Workshop Program

Participant Workspace

Please plan to arrive in Northfield in time for the 5:00 pm start time on Sunday, October 23, 2016, and depart the airport after 4:30 pm on Tuesday, October 25.

Sunday, October 23

Afternoon: Participants arrive and check into hotel.

5:00 – 6:00 Welcoming remarks and icebreaker activity– Carleton College, Weitz Center, Larsen Room 236

Welcoming Remarks – Gretchen Hofmeister, Associate Dean of the College; Introduction by Cathy Manduca, SERC

  • icebreaker topic: What goals crosscut teaching computation in the sciences?

6:00 – 7:15 Dinner

7:15 – 7:30 Introduction and goals of workshop - Lisa Kempler, MathWorks

7:30 – 8:30 Presentation: A Few Words at the Front Lines (K-16): Teaching and Research at the Interface of Biomathematics (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 4.8MB Oct23 16)

  • Keynote Speaker - Gregory Goins and Mary A. Smith, University of North Carolina A & T

Monday, October 24

breakfast at hotel

8:30 – 8:45 Introduction and goals for the day – Cathy Manduca, SERC

8:45 – 9:15 Table Discussions: What are opportunities and challenges in doing computation in the sciences and what are you doing in your courses that addresses these issues? - (moderator Wendy Thomas)

  • Participants will sit at assigned tables based on a mix of experience and disciplines to determine commonalities
  • Teaching Activities
  • Essays

9:15 - 9:30 Report out: Each table to emphasize one commonality. Each table should contribute a different opportunity or challenge and we will record on the group reporting page. (moderator Wendy Thomas)

9:30 – 10:45 Panel Discussion: Quantitatively process data to perform calculations and create/use quantitative models to solve problems: (Introduction and moderation by Frederik Simons)

10:45 – 11:00 Break

11:00 – 12:15 Working Groups: Processing data and quantitative models: Separate into groups based on interest and experience and use the working group pages in the participant workspace to synthesize effective teaching practices and identify common challenges to teaching data processing and quantitative modeling in a computation course or module using MATLAB.

12:15 – 1:30 Lunch - Language and Dining Hall, Carleton College campus

1:30 - 2:00 Working Groups reconvene to finalize their thoughts prior to report out

2:00 – 2:15 Report Out on working group topics (moderator Cathy Manduca)

2:15 – 3:00 Discussion: What have we learned about common strategies for teaching with data, computation, and modeling skills? What are the big challenges? How could we collectively make them easier to address? What are our next steps as a group in the next 24 hours? (moderator Kelly Roos)

3:00 – 3:15 Break

3:15 – 4:00 Teaching with MATLAB (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 9.2MB Oct25 16) – Paul Kassebaum, MathWorks

4:00 – 5:30 Enhancing your MATLAB knowledge--working with experts (organizer Frederik Simons)

5:30 – 6:00 End of day remarks, organizing for dinner, individual reflection, and daily roadcheck

6:00 Dinner on the town – organize into small groups

7:30 Conveners' Meeting

8:30 Beer at Froggy Bottoms

Tuesday, October 25

breakfast at hotel

8:30 – 8:45 Opening and agenda for the day

8:45 – 10:00 Panel Discussion: How can we build comfort with tools in our courses? How can we use/create synergies across courses and disciplines? (Introduction and moderation by Kelly Roos)

Links to topics discussed during Panel Discussion

SERC Websites Related to Supporting Students and Improving Teaching and Learning

10:00 – 10:15 Break

10:15 – 11:50 Working Groups:

  • what is computational thinking
  • building an intro to computation course with examples across disciplines
  • creating competencies for computational thinking
  • developing outcomes for computation in disciplinary intros that will be implemented by participants
  • developing a bioengineering or computational biology course
  • case studies for earth/environmental modeling group
  • other discipline specific course topics or lesson plans
  • technical how to session producing write up on why this are useful: using Cody courseware, live script, on ramp, how to find code examples: Teaching with MATLAB (PowerPoint 2007 (.pptx) 9.2MB Oct25 16)
  • moving from a course to a set of courses across the school or degree program -- building on today's panel
  • recommendations for teaching computation in context with no programming background
  • how we assess programming competency (cody courseware and more)
  • exploring what our students are thinking and learning around computation
  • educational research agenda around teaching and learning computational thinking
  • Building students comfort with computation

11:50 - 12:00 Contribute ideas (one big take-home) for synthesis on discussion thread

12:00 – 1:00 Language and Dining Hall, Carleton College campus

1:00 – 2:00 Synthesis and future work

  • Read working group pages (5 minutes) and ask questions and discuss (10 minutes) - Kelly
  • Group synthesis page (15 minutes) - Cathy
  • Future work discussion - Frederik - Cathy Record
  • End of Workshop Evaluation

2:00 End of meeting

Shuttles to airport