College Showcase Week - College of Engineering and Computer Science

   The start of College Showcase Week for the University of Texas at Tyler certainly starts off strong with the College of Engineering and Computer Science! This College encompasses a variety of departments, including but not limited to three departments of Engineering (civil, mechanical, and electrical), Construction Management, Computer Science, and a variety of research-intensive departments!

Carl Wieman Lectures at the Cowan Center

On Thursday, September 5^th in the Cowan Center, Dr. Carl Wieman visited the UT Tyler campus at the Cowan Center, the first of four in the Cowan Center Distinguished Lecture Series for the school year.  As I discussed previously on this blog, Dr.Carl Wieman won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 for his work with the Bose-Einstein condensate, and has since been heavily involved with improving science education in the high school and collegiate levels.

His lecture on Thursday, titled, “How advances in research on learning can dramatically improve science and engineering education", discussed how using “peer instruction” can innovate the instruction of science, math, technology, and engineering (STEM) for high schools and universities.  “Peer instruction” is a pedagogical system originally created by Eric Mazur, in which teachers repeatedly ask multiple-choice questions to a class, and students rely on group discussions to find a collective response.  Wieman discusses that this practice in classrooms allows students to better analyze given questions and scenarios, rather than rely on teacher walkthroughs to understand solutions.  This is a popular standpoint amongst educators, as they wish to move away from the banking method of education, and move toward a collective thought process for better understanding of a given topic.

While the lecture primarily targets STEM classrooms, I was curious as to how this teaching method applies to classrooms with liberal arts topics, such as Political Science, Communication, Journalism, etc.  While the peer instruction method works successfully in technical classrooms, students in liberal arts classes often utilize the banking method to acquire a set amount of information, while avoiding the injection of ideologies in the discussion that may hinder progress in the classroom.  This is a common criticism of class discussions during lectures; it is challenging to teach subjects that are prone to a negative response from someone who holds a conflicting ideology toward the topic.  This is a criticism that Dr. Wieman is working toward solving for these classrooms, so his method of peer instruction can be more applicable to liberal arts classes.

Remember, Dr. Wieman was the first of four lectures that will happen during the school year.  Soon to follow are Katie Couric, Charles Krauthammer, and Robert Edsel.  Check out the Cowan Center website for ticket and date information. Do not miss a great educational opportunity at UT Tyler! 

I won!

This past week has been really awesome. The main reason being it was my 21st birthday, but another really cool reason is this little guy.

Ironically, this little guy's kind of a big deal. After receiving word I was nominated for an award, I attended the UT Tyler Computer Science and Engineering honors banquet on Tuesday. Not knowing what to expect I went hoping to win but if not, then at least enjoying a good meal with friends.

Upon the event finally reaching the Computer Information Systems department, my heart began to beat a bit faster as I listened earnestly. Next thing you know my name is announced for the outstanding junior award and everyone around me is excited. A certificate and a plaque later and I'm the happiest guy in the room. Yea, a pretty big deal after all.