[Libri] Dec. 3 talk by Paul Horwitz on educ. software and mental models

[Tom Murray]

  PLEASE POST/ANNOUNCE

Visiting Scholar Presentation and **FREE LUNCH** at Hampshire College
Tuesday December 3rd;  Adele Simmons Hall Auditorium -- 12:00

MODELING ACROSS THE CURRICULUM: the impact of computer modeling tools on 
secondary-level science learning

Dr. Paul Horwitz, The Concord Consortium

This talk will describe the work we are doing on a five-year project, 
funded by the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of 
Education, entitled "Modeling Across the Curriculum" 
(http://mac.concord.org). The goal of the project is to teach students 
how to use mental models for understanding scientific concepts, and to 
determine whether they (a) learn the scientific content, (b) learn 
modeling skills that are transferrable across scientific domains, and 
(c) alter their conceptions of and attitudes toward science. In the 
initial phases, we are concentrating on just a few students and teachers 
in three "Partner Schools." Starting next year, though, we will begin to 
scale up the project to hundreds, and eventually thousands, of schools.

The project is producing a series of interactive, computer-based 
"hypermodels" -- activities that integrate a manipulable model with 
text, graphics, and questions. These hypermodels can be used as teaching 
tools as well as performance assessments, logging individual students' 
actions and making them available to teachers and researchers. I will 
demonstrate a few of the many activities that we are creating, and 
discuss the technological infrastructure that we are creating to scale 
up the project.

Partners in the project include the Concord Consortium, Harvard 
University, Northwestern University, the Center for Learning 
Technologies in Urban Schools (LeTUS), the Fitchburg Public Schools, and 
the Lowell Public Schools.

Bio:

Dr. Horwitz, senior scientist at the Concord Consortium, is a 
theoretical physicist with broad interests in the application of 
technology to science and mathematics education.  He has directed and 
participated in a number of highly successful educational technology 
projects, including ThinkerTools (Newtonian physics), RelLab (special 
relativity), GenScope™ (genetics), BioLogica™, and others in domains 
including statistics, mathematical chaos theory, and visual modeling.  
Prior to working for the Concord Consortium he was a chief research 
scientist at BBN Laboratories.

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Tom Murray, Senior Research Fellow
Adjunct Associate Professor of Instructional Technology
School of Cognitive Science, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002
(413) 559-5433 Fax:559-5438;  Adele Simmons Hall room 220
Also: Adjunct Faculty, University of Massachusetts
tmurray at hampshire.edu  http://helios.hampshire.edu/~tjmCCS/
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