Upcoming Meetings

BERG Meeting Schedule Fall 2013

BERG meeting Oct 16

• What does interdisciplinary hold for pre-service teachers?
• LA class prompts and questions abut interdisciplinarity 

BERG research meeting Oct 2

• Discussing Redish & Cooke's "Learning Each other's Ropes" 

BERG research meeting Sept 4

• What have the various projects been up to?
• NEXUS Video?

BERG research meeting Jan. 31

• Read and Discuss: MarginalizedIdentitiesOfSenseMakersUNBLINDED.pdf

BERG research meeting Nov. 21

• discuss DNA problem data from recitation(??)
• discuss case study interview(s)?

BERG research meeting Nov. 15

• read paper "Energy as a substancelike quantity that flows" by Eric Brewe 

BERG research meeting Oct. 31st

• Kristi Hall will update us on her efforts to validate her Maryland Biology Expectations Survey (MBEX).  She will present clips from recent interviews with students which were designed to better understand the meaning that students are making of the MBEX questions and students' reasons for choosing particular answer options.

BERG research meeting Oct. 24

• Chandra presents clips from one-on-one student interview around solving the worm problem.
• See 10.17.11_CTWormInterview1.mov with "Geoff"
• Clips from (whiteboard view) are linked from the Data Collection Page
• When modeling the structure of the worm (parts A & B), ideas about the functions of those structures seems to fade to background.

BERG research meeting Oct. 17th

• Read and discuss Smith et al. 1997

BERG research meeting Oct. 10th

• Discussion of friction
• View video clips from 092211, Group 1 where they are trying to make sense of friction

BERG research meeting Monday Oct. 3rd

• watch video of 9.15 tutorial group working on cheetah problem

BERG research meeting: Monday Sept. 26th

• Based on our discussions last week, we have decided to watch video together at the next BERG meeting.  The video that we will be watching together is two undergraduate learning assistants (LAs) solving a revised version of the "the cheetah and the antelope" problem.  These LAs are solving this problem prior to facilitating Phys131 students completing this task in recitation.  The purpose of these LA meetings were presented to the LAs as: 1) to prepare to teach in the coming week by considering aspects of the problem tasks were students might struggle and discussing how to support student learning throughout the task and 2) to give constructive criticism of the tasks themselves to inform the improvement of these tasks. 
  
  For those that haven't been involved in earlier discussions, or would like to review the historical evolution of this task, the original version of this task (called version 1) can be found here.  This form of the problem partly inspired work by Jessica Watkins and colleagues concerning biological authenticity.  This version of the cheetah and the antelope problem was used as an example of a problem with little biological authenticity.
  
  Version 2 of the cheetah and the antelope problem (which the LAs are working on in the video) can be found here.  Joe Redish, Todd Cooke, and many others have revised this problem in hopes of improving the problem's biological authenticity.  In watching this video, I think that we are interested in seeing what undergraduates do in solving this revised problem (with a eye to the design intent of the problem--to have both biological and physical authenticity).  How does this play out for students in the doing of this task?

BERG research meeting: Monday Sept. 19th

• Read and discuss article on interdisciplinary education (Stevens 2005).

BERG research meeting: Monday, Sept 12

• Update each other on new (and ongoing) projects and programs that we are all involved in. Please join us to report out on the efforts being made across campus.
• Ex. Dan Levin (in collaboration with others) has some new programs getting up and started this semester with teaching fellows dedicated across campus from a variety of departments. 
• Ex. Todd Cooke (in collaboration with others) has started a new undergraduate living learning honors program in the integrated life sciences. 
• Ex. Andy Elby, Joelle Presson, and Chandra Turpen have started a pilot Learning Assistant program here at the University of Maryland (beginning in biology and physics).