, Nancy Guild, and Tin Tin Su (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CUSEI, CU) Science, Vol. 323, no. 5910 (January 2009) |
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Why not try a scientific approach to science education? Carl Wieman (CU-SEI & CWSEI) Change, pp. 9-15 (September/October 2007) |
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Transforming Science Education at a Large Research University: progress report from the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (CWSEI) at UBC Sarah Gilbert (CWSEI, UBC) Plenary talk at The Western Conference on Science Education, University of Western Ontario (July 2011) |
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Development of a Faculty Perceptions Survey Wendy Adams (University of Colorado) and Brett Gilley (Earth & Ocean Sciences, UBC) American Association of Physics Teachers Summer Meeting (July 2010) |
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GEo/Ocean Sciences
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SPESS: A New Instrument For Measuring Student Perceptions In Earth And Ocean Science Alison Jolley, Erin Lane, Ben Kennedy, Tom-Pierre Frappé (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Journal of Geoscience Education (in press) |
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How ‘Clicker’ Technology Affects Students’ Voting Behavior and Attitudes Andrea Bair (Geological Sciences, CU) Journal of Computers in Mathematics and Science Teaching (in press) |
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How Do Students Respond to Simple Ways of Improving Student Attitudes About Science? Douglas Duncan (Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, CU) and Leilani Arthurs (Geological Sciences, CU) Astronomy Education Review (accepted) |
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What College-Level Students Think: Student Cognitive Models of Geoscience Concepts, Their Alternate Conceptions, and Their Learning Difficulties Leilani Arthurs (Geological Sciences, CU) GSA Special Papers: Qualitative Inquiry in Geoscience Education Research (2011) |
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A Qualitative Methods Approach to Developing an Introductory Oceanography Concept Inventory Survey Leilani Arthurs and T. Marchitto (Geological Sciences, CU) GSA Special Papers: Qualitative Inquiry in Geoscience Education Research (2011) |
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Identifying Landscapes and their Formation Timescales: Comparing Knowledge and Confidence of Beginner and Advanced Geoscience Undergraduate Students Alison Jolley (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Undergraduate Thesis (2010) |
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Understanding Geological Time: A Proposed Assessment Mechanism for Beginner and Advanced Geology
Students at UBC Jamil Rhajiak (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Undergraduate Thesis (2009) |
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Coupled collaborative in-class activities and individual follow-up homework promote interactive engagement and improve student learning outcomes in a college-level Environmental Geology course Leilani Arthurs and Alexis Templeton (Geological Sciences, CU) Journal of Geoscience Education, Vol. 57, no. 5, pp. 356-371 (November 2009) |
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Expanding the Use of Classroom Response Systems (CRS): CRS Integration with In-Class Group Activities in Large Classrooms Leilani Arthurs (Geological Sciences, CU) Inaugural Conference on Classroom Response Systems: Innovations and Best Practices, Conference Proceedings (November 2008) |
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Teaching, learning and assessing scientific skills early in an undergraduate degree Francis Jones (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Western Conference on Science Education, U. Western Ontario (July 2011) |
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Measuring novices’ field mapping abilities using an in-class exercise based on expert task analysis Joshua Caulkins (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) American Geophysical Union (AGU) Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (December 2010) |
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CU’s Dept of Geological Sciences – Science Education Initiative Project (GEOL-SEI): A five-year plan to introduce and support an evidence-based and scientific approach to teaching Leilani Arthurs and David Budd (Geological Sciences, CU) American Geophysical Union Annual Conference (December 2009) |
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Geologic Expertise and Field Mapping: Lessons From a 3rd Year Undergraduate Field School Joshua Caulkins (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (November 2010) |
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Landscape Identification and Formation: The Development of a Test to measure Student Knowledge and Confidence Alison Jolley (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Western Inter-University Geosciences Conference (January 2010) |
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A New Tool for Investigating Undergraduate Attitudes about Earth Science Alison Jolley and Erin Lane (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (October 2009) |
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Development and Implementation of an In-Field Assessment Protocol for an Introductory Geologic Field Course Mary Lou Bevier and Joshua Caulkins (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Geological Society of America (GSA) Annual Meeting, Portland, OR (October 2009) |
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Clickers: can a simple technology increase student engagement in the classroom? Erin Lane (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) International Conference on Information Communication Technologies in Education (ICICTE), Corfu, Greece (July 2009) |
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Quantifying student behavioral engagement based on teaching practices in a large class - Awarded "Best Poster" Erin Lane and Sara Harris(Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Improving University Teaching (IUT) 34th International Conference, Vancouver, BC (July 2009) |
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Development of an Introductory Oceanography Concept Inventory Survey Leilani Arthurs and Thomas Marchitto (Geological Sciences, CU) American Geophysical Union Annual Conference (December 2008) |
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Engaging non-science students in large classes Sara Harris (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) American Geophysical Union Conference (December 2008) |
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Improving Metacognitive Skills of 2nd year Environmental Science Students: What to Measure? Francis Jones, Sara Harris, and Douw Steyn (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Workshop on the Role of Metacognition in Teaching Geoscience at Carleton College (November 2008) |
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Measuring Student Gains in an Introductory Geoscience Lab Brett Gilley and Sara Harris (Earth and Ocean Sciences, UBC) Geological Society of America Annual Meeting, Houston (October 2008) |
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Life Sciences
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The Colorado Learning Attitudes about Science Survey (CLASS) for use in Biology Kate Semsar (Integrative Physiology, CU), Jenny Knight, and Michelle Smith (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU), and Gülnur Birol (Life Sciences and Skylight, UBC) CBE—Life Sciences Education (in press, 2011) |
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Revealing Student Thinking About Experimental Design and The Roles of Control Experiments Jia Shi, J. Power, and M. Klymkowsky (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) IJ-SoTL (in press) | Coming Soon |
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How Not to Lose Your Students with Concept Maps Francoise Benay Bentley, Sarah Kennedy, and Katharine Semsar (Integrative Physiology, CU) Journal of College Science Teaching, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 61-68 (2011) |
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The Benefits of Using Clickers in Small-Enrollment Seminar-Style Biology Courses Michelle K. Smith, Caleb Trujillo, and Tin Tin Su (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) CBE—Life Sciences Education, Vol. 10, pp. 14–17 (Spring 2011) |
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Combining Peer Discussion with Instructor Explanation Increases Student Learning from In-Class Concept Questions Michelle Smith, Bill Wood, Ken Krauter, and Jenny Knight (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) CBE—Life Sciences Education, Vol. 10, pp. 55–63 (Spring 2011) |
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Using Invention to Change How Students Tackle Problems* Jared L. Taylor, Karen M. Smith, Adrian P. van Stolk, and George Spiegelman (Life Sciences, UBC) CBE—Life Sciences Education (Winter 2010) *Selected for inclusion in the 2010 Highlights issue of the CBE Life Sciences Education |
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A diagnostic assessment for Introductory Molecular and Cell Biology Jia Shi, Bill Wood, J. Martin, N. Guild, Q. Vicens, and Jenny Knight (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) CBE—Life Sciences Education, Vol. 9, pp. 453-461 (2010) |
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A Report on the Implementation of the Blooming Biology Tool: Aligning Course Learning Outcomes with Assessments and Promoting Consistency in a Large Multi-Section First-Year Biology
Course Angie O'Neill, Gülnur Birol, and Carol Pollock (Life Sciences, UBC) The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2010) |
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Biology concept assessment tools: design and use Jenny Knight (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) Microbiology Australia 31, 1 (2010) |
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"At the end of my course, students should be able to..:" The benefits of creating and using effective learning goals Michelle Smith (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) and Katherine Perkins (Physics, CU) Microbiology Australia (March 2010) |
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Different but equal? How non-majors and majors approach and learn genetics Jenny Knight and Michelle Smith (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) CBE - Life Sciences Education (Spring 2010) |
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Innovations in teaching undergraduate biology, and why we need them Bill Wood (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) Ann. Rev. Cell & Devel. Biol. 25, pp. 93-112 (2009) |
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What is the Value of Course-Specific Learning Goals? Beth Simon (Computer Science, UCSD) and Jared Taylor (Life Sciences, UBC) Journal of College Science Teaching (November/December 2009) |
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Why peer discussion improves student performance on in-class concept questions Michelle Smith, William Wood, Wendy Adams, Carl Wieman, Jenny Knight, Nancy Guild, and Tin Tin Su (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CUSEI, CU) Science, Vol. 323, no. 5910 (January 2009) |
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The Genetics Concept Assessment: a new concept inventory for gauging student understanding of genetics Michelle Smith, William Wood, and Jenny Knight (Molecular, Cellular, & Developmental Biology, CU) CBE - Life Sciences Education, Vol. 7 (Winter 2008) |
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Teaching More by Lecturing Less Jenny Knight and Bill Wood (Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, CU) Cell Biology Education, Vol. 4, pp. 298–310 (2005) |
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Bio-Invention Activities for Small Group Learning Jared L. Taylor, Karen M. Smith, and George B. Spiegelman (Life Sciences, UBC) American Society for Microbiology, Conference for Undergraduate Educators, Fort Collins, Colorado (May 2009) |
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Implementation of a First Year Biology Learning Group Pilot Study Karen M. Smith, Tamara L.J. Kelly, Gülnur Birol, and George B. Spiegelman (Life Sciences, UBC) ISSOTL 2008, Edmonton, Alberta (October 2008) |
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physics
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Development of the Concise Data Processing Assessment James Day and Doug Bonn (Physics & Astronomy, UBC) Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, Vol. 7, 010114 (2011) |
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Improved Learning in a Large Enrollment Physics Class Louis Deslauriers, Ellen Schelew, and Carl Wieman (Physics & Astronomy and CWSEI, UBC) Science, Vol. 332, no. 6031 pp. 862-864 (May 2011) |
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Learning And Retention of Quantum Concepts with Different Teaching Methods Louis Deslauriers and Carl Wieman (Physics & Astronomy, UBC) Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, Vol. 7, 010101 (2011) |
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A Thoughtful Approach to Instruction: Course transformation for the rest of us Stephanie Chasteen, Katherine Perkins, Paul Beale, Steven Pollock, & Carl Wieman (Physics, CU) Journal of College Science Teaching, Vol. 40, pp. 24-30 (2011) |
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Teaching Standard Deviation by Building from Student Invention James Day, Hiroko Nakahara, and Doug Bonn (Physics & Astronomy, UBC) The Physics Teacher, 48 (November 2010) |
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Upper-Division Students' Difficulties With Ampere's Law Colin Wallace and Stephanie Chasteen (Physics, CU) Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, Vol. 6, 020115 (2010) |
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But Does It Last? Sustaining a Research-Based Curriculum in Upper-Division Electricity & Magnetism Stephanie Chasteen, Rachel Pepper, Steven Pollock, Katherine Perkins (Physics, CU) 2010 PERC Proceedings, AIP Press |
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The use of concept tests and peer instruction in upper-division physics Steven Pollock, Stephanie Chasteen, Michael Dubson, Katherine Perkins 2010 PERC Proceedings, AIP Press |
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Our best juniors still struggle with Gauss’s Law: Characterizing their difficulties Rachel Pepper, Stephanie Chasteen, Steven Pollock, & Katherine Perkins (Physics, CU) 2010 PERC Proceedings, AIP Press |
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Who Becomes a Physics Major? A Long-term Longitudinal Study Examining the Roles of Pre-college Beliefs about Physics and Learning Physics, Interest, and Academic Achievement Kathy Perkins and Mindy Gratny (Physics, CU) 2010 PERC Proceedings, AIP Press (Best Paper Award) |
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Faculty Disagreement about the Teaching of Quantum Mechanics Mike Dubson, Steve Goldhaber, Steve Pollock, and Kathy Perkins (Physics, CU) 2009 PERC Proceedings, AIP Press |
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Tapping into Juniors’ Understanding of E&M: The Colorado Upper-Division Electrostatics (CUE) Diagnostic Stephanie V. Chasteen and Steven J. Pollock (Physics, CU) PERC Proceedings 2009, AIP Press (2009) Physics Education Research Conference 2009, Ann Arbor, MI (July 2009) |
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Transforming Upper-Division Quantum Mechanics: Learning Goals and Assessment Steve Goldhaber, Steven Pollock, Mike Dubson, Paul Beale, and Katherine Perkins (Physics, CU) PERC Proceedings 2009, AIP Press (2009) |
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A Research-Based Approach to Assessing Student Learning Issues in Upper-Division Electricity & Magnetism Stephanie V. Chasteen and Steven J. Pollock (Physics, CU) PERC Proceedings 2009, AIP Press (2009) |
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Longer term impacts of transformed courses on student conceptual understanding of E&M Steven J. Pollock and Stephanie V. Chasteen (Physics, CU) PERC Proceedings 2009, AIP Press (2009) |
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Student Perspectives on Using Clickers in Upper-division Physics Courses Katherine K. Perkins and Chandra Turpen (Physics, CU) PERC Proceedings 2009, AIP Press (2009) |
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Transforming Upper-Division Electricity and Magnetism Stephanie V. Chasteen and Steven J. Pollock (Physics, CU) PERC Proceedings 2008, AIP Press (2008) |
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Thinking Like a Physicist: Transforming Upper Division E&M Stephanie Chasteen, Steven Pollock, Michael Dubson, Ed Kinney, Paul Beale, and Katherine Perkins (Physics, CU) AAPT National Meeting, Ann Arbor (July 2009) & American Physical Society regional meeting, Denver (March 2009) |
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Clickers in Upper Division Courses Stephanie Chasteen, Kathy Perkins, Steve Pollock, & Mike Dubson (Physics, CU) AAPT Winter Meeting, Chicago (February 2009) To View a complete listing of workshops and talks on clickers and relevant files, click HERE. |
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Upper Division Transformations in Physics Stephanie Chasteen, Steve Goldhaber, Steve Pollock, Mike Dubson, Ed Kinney, Oliver DeWolf, Paul Beale, and Kathy Perkins (Physics, CU) STEM Education Symposium, University of Colorado (August 2009) |
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Transforming Undergraduate Upper-Division Undergraduate Electricity and Magnetism I Stephanie Chasteen, Steve Pollock, Ward Handely, Darren Tarshis, and Paul Beale (Physics, CU) PERC 2008, Edmonton (July 2008) |
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Assessing Student Understanding in Upper-Division Undergraduate Electricity & Magnetism I Stephanie Chasteen and Steve Pollack (Physics, CU) PERC 2008, Edmonton(July 2008) |
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astronomy
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How Do Students Respond to Simple Ways of Improving Student Attitudes About Science? Douglas Duncan (Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, CU) and Leilani Arthurs (Geological Sciences, CU) Astronomy Education Review (accepted) |
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Exploring the Solar System with a Human Orrery Peter Newbury (Physics & Astronomy, UBC) The Physics Teacher (December 2010) To view a video of this activity, click HERE. |
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The Role of Metacognition in Learning and Strategies for Developing Student Metacognition: ASTRO 101 as a test‐bed for implementation and assessment Leilani Arthurs (Geological Sciences, CU) and Douglas Duncan (Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, CU) Geological Society of America Annual Conference (October 2009) |
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Exploring the Solar System with a Human Orrery Peter Newbury, Melanie Gendre, Brett Gladman, Laura Kasian, Nicole Meger,and Harvey Richer (Physics & Astronomy, UBC) 214th Meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Pasadena, CA (June 2009) |
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Does Taking an Introductory Astronomy Course Increase Student Understanding of the Nature of Science? Douglas Duncan (Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, CU) and Leilani Arthurs (Geological Sciences, CU) American Astronomy Society Conference (January 2009) |
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Statistics
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Statistics Clicks: Using Clickers in Introductory Statistics Courses Bruce Dunham (Statistics, UBC) Prepared for a panel discussion at the 34th International Conference on Improving University Teaching (IUT) at Simon Fraser University (2009). |
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