THE IMPACT OF CONTEXTUALIZED COMPUTING FOR MATERIALS STUDENTS

Thursday, November 6, 2014
1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. US Eastern
Sponsored by the TMS Education Committee

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This webinar will address education challenges associated with the incorporation of computation into core curriculum, and present educational research methodology and the results collected from surveys, pre/post-tests, and guided interviews.

Instructors:

WEBINAR VIDEO

WEBINAR DETAILS

The Impact of Contextualized Computing for Materials Students

The ubiquity of computing is arguably the most transformative cross-disciplinary change to science and engineering in the last half century. Yet, our educational strategies for incorporating computing into the heart of our discipline has not evolved much since the inception of computer science as an established area of study. In 2012, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University made computing a required first-year gateway course for all majors. The bigger change is that computing is now contextualized within the discipline through materials-focused projects, and the subject is taught via a flipped classroom instructional format that engages students in hands-on work during class.

The result has been:

• much higher self-reported student confidence in their computing abilities, increased perception of the utility of computing and higher intention to adopt computing as part of their educational and career plans
• measurable learning gains in later core courses in which disciplinary concepts are reinforced through computational modules

The latter was true particularly amongst students who had taken the disciplinarily contextualized computing class. These perception and learning gains are significant even when materials students exposed to contextualized computing are compared to students who have taken three or more traditional computing classes.

This webinar will address these education challenges associated with the incorporation of computation into core curriculum, and present educational research methodology and the results collected from surveys, pre/post-tests, and guided interviews.

INSTRUCTORS

Michael Falk is a Professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University's Whiting School of Engineering, where he has served on the faculty since 2008 with secondary appointments in Mechanical Engineering and in Physics and Astronomy. He holds a B.A. in Physics (1990) and an M.S.E. in Computer Science (1991) from Johns Hopkins University and a Ph.D. in Physics (1998) from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has been twice selected as a visiting Chaire Joliot at the École Supérieure de Physique et de Chimie Industrielles at Paris Tech and has organized extended workshops on the physics of glasses and on friction, fracture, and earthquakes at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. He has received several awards for his educational accomplishments, and in 2011 he received an award from the Johns Hopkins Diversity Leadership Council for his work on LGBT inclusion. Falk is widely recognized for the development of the Shear Transformation Zone theory of the response of non-crystalline solids to stress. In his work, he deploys atomic-scale computational methods to increase our understanding of the processes that govern deformation, failure, phase transitions, and friction within and between materials. His education research focuses on integrating computation into the undergraduate core curriculum. Falk also serves as the lead investigator for STEM Achievement in Baltimore Elementary Schools (SABES), an NSF-funded Community Enterprise for STEM Learning partnership between Johns Hopkins University and Baltimore City Schools. He currently serves as advisor to the Johns Hopkins University chapter of oSTEM (Out in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) and the Diverse Sexuality and Gender Alliance and as chair of the American Physical Society's Ad Hoc Committee on LGBT Issues.

Alejandra Magana is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer and Information Technology and an affiliated faculty at the School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. She holds a B.E. in Information Systems (2000), an M.S. in Technology (2003), both from Tec de Monterrey; and an M.S. in Educational Technology (2007) and a Ph.D. in Engineering Education (2009) from Purdue University. She was a postdoctoral student at the Network for Computational Nanotechnology (2010). Magana’s research interests are centered on the integration of computational tools and methods to leverage the understanding of complex phenomena in scie nce and engineering and support scientific inquiry learning and innovation. Specific efforts focus on studying computation, modeling, simulation, and visualization affordances for student development of conceptual understanding, representational fluency, and design thinking. She also incorporates advances from the learning sciences into authoring curriculum, assessment, and learning materials to appropriately support cyberlearning processes.

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Registration Fees: Free of Charge (Sponsored) but advanced registration required

ABOUT OUR SPONSOR

Thermo-Calc Software is a growing company that specializes in developing tools for computational thermodynamics and kinetics applied to materials science and engineering. Founded in 1997, Thermo-Calc Software’s products are used for both fundamental and applied research such as design of new alloys, optimization of processing conditions, failure analysis and much more.

Developed originally within KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden, Thermo-Calc has over the past 30 years gained a world-wide reputation for thermodynamic and phase equilibria calculations.

For research applications, the full version of Thermo-Calc together with a wide range of thermodynamic databases can be applied to many applications and discounted license fees are available to academic institutions that have authority to teach and examine undergraduate students.

Also, through a collaboration with Professors Mats Hillert and Malin Selleby from the department of Materials Science and Engineering at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Thermo-Calc Software is pleased to offer free educational materials intended for teaching basic thermodynamics at an undergraduate level. Further information can be found at http://www.thermocalc.com/academia/

For information on how to sponsor this webinar, please download the Sponsorship Form.