Week Six August 24-30, 2008

UTEP-UMCE News – Dr. Bill Robertson, Fulbright Scholar, UTEP Assistant Professor

Week Six August 24-30, 2008

The following is a summary of the activities that I have been engaged in during the week of August 24-30 as they relate to the work I am doing here at UMCE as part of my Fulbright Scholarship.

Presentation at Campus Santiago de la Universidad de Talca

On Friday, August 29, both Claudio Pérez and I participated as part of a panel at the American Academy of Science and Technology, an initiative in partnership with the US Embassy and the University of Talca. The panel of 5 presenters gave talks in Spanish over the theme of “Innovative Strategies for Science Education” (Estrategias Innovadoras para la Educación en las Ciencias) and I did my talk on Transformative Education (Educación Tranfoormativa). The event was held from 4 PM to 7 PM in the auditorium of the Santiago Campus of the University of Talca. It was well attended and the talks convered topics including action science, transformative education, space science, Microsoft school, modeling and mathematics on the Web.

Academic Presentations for Spring Semester at UMCE

I have prepared a list of 11 topics that I can use to give presentations in other professor’s classes in the physics department. This will help me to interact and network with the other professors in tangible ways as well as help me to increase my depth and breadth in my academic delivery here in Santiago. My goal is to participate in each of the 4 modules as well as interact with the entire faculty. This is also part of my Fulbright project, which is a Lecture/Research award, and an important part of my actual interaction with students in classes throughout the semester. This also will have an added benefit of being useful topics for multicultural science education once I return to UTEP.

Faculty Meeting

On Wednesday, August 27, I attended the regular weekly staff meetings with the Physics department on the new physics project they are implementing this coming semester. At this meeting, we discussed the issues of the physics units that are being developed in the areas of the workshop in scientific thinking that uses a problem-based learning approach, as well as the mathematical physics module. I have also been finalizing the translation for my evaluation instruments on efficacy (STEBI-B) in Spanish and technology use for students in Spanish. There will be a final review by the physics faculty next week and then prepared and delivered to the students as part of my Fulbright Study. I am also planning to make this available for the faculty to use in subsequent semesters, as the project will continue here in the 2009 academic year.

Motivational Demonstration of Action Science at Liceos

On Monday, August 25, I did 2 demonstrations at the local high schools I am working at during this semester, here in Santiago as part of Prof. Claudio Perez's outreach class in Physics education. The first school, Liceo Juan Antonio Ríos, has approximately 15 students in the project. The second school, Liceo Capitán de Corbete Pedro Gonzáles, has 2 sections of students, the first with approximately 30 students and the second with 35 students. My demos were part of the beginnings for the student teams who will use data from my skateboarding to construct mathematical models and computer simulations. There was a lot of interest in the class as well as a large crowd that gathered that included both faculty and other students on both campuses. The idea was to engage the students in a constructivist activity that would motivate them to work within the teams to develop an active hypothesis that they can use to construct a computer model to simulate some of my movements.

Meeting with Informational Technology Division at UMCE

I had a meeting with members of the Informational Technology Division at UMCE and presented some of the work we are doing at UTEP, including the use of WebCT, Blackboard and Faculty Web sites. The group is part of a campus wide effort to better offer online services as well as train teachers in the use of technology to aid their instruction. In many ways, the efforts they are doing are similar to a fusion of our ISS and CETaL, so that technology can aid the teaching and also benefit students and teachers in access and availabity. The group was lead by a consultant from Spain, who has close ties to UMCE and has extensive experience in E-learning.

Data Gathering and Demonstration of Action Science at UMCE

On Thursday, August 28, I did another brief demonstration on the patio of the College of Education building at la UMCE, here in Santiago as part of Prof. Claudio Perez's class in Physics education. This was mainly at the request of the students and my colleagues who wanted to see physics in action. Afterwards we set up instrumentation with the student teams who gathered data with both traditional materials such as tape measurers and stopwatches as well with Pasco sensors. This was done in order to get data from the movement so that the student teams can construct data driven computer models.

UMCE facts

You can also see some interesting News from UMCE regularly on the Noticias area of their Web site (http://www.umce.cl/investigacion/noticias.html) as well as additional information on the physics department (http://www.umce.cl/~fisica/principal.html).

Personal Transition to Work in Spanish

In the past week of my academic work here, I had new challenges but in many ways it also began to feel a lot like the work I do back in El Paso. I am beginning to see that my methods as an instructor utilizing constructivist approaches are solid, and that my efforts as a researcher will be useful and valuable. With increased interactions with students in real classes, I feel that I am expanding on my skills as an instructor in Spanish, and this will surely help me when I return to UTEP. I also submitted an article for a conference and publication in Spanish as well as prepared and delivered all my materials in Spanish associated with the US Embassy/University of Talca presentations last Friday.