Posts tagged STEM
CU Boulder’s video game design research catches fire with students
Feb 15th
CU-Boulder nets $1.5 million NSF grant
to continue video game design research
to continue video game design research
The University of Colorado Boulder exceeded its own researchers’ expectations with its iDREAMS Scalable Game Design Summer Institute, and that success has been rewarded with a new $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation. CU-Boulder researchers are tracking how video game design engages students in computational thinking and STEM simulation design.
STEM simulations are computer programs that model natural and social phenomena, such as how a forest fire spreads from tree to tree. Students design these simulations to learn science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM.
The new NSF-funded Computational Thinking for Teaching Computing grant to computer science Professor Alexander Repenning and co-investigators Kris Gutiérrez and David Webb from the School of Education, will build on previous work the team did on video game design as a motivational tool for computer science education.
That project, called iDREAMS, involved more than 100 teachers and over 8,000 students producing more than 10,000 games and STEM simulations. The project started in Colorado but quickly expanded to Alaska, Ohio, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming where it gave teachers the tools and support needed to take the video game design curriculum into their classrooms. Participation far exceeded initial projections for the iDREAMS research project of about 40 teachers and 1,200 students over three years.
The curriculum, as taught through the Scalable Game Design Summer Institute on the CU-Boulder campus during the past three summers, was found to be highly effective across a wide spectrum of communities, including technology hubs, urban/inner city, rural and remote Native American communities.
The research team was encouraged by the extraordinarily high levels of participation and motivation, especially for girls and underrepresented students: 45 percent of participants were girls and 56 percent were underrepresented minorities. Motivation, expressed by a willingness to take more game design classes, was determined to be 74 percent for boys, 64 percent for girls, 71 percent for white participants and 69 percent for minority students.
In the new project, student performance data using measures of computational thinking will be integrated to further analyze how video game design helps students reason and learn STEM content. The performance data will be used to enhance the Scalable Game Design curriculum and professional development opportunities for teachers.
“I am extremely excited to see the enormous energy of students and teachers involved in the Scalable Game Design project,” said Repenning. “They have shown that it really is possible to bring computer science education to public schools and integrate it into the curriculum. The Scalable Game Design curriculum includes problem solving, logical thinking skills and sophisticated math and science concepts highly relevant to STEM and computer science education.”
CU-Boulder will again host its popular Scalable Game Design Summer Institute for K-12 teachers this summer, June 4-10, as part of its long-term efforts to improve and broaden participation in computer science education.
“We now want to analyze the impact of the research on students’ motivation and what they are learning, continuing the success of the iDREAMS project,” said Webb. “With the new grant, we can build up more robust research instruments that can be used for computer science education. We will continue to be very intentional regarding our research of particular populations and will be broadening the scope of groups studied.”
Project partners include AgentSheets Inc., the Computer Science Teachers Association, the National Center for Women & Information Technology, the Shodor Foundation and SRI International.
For more information visit http://scalablegamedesign.cs.colorado.edu.
CU APPLIED MATHEMATICS PROFESSOR HARVEY SEGUR TO RECEIVE 2011 HAZEL BARNES PRIZE
May 2nd
Harvey Segur, a professor of applied mathematics at the University of Colorado Boulder, has been selected to receive the 2011 Hazel Barnes Prize, the highest faculty recognition for teaching and research awarded by the university.
Segur will receive an engraved university medal and a $20,000 cash award, the largest single faculty award funded by CU-Boulder. He will be recognized at a reception in his honor next fall and at the winter commencement ceremony on Dec 16.
The prize recognizes Segur’s highly cited and influential research on nonlinear waves, along with his exceptional teaching record as a CU-Boulder faculty member since 1989.
“Professor Segur’s transformational teaching and curriculum enhancements in service to our students embodies our Flagship 2030 Strategic Plan to redefine education for the 21st century,” said Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “It is because of faculty like Professor Segur that learning and teaching is one of our pillars of impact at CU-Boulder. But this honor also recognizes his influential scholarly work and service and that is why it is our highest faculty honor.”
Segur is helping to transform undergraduate education at CU-Boulder, focusing on improved student performance in lower-division calculus. The subject is a gatekeeper for majors and careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, or STEM, fields, according to Segur.
To bolster student success in introductory calculus courses, Segur, instructor Mary Nelson and others in the applied mathematics department have implemented more reflective discourse in the classroom through oral assessments. They also expanded CU-Boulder’s Calculus I curriculum to include a two-semester alternative to the usual one-semester course, with the alternative designed to help students with weak mathematical backgrounds. Several universities across the United States are now adopting these reforms.
Segur received a 1994 Teaching Excellence Award from the Boulder Faculty Assembly and was awarded the Minority Engineering Program’s Faculty Award in 1995.
In 1998, Segur was named a President’s Teaching Scholar by former CU president John Buechner. He also served as chair of the applied mathematics department from 2000 to 2003.
Segur was selected to give CU-Boulder’s 97th Distinguished Research Lecture in 2005, the highest honor bestowed by the Graduate School on a faculty member, recognizing an entire body of research and creative work. His talk was on fluid dynamics, describing several types of ocean waves, including common, wind-driven waves and much rarer tsunami waves.
Segur has authored several books and numerous journal articles. He has been a principal lecturer at Howard University in Washington, D.C., and at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. He also has been a guest lecturer in 15 countries including Germany, Russia, Japan, China and Denmark.
Segur has conducted research in various mathematical fields for the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, NATO, the Office of Naval Research and the U.S. Army Research Office. He also has worked extensively in private industry.
Segur received his master’s and doctoral degrees in aeronautical sciences from the University of California, Berkeley. Before coming to CU-Boulder he was a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology, an associate professor at Clarkson College of Technology in Potsdam, N.J., and a professor at State University of New York, Buffalo.
The Hazel Barnes Prize was established in 1991 to recognize the enriching relationship between teaching and research. The prize was named in honor of CU-Boulder philosophy Professor Emerita Hazel Barnes, who taught at CU-Boulder from 1943 to 1986 and is noted for her interpretations of the works of French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre. Barnes died in 2008 at the age of 92.
For more information on the Hazel Barnes Prize and a list of recipients visit http://www.colorado.edu/chancellor/awards/index.html.
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