Symbiosis University, and its School for Liberal Arts, hosted our third Future of Liberal Arts and Sciences in India conference from May 16-18. Anita Patankar, the Director of the Symbiosis School of Liberal Arts, was a wonderful host, and organized a superb meeting at Symbiosis University!  The meeting included a distinguished chief guest, Dr. Furqan Qamar, the Secretary General of the Association of Indian Universities, who was welcomed by the founder of the Symbiosis University, Dr.S.B. Mujumdar. The meeting also featured a wonderful keynote talk by noted author, member of Pariliment, and former Under-secretary of the UN, Shashi Tharoor (http://www.shashitharoor.in/).  

In addition to the dynamic and visionary set of ideas coming from the conference participants which drew from the best institutions in the region and beyond, there was a real sense of common purpose and a great energy to the meeting. The meeting included excellent speakers, and after just a few days had a strong sense of a common culture. The meeting web site describes the range of speakers and program of the meeting and is available at: http://ssla.edu.in/conference-2016/concept-and-themes

We are looking forward to our next Future of Liberal Arts in India meeting – probably hosted by Ashoka University in New Delhi, and it should be a wonderful chance to build upon the very strong foundation from our first three meetings.  More information on the Future of Liberal Arts in India project can also be found elsewhere on my site at this location: http://bryanpenprase.org/liberal-arts-in-india/

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More information

Information about the meeting, Symbiosis University and the participants can be found at these links:

http://ssla.edu.in/conference-2016/schedule – Schedule for Symbiosis Liberal Arts Conference

http://www.shashitharoor.in/my-books.php – books by Shashi Tharoor (my favourite is the “Elephant Tiger and the Cell Phone).

http://www.aiu.ac.in/Professor%20Furqan%20Qamar-Profile.pdf – Information on Dr. Furqan Qamar

http://ssla.edu.in/welcome/ – Symbiosis School of the Liberal Arts information

http://www.siu.edu.in/ – Symbiosis University site

 

On April 25, we had our second Yale-NUS College Foundations of Science Grand Challenge poster fair. The students were asked to address a theme that addressed a Grand Challenge facing the Earth. These questions were in one of two themes – “Evolution” which refers to gradual change of organisms and communities, and “Revolution” which refers to sudden change through disruptive technologies or disasters. Students had completed two short courses of 5.5 weeks in one of the themes, and were assembled into teams of four to present a solution to a question posed to them. The poster fair took place on April 25 and our entire teaching team looked over the posters, and provided interviews of the student teams which constituted 20% of the grade for the Foundations of Science course.  The hope is that the Grand Challenge provides a form of authentic learning, where the assessments are geared toward real-world problems, and expose students to realistic scenarios in which the academic topics of the course can be applied. The results from this year’s Foundations of Science course are being researched as part of an educational project for our Centre of Teaching and Learning.

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The Evolution theme had this set of short “disciplinary case studies” (5.5 week half courses) in these areas:

Vinod Saranathan –  “Extinctions and Speciation”–

Description: What is the evolutionary history of life on Earth? How did the observed patterns in the history of life arise? What are the evolutionary processes that likely generated these patterns? What is Pikaia and why should we care about the fact that it survived? What is a “species”? These are some of the questions that will be addressed in this module. The understanding gained could be brought to bear on whether we are in the midst of another mass extinction event? And if so, what could we predict (if possible) about the future assemblage of species?

Jen Sheridan – “Biogeography” – 

Description:  Introduction to patterns of species distributions & diversity, and factors influencing such patterns. Course will introduce students to the field of biogeography so that they understand why organisms exist in the places they do, and what contributes to species distribution and diversity patterns. Additionally, students should be able to apply this knowledge to predict how these will change in the face of anthropogenic factors.

Stanislav Presolski – “Chemistry of Life”– 

Description: Life! From a chemist’s perspective. The fundamental building blocks of everything that surrounds us will be discussed, from simple gases, liquids and solids, through man-made dyes, drugs and plastics, all the way to the chemistry of living things. We will explore the interactions between matter and energy that constitute our everyday experiences and attempt to make sense of them all through just a few general concepts. Mischief. Mayhem. Soap.

Neil Clark – “Genome sequence information and editing: promise and perils”– 

Description: The first human genome (DNA) sequence was ‘completed’ about ten years ago at a cost of about US$3 billion. Since then the cost has gone down by more than 6 orders of magnitude.  The sequencing revolution has already profoundly changed our understanding of human evolution and migration. It will almost certainly have consequences for social behavior and policy.  As a science course, this unit will be focussed on human genetics, sequence variation and evolution, but it is expected that students will gain an appreciation for the potential uses and misuses, interpretations and misinterpretations, of genomic information.

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The Revolution theme had a set of short “disciplinary case studies (5.5 week half courses) in these areas:

Alessandro Gomez (Yale University) – “Fossil Fuel Energy and the Environment” – alessandro.gomez@yale.edu

Description:  Despite much effort to promote carbon-free technologies, the majority of the energy supply through the middle of this century and beyond will stem inevitably from fossil fuels. As a result, combustion technologies, coupled with reactants/products treatment and, cost permitting, carbon capture and sequestration will remain central to energy consumption for several decades. The unit emphasis is on timeless fundamentals, beginning with key concepts of thermodynamics, the principle of conservation of energy, first and second laws. We will discuss traditional fossil-fuel power plants and engines that are currently involved in 85% of energy conversion worldwide. We will conclude with some considerations on energy policy and with the “big picture” on how to tackle future energy needs with a progressive transition to a carbon-free approach..

Bryan Penprase – “Global Warming, Energy, and Earth’s Planetary Environment“ – bryan.penprase@yale-nus.edu.sg 

Description: From a consideration of light and heat, black body radiation, and simple models of radiative heating and cooling, we will explore how our Earth is slowly warming through the accumulation of Carbon Dioxide and other anthropogenic gasses. The class will discuss why certain molecules are “greenhouse gasses” and how to accurately use computer models to predict what the effects of these gasses will be in the coming decades and centuries. Several case studies in energy generation will be discussed in class, including an examination of nuclear energy (and some of the resulting disasters), solar power (with an experiment with photovoltaics), and other alternative energy sources.

Maurice Cheung – “Networks” – maurice.cheung@yale-nus.edu.sg

Description: Everything in the world is interconnected, forming networks at many different scales – not only Facebook and Twitter, but also molecular networks, food webs, ecological networks, transport systems, the World Wide Web and more. This course will introduce you to network thinking and the science of networks, including concepts like graphs, path, hubs, clustering, centrality etc., which will enable you to have a conceptual understanding of the properties of networks, e.g. How do networks grow? What are the consequences of random failures or targeted attacks in networks? Along the way, we will pick up some maths, some biology, and maybe a bit of slime mold intelligence, epidemics, blackouts and Google.

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More information on our two semesters of Foundations of Science with the “Grand Challenge” is below:

http://fos2jan2016.courses.yale-nus.edu.sg/  – Semester 2 2015-16 implementation

http://fos1aug2015.courses.yale-nus.edu.sg/ – Semester 1 2015-16 implementation.

Below are the questions for the Our two Foundations of Science themes.

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Evolution:

(1) How would you use biogeographic theory to predict the course of a cataclysmic mass extinction event – that is, who would be the winners and who the losers?.   Make your predictions in the context of a particular cause of mass extinction.  How would the decimation, or loss of keystone ecological function due to ‘rarity’, affect future diversification?

 (2) The role of historical contingency is a familiar concept in thinking about the evolution of animal form and function of life, but it is also something to think about in the evolution of the most fundamental biochemical processes.   Was it inevitable that DNA (or RNA) would succeed as the replicable molecule that is the foundation of all biological evolution that we know about?   And that proteins, encoded by the DNA sequence, would be the agents of catalysis, movement and structure?   Is it possible that there is life on earth that is not based on DNA/RNA and proteins? How would you find it?  How would you find such life on other planets?

 (3) Given the plunging costs of DNA sequencing, and improvements in genetic engineering, propose a novel strategy for using one or both of these technologies in the service of conservation.

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Revolution:

i). Assess the current status of one or more aspects of power generation and/or distribution in terms of efficiency and stability, and suggest one or more possible improvements to lessen impacts on global climate

 ii). How can network science be applied to monitor, assess or counter one of the consequences of climate change and/or global warming?

 iii). Propose a way to assess and enhance the energy efficiency of a large urban area or region, and the specific impacts this will have on power usage and global warming. 

Your teams have been assigned, and you should soon be receiving an email from the TeamMates program with more details about your team members.

One really interesting outgrowth of the Liberal Arts in India project is a new theatre production, co-authored with Brian Brophy (Caltech) and Usha Darmela (O.P.Jindal), about the life of Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, India’s leading astrophysicist of the 20th century and Nobel laureate. Brian Brophy is a noted actor and theatre producer, and he attended our Liberal Arts in India conference in New Delhi in 2015, where I met him and we hatched this idea. The drama and passion of Chandrasekhar’s life is striking – he left India as a young man in 1930, where he left behind his famous Nobel prize winning uncle, C.V. Raman, his ailing mother (who was to pass away soon afterwards), and the love of his life Lalitha. Thrust into the unknown world of Cambridge England, Chandrasekhar immediately made a deep impression on all who met him with his penetrating insight into the ways that stars work. He worked out on the boat ride to England some key calculations which unlocked the secret of the “Heart of the Stars” – where crushing densities and searing temperatures push matter beyond any conditions known or previously imagined.

Chandra’s mind, and his immaculate and inspired calculations, were able to reveal how deep inside stars the newly discovered physics of relativity and quantum mechanics merge together. This causes the atoms deep inside some stars, like white dwarf stars, to become “degenerate” – which as the mass of the star increases requires the atoms to move faster and faster until they become relativistic, or approach the speed of light.

The phenomenon of relativistic degeneracy, first described by Chandrasekhar in 1930, is what prevents white dwarf stars from collapsing – but only if their mass is below a certain mass threshold. This limit to the mass of a white dwarf is now known as the Chandrasekhar Limit, and is at about 1.4 solar masses. The astrophysics now is well established, but at the time was deeply troubling and threatening to the astrophysical establishment. It placed the future of a large number of stars in jeopardy, and suggested that some stars could collapse to form objects with unlimited density – the black holes!  The “absurdity” of such singularities caused the most eminent scientist of the time, Sir Arthur Eddington, to publicly repudiate Chandrasekhar’s brilliant analysis, ridiculing it as “stellar buffoonery” in a pivotal Royal Society meeting in London.

The drama of the story naturally lends itself into what should be a beautiful play, and hopefully also will be a movie script! The middle of the story is Chandrasekhar’s humiliation at the hands of Eddington, and his courageous revival with the help of Lalitha, and their triumph in the end after 50 years in the US, where not only were all of Chandrasekhar’s calculations shown to be exactly correct, but to predict neutron stars and black holes, a half century before they were observed. In his Nobel Prize banquet speech of 1983, Chandra quotes Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Gitanjali, in what may perhaps be referring to his own “re-awakening” after his arrival to the US,  to a place where “knowledge is free” and “where worlds come out from the depth of truth:”

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
into that haven of freedom, Let me awake.

Rabindranath Tagore, Gitanjali

The drama, and power of the story needs to be heard, and I am looking forward to working with Brian and Usha to bring Chandra’s life to a larger audience through theatre and perhaps even a movie!  It is a great vehicle for teaching about astrophysics through the life of an amazing scientist who is a symbol of Indian intellectual culture, and perhaps most of all a passionate human being who was motivated by his love of beauty, his love of truth, and the love of his life, Lalitha. This sense of aesthetics figures into some of the speeches Chandra has given over the years about Shakespeare, Newton and Beethoven, where he equates the creativity of art and music to that of the scientist. Ultimately he is on a quest for beauty, which he encapsulates in both simple and beautiful words at the end of his 1983 Nobel Prize lecture:

The play is coming together, and is a wonderful way to pay tribute to Chandrasekhar, and embody some of Chandra’s own liberal arts spirit – that blended his science with a deep love of the arts, music and literature. On May 14, Brian Brophy also had a reading of the play with a group of Caltech students and faculty. The poster for that event is below.

caltech_heartofstars_v6

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References

Chandrasekhar’s 1983 Nobel Prize Speech:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1983/chandrasekhar-lecture.pdf

Chandrasekhar’s 1983 Nobel Prize banquet speech:

http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1983/chandrasekhar-speech.html

Chandrasekhar’s 1975 lecture on Shakespeare, Newton and Beethoven:

http://www.parrikar.org/essays/shakespeare-newton-beethoven/

 

During April, I had a wonderful opportunity to work with Sara Amjad (from the Yale-NUS College Dean of Students office) to create a faculty workshop that brings Sara’s Intercultural Dialogue program to a new format and audience. The format would be a 90 minute Workshop at the end of the semester, and the audience would be faculty – who have for three years now been teaching here in Singapore in what sometimes can be a very different cultural environment than where many of our faculty have been trained. Yale-NUS, like most colleges, has a very diverse campus – its students represent over 50 nations, and unlink campuses in the US, these students who might be thought of as “International” students make up 40 percent of the student body, compared to the 60% Singaporean student contingent. The percentage of American students at Yale-NUS is well less than 10%, making it something of a mirror image of the typical American campus which has 90% American students and 10% “International.”  Our Yale-NUS College faculty are mostly from the US, with contingents from Australia, the UK, and a mix of Asian countries. Bringing an intentional dialog on how cultural assumptions from their own backgrounds and from the students affects their teaching and learning was our goal. Sara has been running this program now for over two years with groups of students, staff and a few faculty – we were hoping to bring this experience to bear in helping our faculty better understand these issues.

Our workshop began with a great introductory exercise – each participant told the story of their first and middle name. The stories were varied and revealed interesting aspects of how extended family played in the choice – with wide ranges of relatives either being the source of the name or providing input – or with interesting stories that tied to the many diverse cultures represented in the room. We discussed the Cultural Orientations Model, which is a varying mix of thinking style, sense of self and interaction style, that often has different proportions by culture. This plays into how we communicate and how what we say is received in the classroom, and we discussed how to structure classrooms to best match student’s cultural orientations.

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The second part of the workshop included examining the distinction between discussion, debate and dialog in the classroom, and how to foster each of these modes of instruction. The ways in which we mix these formats can be helpful or hurtful to students depending on their cultural styles.  The final part was perhaps the most interesting – scenarios constructed by Yale-NUS students were discussed. Sara had done thorough research and interviewed about a dozen of our students to come up with some very interesting scenarios for us to discuss in which faculty or visitors to campus misinterpreted students, made assumptions about their religious backgrounds or other cultural orientations, and how that created awkward and difficult situations. We had groups of 2 assigned to each scenario, which they discussed among themselves and then reported to the entire group of the workshop. The discussion was very lively and enlightening!

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 Discussion Materials

Exploring the Differences Between Discussion Debate and Dialogue Faculty Workshop Scenarios – updated

Faculty Workshop Scenarios – updated_1

From May 5-11 I had the opportunity to visit the lovely city of Melbourne, and work with the astrophysics group at Swinburne University. My host was Michael Murphy, director of the Swinburne Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing. Michael was a postdoc working on quasar spectroscopy at Cambridge when I was there as a Downing Fellow nearly 10 years ago, along with his Swinburne colleague Emma Ryan-Webber. Combining their great expertise with others from the group also active in quasar absorption line spectroscopy – Jeff Cooke and Neil Crighton – and you have one of the best research centers in the world for the (somewhat) specialized field of quasar absorption line studies.

   

 

I gave a talk to the group on May 9, and explained some of the work I have been doing with Damped Lyman Alpha systems, both to detect the “floor” of metallicity in these systems, and to identify trends in the ratios of Carbon to Oxygen in the low-metallicity universe. They also were quite interested in my paper on Deuterium in DLA systems, and the group included several with actual experience working with this difficult topic and publishing similar papers. We immediately identified several areas in which to collaborate, and in particular the need for more accurate and consistent nucleosynthesis yields, which can inform studies like the ones I and Michael have been working. By bringing together the theory and observing communities – perhaps in an upcoming workshop – we can help clarify the nature of the first stars in the universe, and the imprint they leave on the clouds of gas and dust toward quasars.

I truly enjoyed Melbourne, the Swinburne astronomy group, and the friendly collegial atmosphere. I also learned from Jeremy Mould, Director of the Center of Excellence for All-Sky Astrophysics, that Australia and Singapore are working to create closer ties, and new exchanges for science, culture, technology and industry. I am hopeful that this can enable some closer collaboration and can help me connect to this fascinating group in the coming months and years from my location in Singapore.  The combination of good bike trails, fine beer, Australian rules football and the Victoria Library all will be a great incentive to come back!

On April 29, the NUS University Awards Ceremony included the recognition of the seven newly inducted Fellows for the NUS Teaching Academy. I was honored to be part of the group and attended the ceremony with some of the best of the NUS professors in medicine, law, arts, sciences and humanities. It was a deep honor to be part of the Teaching Academy, and I look forward to working closely with the fellows to help shape some of the NUS policies and innovations in teaching, learning and educational research. The listing of the new fellows is at this site – http://nus.edu.sg/uawards/2016/teachingnewfellow.php, and more information on the NUS teaching academy can be found at their web site at http://www.nus.edu.sg/teachingacademy/. I have already learned a lot from the many events at NUS related to Teaching and Learning, and as a Fellow I can help be even more closely connected to this dynamic university and its very interesting group of scholars!

 

On April 12 and 13, the Global Learning Council (http://www.globallearningcouncil.org/) met at the National University of Singapore. I was invited to attend, and met with leadership from Carnegie Mellon University, NUS, the World Economic Forum, and a very interesting international group with large delegations from Germany, Japan, and several other countries. The theme of the meeting was promoting Technology-Enhanced Learning in Asia – and we were offered several very good talks about the changing landscape of industry, geopolitics, and economics, and how those impacted higher education.

The meeting opened with Dr. Subra Suresh, President of Carnegie Mellon University, and Chor Chuan Tan, President of NUS giving opening talks. Then Lee Howell from the World Economic Forum gave a very interesting talk about the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” – the rise of artificial intelligence, materials science, and biotechnology – that will accelerate technologies and require new models of education. The Fourth Industrial revolution follows the earlier revolutions which gave us power from steam, production lines for Model T’s and processing in the form of computers. From the Davos World Economic Forum, which Lee Howell helps plan, came a very interesting video dramatising this Fourth Industrial Revolution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZOkoRuV1R0

(from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZOkoRuV1R0)

After the talk a variety of leaders from industry and government described the skill set needed in 2020. These included skills like complex problem solving, critical thinking, people management, coordination with others, emotional intelligence, judgement, decision-making, and cognitive flexibility. The skills all can be developed from a good liberal arts education – making the Yale-NUS project seem more relevant!  The World Economic Forum provided a “Future Jobs Report” ( http://reports.weforum.org/future-of-jobs-2016/ ) – which outlines some of these details. The executive summary of this report is available below:

WEF_FOJ_Executive_Summary_Jobs  (executive summary of the Future of Jobs – PDF).

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Other speakers included the Singaporean Minister of Education, who described their FutureSkills initiative, and a series of speakers from Kaplan, Microsoft and the Gates Foundation. One of my favorite talks was from Kathy Takanaka, the Director of Columbia’s Teaching and Learning Center and Deputy Provost of Undergraduate Education. She described new methods of science teaching in which instructors emphasize the ways in which science probes the unknown, and the value of uncertainty, and “liminality” in science teaching. This idea of “liminality” also comes up in the educational theory of Threshold Concepts, and is a vital way to mobilize students and to create profound and deep learning.

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The meeting was inspiring, thought-provoking, and wonderfully future oriented. The NUS President, Chor Chuan Tan, is one of the board members, and currently director of the GLC. This makes for some great opportunities to get involved in this fascinating organization, and I look forward to their next meeting in Berlin!

 

From March 28-April 1, Hollywood actor and Caltech Theatre Program Director, Brian Brophy visited us at Yale-NUS. His visit was planned to create an Intercultural Theatre project, by exploring some of the cultural diversity at Yale-NUS College, and to offer a workshop on Theatre as Teaching with our Yale-NUS faculty. Brian is also my collaborator on a new play about the Life of Chandrasekhar entitled the Heart of the Stars. We met with him and his wife, and learned more about his recent work in India at the O.P. Jindal Global University.

Then with Sara Amjad of the Dean of Students office, we met with Brian and planned out the week. Brian was to create a performance with Yale-NUS students where they would enact scenes where their cultural heritage were showcased. He worked with them over several evenings, and in those workshops the students had deep discussions about their cultural backgrounds, and created sketches among themselves. On the final night a few of the top scenes were recreated for an audience, and the audience was encouraged to interact with the students, and make reflective observations on their project.

The other piece of Brian’s visit was a faculty workshop for the CTL on Theatre as Teaching. This workshop included about 15 Yale-NUS and NUS faculty, who heard from Brian about his experiences teaching, and working with the Theatre of the Oppressed in India.  Brian also tried to link different faculty together and to encourage them to use role playing and other forms of theatre in their teaching.

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One of the many joys of living in Singapore is the close proximity of some amazing countries – Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Cambodia, are all within a short hop on a discount airline. When one of those countries has a total solar eclipse in them, all the better!   This is what happened on March 9, 2016. In neighboring Indonesia, the total eclipse was passing through, making a graceful arc across the South China Sea up through Ternate. Even though this was in the middle of my Yale-NUS College semester, I was not going to pass up a total solar eclipse!  So Bidushi and I booked a short hop flight to Palembang, which was on the path of the totality.

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My friend Jay Pasachoff, a veteran eclipse observer and one of the world’s top solar astronomers, warned against this site – saying he had bad luck there on a previous eclipse. Jay, of course, was located up in Ternate with a team of photographers waiting to catch the best possible view. Bidushi and I were looking for speed – and Palembang provided it. Only about one hour away on AirAsia, and with lots of cheap and available hotels. We booked our flight and looked forward to the event!  We arrived to Palembang the day before the event; Bidushi and her friends from a local company here in Singapore known as Hiverlab (http://www.hiverlab.com/) had arranged for a fish-eye all sky camera gadget using GoPros. We tested it on the roof of our apartment before going and were all set for a great immersive VR recording of the event!

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As the eclipse day came, we got very excited. Our hotel had a nice porch where we could set up our all-sky viewing gadget, and my camera with its fancy new telephoto lens. We got up very early, and enjoyed the sunrise from the roof and eagerly awaited the eclipse!

 

     

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As the event unfolded, some clouds gathered. The cooling from the partial phase of the eclipse seemed to cause some additional clouds to condense. Despite the heavy and gathering clouds, we could see the sun begin to darken, and the partial phase deepen. The temperature dropped further, and darkness set in. Then the totality!  Despite the thick clouds, my camera was able to take a couple of good pictures through the clouds of the total eclipse.  We were thrilled – and enjoyed being enveloped into cool darkness in Indonesia, just after sunrise!

Our eclipse photos (through clouds): 

   

 

 

 

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After the eclipse we walked around Palembang. We were struck by how friendly the people were. “Hello sir” “Hello sir” said kids as they ran up to me. I felt like a rock star!  The city itself was a large sprawling industrial town. A large river ran through the town and we had a nice relaxing lunch at the river and watched the barges go by. They use the river to transport huge barges of coal and other things to various parts of Indonesia. The food was good, the people friendly – and the sun restored.

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After we returned to Singapore, Bidushi and I gave a talk to a full classroom at the Singapore Science Center on March 11. We showed the group a comparison of the eclipse as viewed from Thailand, from Singapore and from the totality. We even found a movie clip of the eclipse taken from an airplane, and from a Japanese weather satellite in space!  The students and public in the crowd seemed to really enjoy the talk, and even liked our photos through the clouds. A great experience!

 

   

During the Feb 29-March 5 visit Jenny Frederick provided an amazing workshop on how people learn at Yale-NUS College. The workshop, entitled “Teaching to Prioritize Learning” included a wonderful in situ experiment in learning, where the group was divided into two, and asked to perform a series of tasks as if in a classroom setting. The two groups were given different handouts, however, and Jenny masterfully demonstrated how the different handouts could either enhance learning or block it.  Jenny was able to show how memory can be bolstered by materials that help organize the knowledge by grouping facts together into categories. Those of our colleagues who had such handouts vastly outperformed the “control” group who were left floundering. This message was that as teachers we owe it to our students to scaffold what we do with multiple aids to their learning; and to infuse those materials we hand out with systematic and conceptual groupings that help them process the information more effectively.

Within Jenny’s talk was also a graph of how memory can be interefered with by lack of attention or just saturation from too much information. This is a part of the growing both of research that documents how lecturing will not work after a relatively short period (10-15 minutes) after which the mind is incapable of processing much of the information. Jenny advocates not only bundling concepts or facts in logical ways, but infographics and other diagrams that can aid learning.

Another point that she made was that students often have preconceptions that need to be addressed carefully in teaching. These preconceptions can lead to “confirmation bias” in which students look for patterns consistent with preconceived ideas. It is important to enable students to test patterns and evidence for themselves and to discuss what they find to help break these misconceptions whenever possible. The use of “retrieval practice” can also facilitate learning and has been shown to boost learning more than more elaborate study practices. This form of retrieval practice which uses tests that assess comprehension and requires students to make inferences also improved conceptual learning, according to a recent article by Karpicke and Blunt (2011) in an article published in Science.

Our Yale-NUS faculty really enjoyed the talk by Jenny, and were impressed to not only see some of the results of learning science put into practice, but to gather data themselves – as test subjects of a short experiment!

References

Karpicke, J.D., and Blunt, J.R., 2011, Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping, Science, 331, p. 772.

Accessible from  http://learninglab.psych.purdue.edu/downloads/2011_Karpicke_Blunt_Science.pdf

Teaching-to-prioritize-learning-Yale-NUS-Feb-2016 – Slides from Jenny’s talk

Teaching-to-prioritize-learning-Yale-NUS-Feb-2016 How-People-Learn_Activity-Handouts-Scoring-Sheet – Scoring sheet for workshop