professional talks
Here you'll find posters, talks, and workshop materials that I've presented at professional and teacher conferences.
Conference acronyms:
See below for my hands-on classroom activities. |
| Make Clickers Work for You A series of 1-2 hour workshops on effective clicker pedagogy for promoting student engagement in K12 environments.
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NSTA Phoenix, December 2009 CSC Denver, November 2009 AAPT New England, October 2009 Bollman Technical HS, Thornton CO, October 2009 Technology in Education Conference, Copper Mtn, Co, June 2009 |
| Writing Great Clicker Questions A series of 1-2 hour workshops on question-writing strategies to promote student learning. PDF of talk. |
CSC Denver, November 2009 Bollman Technical HS, Thornton CO, November 2009 |
| Exploring Easy and Effective Ways to use PheT's Interactive Simulations. A series of 1-hour workshops on the interactive simulations online at phet.colorado.edu, plus strategies for designing classroom activities. PDF of talk. |
NSTA Phoenix, December 2009 NSTA, Minneapolis, October 2009 |
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What Every Teacher Should Know about Cognitive Research An overview of education research relevant to classroom practice. PDF of talk. |
CSC Denver, November 2009 |
| Clickers in Upper-Division Courses, S. Chasteen, S. Pollock & K. Perkins One hour workshop on effective clicker use, with focus on upper-division courses. PDF of talk. |
Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology (COLTT) Boulder, CO, August 2009 |
| Thinking Like a Physicist: Transforming Junior-Level Electricity & Magnetism, S. Chasteen, S. Pollock, M. Dubson, E. Kinney, P. Beale and K. Perkins A series of talks outlining an innovative approach to teaching upper-level physics courses, and assessment of curriculum effectiveness.
All related PDFs of posters and talks related to this work available here. |
AAPT, Ann Arbor MI, July 2009 PERC, Ann Arbor MI, July 2009 APS Regional, Denver, March 2009 AAPT New England, Durham, NH, October 2009 AAPT & PERC, Edmonton BC, August 2008. |
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Cognitive Issues in Upper-Division Electricity and Magnetism, S. Chasteen & S. Pollock. Invited poster on particular learning difficulties in E&M. PDF. |
PERC, Ann Arbor MI, July 2009 |
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Tapping into Juniors' Understanding of Electricity & Magnetism: Development of the Colorado Upper-division Electrostatics (CUE) Assessment. S. Chasteen & S. Pollock. Poster describing development and validation of conceptual survey. PDF. |
PERC, Ann Arbor MI, July 2009 |
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Learning About Science Teaching Presentation on active engagement and clickers for science coordinators of large school district. |
Adams 12 School District science coordinator meeting, Thornton CO, May 2009 |
| Flirt Harder, I'm a Physicist My experiences as a woman in science, and discussion of the challenges and quandries facing women in science. |
Women in JILA meeting Boulder, CO, May 2009 |
| Clickers in Upper-Division Courses, S. Chasteen, K. Perkins, S. Pollock & M. Dubson. Invited talk on strategies and assessments for using clickers in junior-level courses. |
Invited talk, AAPT Chicago IL, February 2009. |
| Go with the Flow: Solid Ways to Teach Fluids. Hands-on workshop about water and fluids. Workshop handouts |
CSC Denver CO, November 2008 |
| Assessing student understanding in upper-division undergraduate Electricity & Magnetism 1. Preliminary results of course transformations and assessments. Download poster here. |
PERC Edmonton, July 2008 |
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Download handouts in PDF or Doc (clickable links in Doc). Here are the Vanna pictures right-side-up and upside-down and original. |
AAPT Denver CO, April 2008 |
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Download handouts and Powerpoint (both PDFs). |
California Mathematics Council (CMC) Asilomar, CA, December 2007 |
| Get the word out: Podcasting, blogging, and my life as a scientist communicator. General discussion of my career, and general principles, in science communication. PDF of talk |
Invited presentation: Ecological Society of America San Jose, CA, August 2007 |
| Attack of the Podpeople! Using and making podcasts in education. Using podcasts in an academic setting, and good communication skills. PDF of talk, the Head harp activity and Handouts. |
Physics Department, University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO, July 2007 |
| Hear
Me Out! Communicating nanotechnology through |
Communicating Science to Broader Audiences Lincoln, NE,April 2007 |
| Attack of the Podpeople! Using and making podcasts in the classroom. Listening to, downloading, and making podcasts in the classroom. The Exploratorium workshop, a half-day workshop, included creating a collaborative class podcast. Download PDF of handouts, Head harp activity, Editing using Audacity, or Editing using Garageband. |
CCSF Math, Science, Technology Conference, San Francisco, June 2007 Exploratorium, March 2007 |
| Sparking excitement for electricity: Electrostatic activities that work A series of hands-on electrostatics activities. Download handout. |
Council of Math/Science Educators of San Mateo County San Mateo, CA, March 2007 |
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Surface Area and Volume. Online iVisit workshop on the relationship of surface area and volume to biology, chemistry, and physics, with Tory Brady. Handouts and videos. |
Exploratorium, February 2007 |
| SmallTalk: Communicating nanotechnology to the public Our work on SmallTalk and communicating nanotechnology to the public. PDF of talk. |
AAPT January, 2007 |
| Spectrum at Your Fingertips Your nails can be a fun way to show the different ways that colors can be categorized, and discus the arbitraryness of the ROYGBIV spectrum. You can also show different schemes for color mixing (CYMK and RGB). PDF |
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| Rainbow Rice Rice can be dyed a myriad of colors and used in a variety of activities, such as the rice model of the atmosphere. Download PDF of activity. |
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| Wicked
Styrofoam of the West Styrofoam will rapidly dissolve (à la the Wicked Witch), when placed in acetone, but not in water. Starch packing peanuts, however, break down in water but not acetone. Covers concepts of solvents and solutions, polymer chemistry, and scientific observation. PDF |
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| Digital
Sound Use free software to explore the shape of your voice and musical instruments, and examine an audio illusion. A great activity to go along with a sound or waves lesson. The realtime spectral analysis of the voice and instruments is deeply engaging. (1) Handout using TEEMS2 Soundgrapher, or (2) handout using Spectrafoo and Audacity. And here's a spectrafoo screenshot and Audacity screenshot. |
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| Ferrofluid Visualize magnetic fields, and make cool magnetic art, with ferrofluid. Several alternate recipes are given, as well as some activities to do with the fluid. See me on Iron Science Teacher, doing a ferrofluid demonstration. (Real Media file). Activity PDF. |
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| Juice
from Juice Using blackberry juice, iodine, and a few simple materials you can make a Graetzel cell -- a type of solar cell that mimics the process of photosynthesis. PDF |
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Links
Exploratorium Teacher Institute Providing professional development resources for teachers
Exploratorium Institute for Inquiry Introducing teachers to inquiry methods of teaching
Dr. Paul Doherty; Scientific Explorations and Adventures
Dr. Jill Johnsen; Material Science and the Nanoworld
Dr. Sebastian Martin Passionately curious -- explorations from Sebastian at the Exploratorium, including lots of photos, activities with light and motion, and physics and music.
Science Snacks Small-scale and low-cost versions of Exploratorium exhibits you can build yourself.
Demonstrations
and Ideas from the Exploratorium
Using
and making audio podcasts in the mathematics classroom.
podcasts
















