The TLT symposium at Penn State
University was a completely new
environment for a person like me, who
just started gaining basic insights on effective teaching and learning from AEE
530 course. I had mixed feelings about the symposium when I reached there. My
colleagues and I were already late for the symposium and the only thing I was
worried about was missing the keynote speaker’s session. Even though we missed
the breakfast (with bacon), we made it to the keynote session by Mr. Stephen J.
Dubner.
Mr. Dubner, a well-known
journalist, writer, and radio host, has
co-authored a bestseller “Freakonomics”. I was already excited when he began
talking. He showed how a general topic can be explained and discussed from a different angle. The awkward and funny stories
about the meat economy, hand sanitation, and
monkey economy, were all different worldviews
for me. I was surprised to see how audience were appreciating his uncommon
examples. The main take away for me as a future educator from his talk was the
way how we can present and deliver our thoughts to the students.
Like my two colleagues, Michael and Argha, I also attended
the simulation-based teaching session.
The session was about using simulation technique in the classroom to enhance the teaching and learning activities. The
interesting talk from Jana Hitchcock and co-authors
showed an example of a budget preparation task given to her students as if they
were acting as the head of the department.
The process has series of scenarios from which the participants (or students)
can choose one that they feel important and proceed further. The instructor and
students can keep track of their progress throughout the session. In my view,
this new technology has potential to redefine the way of learning in future. A
student with no prior experience in
school’s administration can now prepare a budget for the school. How cool is
that!!!
The next session that I attended
was about using data science to support students learning. The session was quite
different than the previous one. Five faculties from different departments of
Penn State presented their innovative ideas and works related to artificial
intelligence in class, one by one. The one that I liked most was the use of
Faulkerbot, a chat box in the class by Dr. Aaron Mauro of Penn State English
department. Students can use this chat box to share ideas and learn from the
instructor. Later, I found out that he was also competing for the “open
innovation challenge” for the same concept of the chat box. Besides that, I was also fascinated by the concept
presented by Dr. Drew Wham, a data scientist for Penn State’s Education
Technology Services. Dr. Wham showed a
computational method for modeling and predicting college students’
end-of-semester GPAs, as well as the students’ probability of withdrawal,
before beginning of the semester. Most of
the times, students struggle with the course they have selected because of
numerous reasons. Dr. Wham’s method can predict this situation early and help
advisors (or instructors) identify the students and their problems. By this way, instructors can provide proper guidance to
students about course selection. What an innovative idea!
Although not clear, his sophisticated students' GPA data is shown in the figure above.
Attending the #tltsym18 was a
worthwhile experience for me. I learned a lot from the sessions and realized
the importance of technology in the classroom. The future of teaching and
learning looks bright because of these advancements in teaching methods.
If time permits, I will definitely attend TLT
symposium of 2019.
Anil Koirala is a PhD student in Biorenewable
Systems at Penn State
