Pedagogy, Biology, Mathematics and Physics

We are pleased to announce an advanced pedagogy workshop for Haitian professors who participated in the MIT-Haiti workshops in January 2013. This workshop will be held in Port-au-Prince on August 12-14, 2013. This is the third workshop in a 5-year series whose main goal is to implement and evaluate learning gains achieved through faculty- and curriculum-development activities based on Kreyòl-based Open Education Resources for science and math courses in Haitian schools and universities.

This workshop will focus on pedagogy, assessment and evaluation in the fields of math (calculus, differential equations), physics (electro-magnetism, electric circuits and Newtonian mechanics) and biology (biochemistry and genetics). It will build upon the January ‘13 workshop experience, to give participants more working knowledge of active-learning concepts and focus on curriculum development, pedagogy and assessment. This workshop will provide participants with a good basis for creation of lesson plans using active learning resources in Kreyol, and assessment of student learning gains.

Specifically, by the end of the workshop, the participants will be able to:

  • Create student learning objectives that use active learning materials
  • Describe best practices for teaching / student learning
  • Create instructional activities for classroom that include active learning
  • Use active-learning materials (in biology, math and physics) in a variety of settings and under a variety of conditions
  • Create formative and summative assessments that will measure student learning from the active-learning materials
  • Describe how they will collect and record data to document student learning from materials
  • Conduct a selected portion of a lesson using active learning strategies
  • Evaluate lessons conducted by peers

This workshop is designed, not only to enhance the use of active learning methods by participants in their own classroom, but also to prepare the way for an outreach by Haitian participants to other Haitian academics, along the lines of the “séminaires itinérants” that are currently being designed by a consortium of Haitian universities (Faculté des Sciences and École Normale at the Universitéd’ Étatd’ Haïti, ÉcoleSupérieured’Infotroniqued’Haïti, UniversitéQuisqueya, UniversitéCaraïbe). We will also use this opportunity to achieve a deeper understanding of the syllabus and actual teaching conditions in Haiti, and to develop a long-term evaluation plan in collaboration with our colleagues in Haiti.

The MIT instructors at the workshop are:
Pedagogy, Assessment & Evaluation Glenda Stump
Biology Lourdes Alemán, Alison Brauneis and Ruthly François
Physics Peter Dourmashkin
Math Haynes Miller

The deadline for registration is Monday, July 8, 2013 or when all the slots are filled.

All participants will be expected to:

  • Complete a pre-conference survey to be made available online via Survey Monkey. The survey will need to be completed by Monday, July 8, 2013. The pre-conference survey will include three sections:
    1. General participant information
    2. Detailed information about relevant courses
    3. Formulation of an idea for a lesson plan, using active learning and the MIT technology, that will be developed throughout the workshop (see description below)
  • Complete a post workshop survey by August 23, 2013
  • Utilize the lesson plan developed at the workshop in a class and provide assessment and evaluation data

How to formulate an idea for a lesson plan

Throughout the August workshop, the MIT-Haiti team will be working with you to develop an idea into a lesson plan that you can use in your course. It is very important that you think about the following criteria.

  1. Using the list of concepts (see attached list) that the STAR, Mathlets and PhET technologies demonstrate, identify one concept that:
    1. fits into the curriculum of a course you will be teaching in the next year, and
    2. your students have a difficult time learning. At the August workshop, you will create a lesson plan to teach this concept.
  2. In preparation for developing a lesson plan using the STAR, Mathlet, or PhET technology in an active environment, describe in detail:
    1. Which technology STARbio, STARgenetics, Mathlet, or PhET, will be used?
    2. What content will students need to know to better understand the concept? Be specific.
    3. What resources (software, handouts, projector, etc.) do you have available or will need to teach this concept in your classroom?
    4. Will you be able to devote the needed class time to instruction about this concept?

Your answers to these questions will be the beginning of the planning that you develop during the workshop. Please bring a copy of your answers with you to the first workshop on Monday, August 12, 2013.

Next Workshop: The fourth workshop in this series is tentatively scheduled for Spring 2014–exact dates to be announced as soon as possible. This workshop will focus on introducing new faculty to the MIT-Haiti Initiative and to active-learning pedagogy, technology tools for STEM and the key role of Haitian Creole in the promotion of active-learning in Haiti.