OPID| 2022 Spring Conference on Teaching & Learning | Zoom

Carl Wieman, Ph.D

Professor of Physics and Education, Stanford University

Friday, April 22nd
11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. – Plenary Talk
5:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. – Fireside Chat

Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science and engineering have advanced rapidly in the past 500 years. Education in these subjects, however, guided primarily by tradition and dogma, has remained largely medieval. Recent research on how people learn, combined with careful experiments in university classrooms, is now revealing much more effective ways to teach and evaluate learning than is currently used in most classes. I will discuss these results, what they tell us about principles of learning, and their effective implementation in science courses. This research is setting the stage for a new approach to teaching that can provide the relevant and effective science education for all students that is needed for the 21^st century. It also shows better ways to evaluate teaching quality, and it reveals that traditional attitudes about learning and the introductory science curriculum can be inadvertently sustaining systemic discrimination.

Biography

Dr. Carl Wieman is a Professor of Physics and Education at Stanford University. Wieman has conducted extensive experimental research in atomic physics (Nobel Prize in Physics, 2001) and university science and engineering education (Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year, 2004). He founded PhET, which provides online interactive simulations that are used 100 million times/year to learn science, and published a book, Improving How Universities Teach Science: Lessons from the Science Education Initiative (2017). He is currently studying expertise and problem-solving in science and engineering disciplines, and how this can be better measured and taught. Most recently, he was awarded the 2020 Yidan International Prize for Education Research.

Professor Emerita, University of Wisconsin- Madison

Friday, April 29th
9:00 a.m. to 10:15 a.m.

Gloria Ladson-Billings, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings is the former Kellner Family Distinguished Professor of Urban Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Internationally known as a scholar of culturally relevant pedagogy and critical race theory, she is the author of the critically acclaimed books The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children and Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms, and numerous journal articles and book chapters. Most recently Teachers College Press published Critical Race Theory in Education: A Scholar’s Journey (2021), a collection of Dr. Ladson-Billings’ most influential and widely cited writings. She is the immediate past president of the National Academy of Education and president of the American Education Research Association (AERA) in 2005-06. In 2018 Dr. Ladson-Billings was elected to the prestigious American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

OPID 2022 Spring Conference Committee
Sylvia Tiala, Chair (UW-Stout). Members: Verda Blythe (UW-Madison), Abhimanyu Goush (UW-Stout), Veronica Justen (UW-River Falls), Bryan Kopp (UW-La Crosse), Mary-Beth Leibham (UW-Eau Claire), Heather Pelzel (UW-Whitewater), Erin Speetzen (UW-Stevens Point), Jamie White-Farnham (UW-Superior).