The
picture was taken in a panda research facility in Sichuan Province, China.
She is a real, live 9-month panda cub who�s thankfully more interested
in the bamboo she�s nibbling than in me.
Sue Allen came into the SESAME program under Fred Reif's supervision, and worked for brief periods with Roy Pea and Andy diSessa before moving to Barbara White and John Frederiksen's group, where she worked on ThinkerTools and the Video Portfolio Project. Under Barbara's mentorship, she graduated in 1994, with a dissertation that studied middle school students' model-based reasoning in geometrical optics.
After graduation, Sue won a McDonnell
fellowship to study science learning at the Exploratorium, a hands-on science
museum in San Francisco. At the end of the two-year period, she joined
the permanent staff, and has been there ever since. She now directs the
Department of Visitor Research & Evaluation, which has a full-time
staff of 7, and may (we think) be the world's largest in-house group studying
learning in a museum. The research group includes Joshua Gutwill (EMST
graduate from 1996) and Joyce Ma (a
recent graduate of Bruce Sherin,
now at Northwestern in Chicago). The department focuses on the public floor
of the museum: how visitors experience it, what kinds of learning take
place, and how it can be
improved. Much of the work is evaluative,
since prototyping is a key component of all exhibit-development projects,
but the group is increasingly active in basic research on learning informal
environments.
One focus of research is methodological,
exploring techniques for assessing learning in the highly challenging environment
of the museum floor. Several projects involve analysis of video and audio
recordings of visitors' conversations and behaviors (mostly under Joshua's
leadership), and other projects are exploring the uses of various computer-tools
to enhance the visitor experience or to record data during tracking and
timing studies (under Joyce's leadership). Sue is currently PI on an NSF-funded
project called "Finding Significance," that looks at ways to enhance visitors'
personal meaning-making at exhibits.
On the personal side, Sue's situation
has been more mixed. She went through a difficult divorce earlier this
year, and is still coming to terms with the joys and sorrows of living
alone. Her health is good, although she has a chronic ankle problem that
periodically puts her in a wheelchair. She did manage to get permanent
residence in the U.S., after fears that she might have to leave by June
of this year. She remains in regular contact with Fred Reif.
Since SESAME I was an Assistant Professor
at Northern Arizona University, working especially on a project with Navajo
high school students. From there I moved into technical training in Artificial
Intelligence in Silicon Valley. That morphed into building a tech training
group for Dow Jones Systems, Inc.. But this was all a bit dry, really stressed
and not much fun. So I enrolled in a Jungian/archetypal Institute. I am
now doing psychotherapy in a Post Doctoral Psychological Assistantship.
My research was about women in corporations, my theoretical orientation
is some combination of relational and Jungian psychology. I love working
with my clients, and I hope to write a book or two. I am an incorrigible
grandma to
Jamie (6) and Emma (4), who are true
delights.
Favorite book: Tao Te Ching by Stephen
Mitchell
Favorite web-site: http://www.jbmti.org/
I moved to Berkeley in 1972 to pursue a B.S. degree in nutrition. As luck would have it I also began a work study position in the laboratory of Watson Maxwell Laetsch, where I developed an interest in photosynthesis and an education in plant tissue culture and electron microscopy. In 1975, I began an M.S. degree in the now extinct Department of Cell Physiology, a photosynthesis research group at UC, where I was the only graduate student. I discovered a regulatory enzyme (with a very specific "on/off" switch) in the Calvin Cycle in my M.S. research. I also became a teaching assistant in Biology 1 where I fell in love with teaching, and met Ruth von Blum and Mary Manteuffel (now Trainor) who were both SESAME students conducting research in the course. After one year of teaching biology at a local community college, I realized that I needed to know much more about thinking and learning. I applied and was admitted to the SESAME Group with Mac Laetsch as my mentor in 1979.
Before I finished my SESAME thesis in fall 1984, I accepted the position of Director of the Science Institute at New College of California in San Francisco. At the time, I also taught Human Biology at New College, and administered Biology 1 and lectured in Biology 1A during Summer Session at UC. While at New College, I began satellite science programs in St. Louis, Missouri and Whittier, California. After doing all I could do in the context of an unendowed institution with low wages, I recently resigned my position to assist my husband, Bill Steele, with his business Land Art, Inc. While contemplating what do to next, I spend time with my husband, grandson, and Moluccan cockatoo, develop food recipes, garden, and sew. I am also working with friends to successfully breed pacific tree frogs in urban backyard ponds.
I was a member (and president)of the Board of Directors of the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners (SLUG), a community gardening and social justice non profit organization, from 1984 to 2000. I also worked at California Academy of Sciences to develop, implement, and evaluate Science at Shoreline, a middle school curriculum and field trip program on the natural history and ecology of San Francisco Bay. I have written a yet to be published children�s book, titled Burrow Buddies which is based on an actual symbiotic relationship between a tarantula and a toad.
Favorite book: A Brief History of Everything by Ken Wilber, Favorite web site: sarracenia.com
JOHN DALBEY
I was teaching at a community college
in 1980 when it struck me that a lot of things about the structure of schooling
were getting in the way of my student's learning. So I decided to
go to UC Berkeley because I figured a radical place like that might be
doing some exciting things around educational reform. SESAME sounded
like the perfect place. My experience there was both disillusioning
and liberating. I was disillusioned to discover that researchers have already
discovered what kind of learning environments are optimal for students,
and that they aren't being put into practice because the political and
social reality is that other agendas have a higher priority than learning.
However, this was liberating because it meant I didn't have to be an evangelist
trying to explain to everyone how to fix education. The answer was
already available right there in the Tolman library stacks.
So when I graduated I left institutionalized schooling for "experiential education" and became an instructor for Outward Bound. I lead wilderness adventure challenge courses in the high Sierra. I took groups of ten novices on a backpacking/mountaineering course that was designed to empower them through individual and group challenges in a dramatic, wild natural setting. This was the most challenging job I ever had, the most rewarding job I ever had, and the worst paying job I ever had.
After several years in the field I decided to try to bring some of the powerful elements of experiential education back into the classroom. Since 1987 I have been a lecturer in Computer Science at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, California. I enjoy teaching Fundamentals of Computer Science and Software Engineering courses. My interests in computer science education are focused on self-directed learning. I wrote several papers on this topic, as well as developed an introductory curriculum model called The Software Engineering Apprentice. I'm also very concerned about social and ethical impacts of computing, particularly in the areas of software quality and software risks. Most recently I created a 5-day workshop which I offer to professional software developers called Personal Software Quality.
During the summer I still teach for Outward Bound as well as undertake personal climbing trips. My personal interests include meditation and the voluntary simplicity movement.
My favorite web site is the one I
create for my classes because it is so great to have all the resources
for my students available to them online. You can learn more about my academic
interests and personal pursuits at www.csc.calpoly.edu/~jdalbey.
Since leaving SESAME in December 1979, I've held a wonderful variety of positions, all in the San Francisco Bay Area. I've been a math/science specialist with the Novato Math/Science Sex Desegregation Project in the Novato Unified School District, a senior technical writer/editor with Schlage Electronics in Santa Clara, a chemistry and biology instructor with Project Bridge at Laney College in Oakland, a science writer/editor and manager of Precollege Education Programs at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), and Life Sciences staff coordinator at LBNL. Since 1992, I've been director of the Hall of Health (www.hallofhealth.org), a museum sponsored by Children's Hospital Oakland. In this position, I especially enjoy developing and evaluating new exhibits and programs. Papers on our evaluation studies appear in Curator (1997) and the American Journal of Health Education (2002). I've also co-authored a book, How to Encourage Girls in Math and Science: Strategies for Parents and Educators (Dale Seymour, 1982), and founded a publishing company, Scarlet Tanager Books (www.ScarletTanager.com).
I continue to write poetry and have published four poetry collections: Self-Portrait with Hand Microscope (1982), Fire in the Garden (1997), Wild One (2000), and Infinities (will appear in 2002). The poems in Infinities celebrate the natural world and explore the connections among science, nature, and human experience.
My daughters, Liana and Tamarind, are now 38 and 26 years old, respectively. Liana is a psychotherapy intern; Tamarind is a marketing researcher. I live in Oakland, am not a grandmother yet, and am happily divorced.
I don't have a favorite Web site or book. There are many books I've enjoyed recently, including Bel Canto, a novel by Ann Patchett, and Intimate Kisses: The Poetry of Sexual Pleasure, edited by Wendy Maltz.
Judy Diamond Ph.D. is Full Professor and Associate Director at the University of Nebraska State Museum. She has over forty publications in the fields of informal learning, science education and animal behavior. Her current projects include field research on the evolution and behavior of a New Zealand parrot, funded by National Geographic. She also directs the NSF and HHMI-funded Wonderwise Project, a national award-winning series of science kits based on the work of women scientists.
She has served on the Board of Directors of the American Association of Museums, the Friends of the Earth, Earth Island Institute, and the editorial board of Curator, the Museum Journal. She also served on advisory panels for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the National Institutes of Health and the Stanford Research Institute. She has been an advisor for more than 30 different museums in the U.S. and Israel.
Books: Diamond, Judy and Alan Bond 1999. Kea, Bird of Paradox: The Evolution and Behavior of a New Zealand Parrot. Berkeley, University of California Press. Diamond, Judy 1999. Practical Evaluation Guide: Tools for Museums and other Informal Educational Settings. Walnut Creek, Altamira Press.
Web addresses: http://wonderwise.unl.eduhttp://museum.unl.edu
The most important stuff: I met Meg Holmberg at Lawrence Hall of Science in 1985; we were married in 1986; and our daughter Anne was born in 1987, a few months after I finished my SESAME Ph.D. Many of you remember this. The scary part is that now Anne is 14 and is in her freshman year of high school. Meanwhile, I am a couple years into learning to play the cello, and I have high hopes that by the time you read this I will finally be able to produce a decent vibrato.
As for work, way back in ¹91, I quit working for UC Berkeley and went out on my own as a free-lance math and science educator; my "company" is called Epistemological Engineering ("helping you know how you know what you know...since 1987"). As long as I don't mind paying my own health insurance, that works fine. My clients include governments, schools, publishers, and foundations. We also published a book of math activities on our own, mostly to see if it was possible. It is! United We Solve is in its third printing, and people keep buying it.
The biggest recent project was to work with KCP Technologies to help design Fathom (TM), a software package for statistics and data analysis (See http://www.keypress.com/fathom) aimed at high school and early college. At the moment I'm trying to figure out how best to use Fathom in science classrooms; I got an NSF grant from their SBIR program to fund this work. (Did you know you can get NSF money even if you're not a university or foundation? It's fun!)
Favorite book? The question is too
hard, but I just finished Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed,
which should be required reading for anyone who works with high-school
students considering dropping out to get a minimum- or low-wage job. I
will never see these so-called low-skill employees, such as servers, cleaners,
or Wal-Mart associates, the same way again. Step one is to start actually
seeing them...
John H. Falk is known internationally for his research on free-choice learning. He has authored over seventy scholarly articles in the areas of learning, biology and education as well as numerous educational materials and books. Recent books include The Museum Experience (1992), Leisure Decisions Influencing African American Use of Museums (1993), Public Institutions for Personal Learning: Establishing a Research agenda (1995), Bubble Monster and Other Science Fun (1996), Collaboration: Critical Criteria for Success (1997), Bite-Sized Science (1999), Learning from Museums: Visitor Experiences and the Making of Meaning (2000), Free-Choice Education: How We Learn Science Outside of School (2001), and Free-Choice Learning: Stories of Lifelong Learning in America (in press). Before founding and directing the Institute for Learning Innovation(located in Annapolis, Maryland), Dr. Falk worked at the Smithsonian Institution for fourteen years where he held a number of senior positions including Special Assistant for Education and Director, Smithsonian Office of Educational Research. In his copious free-time Falk paints (his two most recent one-man shows were entitled: Boundaries and Every Story Tells a Picture), tends his Japanese garden and plays tennis. He lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife Lynn Dierking. His eldest son is Associate Manager of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation�s Smith Island Environmental Center, his middle son is Assistant Curator, International Spy Museum, and his daughter is a Freshman at Rutgers University, New Jersey. Favorite Book: Tao of Pooh Favorite Internet Site: google.com
David L. Ferguson is Distinguished Service Professor of Technology and Society and Applied Mathematics at Stony Brook University. He has been P.I. or co-P.I. on numerous projects, including several NSF projects, aimed at improving undergraduate and graduate education in mathematics, science, engineering, and technology. He is faculty contributor in the calculus reform movement. He co-directed the NSF-supported Algorithm Discovery Development Project and two NSF-funded Faculty Enhancement workshops on the teaching of introductory computer science courses. Under support from the Sloan Foundation, he developed a course in applications of mathematics for liberal arts students. He co-designed and co-taught a multidisciplinary course, jointly offered by Biological Sciences and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, on Computer Modeling of Biological Systems. He is co-P.I. on a multi-campus project, funded by NSF, on Mathematical Sciences and Their Applications Throughout the Curriculum. He is coordinator for the Math and Computer Science cluster of Science Education for New Civic Engagement and Responsibility (SENCER), a new NSF-funded National Dissemination grant. He is co-P.I. on a new project entitled "Real-time Multidimensional Assessment of Student Learning" funded by NSF�s Program in the Assessment of Student Achievement in Undergraduate Education. Professor Ferguson is the author of numerous papers and the editor of two books on Educational Computing.
In 1992, Professor Ferguson received the State University of New York Chancellor�s Award for Excellence in Teaching. He is a New York State and national leader in programs to enhance the participation of underrepresented minority students in undergraduate science, mathematics, engineering and technology programs. He is director of the NSF-supported SUNY Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation Program. In 1997, he received the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring. Professor Ferguson is a member of the executive committee of the NSF-supported Recognition Award for the Integration of Research and Education (RAIRE) at Stony Brook. Since 1998, Professor Ferguson has directed Stony Brook�s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT).
Upon graduating from Berkeley in 1978, I returned to Eugene, Oregon, where I had lived prior to graduate school, to be the first executive director of the Willamette Science and Technology Center. I could do anything that I wanted in order to open this new science museum-on- a-shoestring, as long as I spent no money. Only a naive post grad would have accepted such a position. I recruited wonderful volunteers, especially public school teachers who really appreciate what I was trying to do. Lumber companies donated plywood. We had an old-fashioned barn-raising and opened the museum complete with exhibits build form Exploratorium Cookbook designs, a computer lab and temporary demonstrations created by grad students from University of Oregon.
After my success at starting a new museum, I was offered the job of Chief of Education and Public Programs at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History in Albuquerque. The position would not start for 8 months. In the interim I accepted a position at the NW Regional Educational Laboratory writing a science curriculum for rural (bush) schools in Alaska, a part of the Alaska Telecommunication Project. I completed the curriculum and then moved with my wife Emily to Albuquerque where I was the first employee, other than the Executive Director at a new state museum that at time was nothing more than a storefront in a shopping mall. The State Legislature had appropriated $10 million to construct the new museum contingent upon the NMMNH Foundation raising $2 million from its supporters. After two years of barn-storming the state with traveling exhibits that I helped to design and then hauled around the state in rented U-Haul trucks to venues that included car dealership, water bureau offices, shopping malls and anyone else who had the space to host the exhibit. The big venue for the travelling exhibits was the NM State Fair where the attendance exceeded the state's population. This tremendous visitorship to our "museum" allowed us to apply for and receive funding form the Institute for Museum Services. It also played a role in raising the funds to construct the new museum.
I worked at NMMNH for 7+ years, started many educational programs, including the NM Rural Science Education Project with a major three-year grant from the National Science Foundation. I also started a residential science camp for youth and for teachers. My students, program participants and volunteers excavated a number of important dinosaur fossils under the supervision of our Curator of Paleontology. I also taught science teaching methods at Univeristy of New Mexico. My wife, Emily received her MA degree in Voice Performance at UNM and went to work as Cantor at the local synagogue. My children, Miriam and Benna were born in New Mexico.
I missed the rivers of the Pacific NW and especially fishing. I applied for a position at Oregon Museum of Science and Industry (OMSI) and was hired as Director of Outreach in 1988. I was responsible for the largest museum outreach program in existence at that time. OMSI outreach educators visited every county in Oregon. Under my supervision, Outreach went from a program that cost the museum $150,000 a year and was considered marketing for the museum, to a profit center that earned more than $150,000 a year, while more than doubling the number of programs offered in Oregon, Washington State, Alaska, Idaho, and Montana. I was also responsible for three OMSI residential science camps.
I created the first NSF funded Young Scholars Research Participation Program outside of a university. Our program took place at our "Hancock Field Station" near Fossil, Oregon. For 8 years, outstanding high school students from throughout the US came to Oregon to conduct research as a member of the paleontology research team, freshwater ecology research team, or archeological research team. At the same time, I was responsible for all the educational programs at OMSI, both in the museum, outreach, camps, summer classes.
Horrible financial problems at OMSI caused by poor financial planning, the failure of the Board of Directors to raise funds to pay for expenses that they had approved, made it necessary for me to fire 40 staff one Monday. Not long after, I too lost my job. It was 1999. Since my family and I were totally committed to living in Portland, my job search was necessarily limited to the Portland metropolitan area. It soon became clear that short of taking a salary cut of 20-30%, I was not going to be able to stay in the science education field in Portland , Oregon. After six months of seeking employment, I made a career change and was hired as Assistant Executive Director at Mittleman Jewish Community Center where I currently work, responsible for a wide variety of social services, recational and educational programs for people of all ages. My youngest customer is 6 weeks old in Infant Care; my oldest customer is 98 years old in our Senior Adult Programs. Inb between the two are classes on building computers, a computer lab, a full gym with work-out facilities, a wellness program, a rock-climbing wall, gymnastics, basketball, and swimming teams and recerational program. A community theater program, an art gallery, after-school programs, day camps and overnight camps round out a job that is never boring. I do miss not working on a daily basis primarily in the area of science and environmental education but for me this is the compromise that needed to be made at this time.
My favorite book is "My Story As Told By Water" by David James Duncan.
Upon my SESAME graduation in 1975, I went back home to Israel and have been going back and forth to Berkeley ever since. In 1975 I joined the staff of the Department of Education at the Technion � Israel Institute of Technology. This engineering school has an ever-growing department of education, where research and development into curriculum, learning and instruction issues take place, focusing on the sciences in the broad sense. We are busy educating future high school teachers in science, math and technology, as well as providing advanced degrees in these areas. In this department I found a nourishing environment for my professional growth. In the early 80�s I worked also for the Israel Instructional Television, designing a series of 17 math-drama video programs for elementary schools, one of which was awarded the Japan Prize for educational programs.
In 1986, following a sabbatical at Berkeley, I founded and have since been running the Israel National Center for Mathematics Education. Back to Berkeley again in 1991 I worked with my "spiritual sister" Diane Resek (we both had the great Leon Henkin for a thesis advisor) on some ideas for the innovative Interactive Math Project she originated with three other colleagues.
Later on in the early 90�s, I served as the Israel coordinator of math in TIMSS � the third international math and science study.
In 1995 I spent some more time at Berkeley, when a surprise letter arrived from The Mathematical Association of America announcing the Lester R. Ford award, for the article: The Role of Paradoxes in the Evolution of Mathematics, co-authored with I. Kleiner. And - - back home, I chaired our Technion department in 1996-1997. In 1998 I made a big switch and took upon the directorship of Israel National Museum of Science Planning and Technology, which operates under the auspices of Technion.
I like writing expository papers and preparing power-point presentations of mathematically-rich ideas. I enjoy reading (and translating to Hebrew) popular mathematics books such as Eli Maor�s "To Infinity and Beyond - A Cultural History of the Infinite" and Ivars Peterson�s "Islands of Truth � A Mathematical Mystery Cruise." A few years ago I published a collection of paradoxes for classroom use called: "1=0 and Other Mathematical Surprises" which has recently been translated into Hebrew.
In the last weeks, I find myself immersed in the book "In Code � A Mathematical Journey" by Sarah Flannery, a teen-age girl who won the Ireland�s Young Scientist of the Year Award, as well as the European one, for her acclaimed Caley-Purser algorithm while being quite an ordinary high school student whose father kept challenging her with puzzles she used to tackle on the kitchen blackboard.
Last but not least, my personal life since graduation knew better and worse times. I divorced and remarried, have four wonderful children, three adorable, little, blond, curly-haired granddaughters and a sweaty chubby-baby grandson.
I am an associate professor at the University of Maryland at College Park. My appointment is joint between the departments of Physics, where I am a member of the Physics Education Research Group, and Curriculum & Instruction, where I am the director of the Science Teaching Center.
My research is in physics education.
I'm interested, first, in understanding how people learn physics, especially
at the introductory level-what distinguishes those who succeed from those
who do not? That's had me focus on students' beliefs about knowledge and
learning, or their "epistemologies," the topic of several papers and the
emphasis of our project in the Physics Education Research Group, Learning
How to Learn Science: Physics for Bioscience Majors.
I'm also interested in how teachers
interpret and respond to their students ideas and reasoning-how do teachers
(tacitly or explicitly) diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of their
students' thinking and understanding, and how may perspectives from education
research (e.g. on epistemologies) contribute? I've designed my courses
in science education around this view
of teaching as starting from diagnosis,
which I've elaborated in another set of papers. Our project in the Science
Teaching Center, Case Studies of Elementary Student Inquiry in Physical
Science, focuses on K-8 teachers' diagnoses of their students' thinking.
My web-page is: www2.physics.umd.edu/~davidham
I'm in my 15th year of teaching computer
science at UCB. I'm a "Lecturer with Security of Employment," which
basically means I'm a tenured full-time teacher. It's mostly fun,
but nothing like the intensity of my former career (pre-SESAME) as a high
school teacher, since I now have classes of 500 most of the time.
(One fun thing is teaching CS 195, Social Implications of Computers, which
usually gets about 25 students.) I remain active in the Logo community;
I distribute Berkeley Logo, a freeware interpreter written by me and some
students, and I like to attend the EuroLogo conference every two years.
Favorite book: Picking one
book is tough, but I guess it'd have to be Ursula LeGuin's
novel, The Dispossessed, about
the joys and difficulties of anarchism.
Favorite Web-Site: I hate the
World Wide Web. Pre-Web, the Internet ran on a conversation model,
in which everyone was a participant. Now the Internet runs on a publishing
model, in which the smart and/or rich people publish stuff and the rest
of us read it. (Yes, I know, anyone can put up a Web page. But that
just means we're all shouting into the wind, instead of conversing.)
So my favorite Internet "site" isn't a site at all, but a newsgroup: comp.lang.logo.
Wayne Harvey is Vice President at EDC and Director of the Division of Mathematics Learning and Teaching. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1981, where he studied cognitive science and mathematics education. At EDC, Dr. Harvey has had extensive experience with mathematics curriculum development across the grades, professional development for teachers, mathematics education research, and systemic reform efforts. He manages a staff of more than 50 professionals in an EDC Division which consists of more than 30 projects focusing on mathematics education reform.
Dr. Sherry Hsi is the founder and President of Metacourse, Inc. an eLearning design and consulting company. She was formerly a post-doctoral scholar with Robert Tinker of the Concord Consortium and the NSF-funded Center for Innovative Learning Technologies. Her current work focuses on designing social contexts, activities, and online learning communities using handheld and Net-based technologies to support deeper inquiry and assessment. Her prior work involved the design of middle science curricula and electronic discussion to support equitable science discussions for the Computers as Learning Partner and WISE (Web-based Integrated Science Environment) projects. Sherry enjoys teaching online and teaching others how to learn online. Most recently, she has been partnering with organizations to design online professional development and learning technology solutions for clients in K12, higher education, and commercial enterprises. Her SESAME advisors were Professor Alice Agogino and Professor Marcia Linn. In her spare time, she goes hiking and plays music with her husband Per Peterson and their two boys.
I am currently Principal of Training
JumpStart (http://www.trainingjumpstart.com),
a consultancy which launchestraining programs for high-tech companies,
primarily about their own software products. I've helped several Silicon
Valley companies launch successful training programs. In
addition, I offer training on workplace
communication topics and am due to teach such a class for the UCB Haas
Business school next spring. To catch you up on my work life post SESAME,
after graduating in 1982, I worked in mathematics education for a few years,
with UC Davis being my
last such employer. I've been in
the software training realm since 1986. In1999 I left my last job, as director
of a training organization which I'd founded, and, in the new millennium,
successfully started Training JumpStart. And here I am, as of June 2002,
right in the thick of the high-tech
downturn! I am now happily engaged
in several projects which I'd thought I'd take on only upon retirement
from Training JumpStart in 8 or so years.
I just celebrated 10 years in my beautiful
Oakland home. Yoga, swimming, massage, gardening and belly dancing are
some of my beloved activities. No web site awakens comparable joy, but
since the organizers asked from a favorite URL, the powers of 10 site,
http://micro.magnet.fsu.edu/primer/java/scienceopticsu/powersof10/index.html,
merits a smile.
My bachelors and masters degrees are
in biology and I did my SESAME work with Mac Laetsch on the informal learning
of family groups in zoos. After leaving SESAME, for three years I
directed the Discovery Center, a hands-on science museum in Fresno.
Then, in 1982, I settled in Israel with my family and I've worked at Weizmann
Institute of Science ever since, both in its formal and its informal science
education groups (i.e., the Department of Science Teaching, the Youth Activities
Section and the Perach Tutorial Project). I've also designed
educational software for many companies (including Atari, the National
Geographic Society, Edunetics, Wings for Learning and Logal Software) and
have consulted for a number of science museums.
For the past 20 years I've worked on research and development projects in science education. For 8 years I was responsible for Israel's extracurricular science programs ("Science-Oriented Youth") in the country's science museums, universities and research institutes, for the Israeli Ministry of Education and Culture. I directed the "Agam Program for Visual Education," an innovative program to develop "visual cognition" in young children and was Project Director for an innovative curriculum on plant tissue culture, recently published by Carolina Biological Supply Company.
For the past 8 years, my profession passion has been to promote the professional development of middle and high school Israeli teachers in a program called "Project-Based Learning (PBL)in Science and Technology." Our goal is to help teachers guide their students to undertake authentic research and design projects. As part of this effort, I've conducted educational research and have co-developed "The Golden Way," a networked environment for PBL in schools. This software and our other program materials are being translated into Arabic, for use in Israel and -- hopefully in the forseeable future -- in the Arab world as well.
One of my most uplifting educational adventures was to co-direct an international conference (with Ted Kahn and Uri Marchaim), "The Art, Science and Technology of Learning in the 21st Century," which we organized in Israel in 1997 for over 40 educators from developing and developed countries (www.migal.co.il/teleproj).
Melodie and I have four children: Adi, a graduate student in special education, teacher, wife and mother; Eli, a master chef and karate expert, due to finish his army service this year; Shai, a lover of physics, math and guitar, who just started his 3-year army duty; and Ashi, our 7th-grader redhead who keeps us young. Melodie is a teacher at Achva Teachers College. She's also doing her Ph.D on learning styles, and I'm one of her thesis advisors (along with Hans Lodewidks from Tilberg University and Robert Sternberg from Yale). We're looking forward to many productive years of collaborative research together. Favorite Book:The Act of Creation by Arthur Koestler Favorite Web-Site: www.howstuffworks.com
At the highest level (this is for Al S.) my professional career can be summarized by: Mathematics => mathematical education => mathematics (where the m�s are case-sensitive).
After getting degrees in mathematics from MIT and Berkeley I taught high-school mathematics and physics in India as a Peace Corps Volunteer from 1963-1965. This was a life-changing experience and led, among other things, to both my teaching in Project SEED from 1969-1972 and my more recent participation in eight Sierra Club service trips (ask me about my three week trip working at Lake Baikal in Siberia).
I joined SESAME in 1975 after working for three years on new "new math" as a teacher-writer for the federal government�s Comprehensive School Mathematics Project. I stretched my SESAME degree out to five years in order to keep in touch with reality (?), by teaching mathematics half-time at San Francisco State (thanks, Diane). For my thesis on "Student Difficulties in Solving Calculus Word Problems" I had a great committee of Bob Karplus, Leon Henkin, and John Kelley.
After teaching two years at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo I came to Santa Clara University in 1982, a Jesuit university in Silicon Valley, where I�ve been teaching mathematics and a little theoretical computer science since. I�m sort of the department�s jack-of-all-trades (OK, dilettante); in the last two years I�ve taught calculus, linear algebra, discrete mathematics, the history of mathematics, and introductory statistics. My SESAME background was especially helpful in 1983 when I got our department to use a UC/CSU test to let students know if they were prepared for calculus. Recently I developed our own Calculus Readiness Exam, which can be seen at http://www.scu.edu/calcreadinessexam/
At SCU I do little mathematical research but a lot of expository writing in mathematics. I�m especially proud of my book review of A Beautiful Mind , the fascinating biography of John Nash, the only mathematician ever to win a Nobel Prize (in economics), cf. College Mathematics Journal 31:3 (May 2000) 240-244.
My hobbies include singing, both choral and folk music, and biking. I�ve done bike tours of Ireland, Oregon, Nova Scotia, and New Mexico, but for medical reasons my biking now is limited to commuting to work several miles a day.
If I had to do SESAME over, I would have a) chosen a more innovative and challenging research topic, and b) published my thesis!
Favorite books: (recent) It�s Not About the Bike, by Lance Armstrong. Lance has won the last three Tour de France races, but this book is more about his incredible battle overcoming testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain. (all-time) the Sherlock Holmes stories, read in high school, which turned me on to deductive thinking as well as being enjoyable reading.
Favorite website: (not counting Google) http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/
It might be a bit dorky to give a history-of-math website, but hey, I am a nerd!
Pat Rutowski currently acts as the Director of Educational Services at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, overseeing staff who provide patient, nursing, general staff and community health education programs as well as chaplain services and infection control! This job which she has only held since March of 2001, is her first entry into the world of healthcare and has been a real challenge.
Before this current position, Pat spent some 24 years in developing and implementing interdisciplinary science and environmental education programs, and working with schools. Most recently she acted as the Science Specialist for "RISE" (Recruitment in Science Education), an after school science enrichment program; and also designed and piloted a residential field trip-focused marine education program for sixth graders called "S.E.A. (Science Education Adventure!) Lab Monterey Bay", both projects affiliated with Cal State University Monterey Bay.
Pat worked for ten years at the Monterey Bay Aquarium as Outreach Education Coordinator coordinating the Aquaravan program out to schools and as Visitor Programs Manager. These roles found her dressing up as a Sea Star to visit migrant farm worker camps and sing "La Estrellita" to the tune of "La Cucaracha", and interpreting deep sea video transmitted from a submersible in the Monterey Submarine Canyon.
During her time in the SESAME program, she was involved in the successful implementation of two pilot science education programs: a Marine Science Teachers Institute out of San Mateo County Office of Education working with the Math, Science and Environmental Education Curriculum Coordinator; and the East Side Electronics Academy, an industry-school partnership started at two high schools in East San Jose. Other work history previous to SESAME, includes two years as the School Services Coordinator at the Coyote Point Environmental Education Museum in San Mateo, CA; a summer as a Program Assistant at the National Science Foundation; and an education fellowship at the Museum of Science in Boston.
Pat is married to Lauren Mitchell, a machinist and exhibit fabricator, and has an eight-year-old daughter, Amanda Mitchell, who sings and likes rats, Redwall, and dressing up. The family spends a great deal of time outdoors: camping, fishing, mushrooming, collecting fossils, boogey-boarding, going on wildflower walks and generally exploring. The Mitchell-Rutowski clan is fortunate enough to live in Pacific Grove where they can be involved in small town life: they ran a Brownie troop for three years, and volunteer for many school activities. Pat has served on the Library Board organizing an Adult Spelling Bee as a fundraiser.
III. Favorite Book: I read a great deal of fiction, both adult and children's and so have had a lot of favorites in recent years including: The Talking Earth by Jean Craighead George; Bone from a Dry Sea by Peter Dickinson; Tuesday Afternoons with Morrie; The Poisonwood Bible; and the Harry Potter series of course! I'm sure there are others but I'm just not thinking of them right now.
IV. Favorite internet site: Would probably be the Jan Brett (children's book author/illustrator) home page, www.janbrett.com; or maybe the Mono Lake Committee website where we can see what the weather is out in one of our favorite places in the world; or maybe some of the zoo sites with live Pandacams, etc.; or the craft pages like www.makingfriends.com. I use the internet for many different aspects of my life, not generally academic concerns!
Thanks for putting this all together -- I will look forward to reconnecting with several SESAME folks!
Pat Rutowski, 372 Spruce Ave., Pacific
Grove, CA 93950, (831) 649-6419 PRutowski@redshift.com
After graduating in 1999, I have been
an assistant professor at Colorado State University in the department of
Journalism and Technical Communication, as well as the Information Science
and Technology Center. My current research is applying software agent technology
in health communication and education. I am also a novelist; my second
novel, The Fourth Treasure, will be published by Nan A. Talese/Doubleday
in May 2002. My favorite novel is The Ruined Map by Kobo Abe, and
my favorite website is the New York Times online.
Dr. Mark St. John, founder and president of Inverness Research Associates, has a background in evaluation, policy analysis, and science and mathematics education at all levels. He was trained in aeronautical engineering at Princeton, served as a high school physics teacher at Phillips Academy and then was a graduate student in physics at the University of New Mexico. This led to a doctoral degree and subsequent faculty position at UC Berkeley in an interdisciplinary math and science education program. Dr. St. John has hybrid expertise that combines a knowledge of science, deep experience in the teaching and learning of the science disciplines, and a broad understanding of educational reform efforts. For over 15 years, he has been involved in the evaluation and study of public and private initiatives aimed at improving science and mathematics education.
For nearly two decades Dr. St. John and his colleagues at Inverness Research Associates have been involved in studies and evaluations of reform initiatives in education � ranging from the evaluations of large-scale national initiatives undertaken by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education, to the study of the impact of National Standards, to the evaluation of individual science museum exhibits. They have been involved in studying professional development efforts, curriculum design projects, state systemic reform efforts, and informal science education efforts. Most recently, Dr. St. John and his group have assisted foundations and state agencies in planning and refining the design of their reform initiatives, as well as helping them to think about the overall evaluation designs most appropriate to their goals and needs.
Under the leadership of Dr. St. John, Inverness Research brings a multi-faceted approach to evaluation. The work of Inverness Research will, according to the need: 1) document the nature and the extent of the activities of the reform initiative under study; 2) compare initiative design to field realities, and provide critical feedback to initiative leaders; 3) facilitate reflection and help to shape overall initiative design and activities; 4) document the contributions made by initiatives and projects; and 5) conduct research that can help to disseminate the broader and more general lessons learned from the particular project under study.
After graduating from SESAME
in 1976, I accepted employment as assistant professor of environmental
studies and director of a new Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies
(BSES) program at the University of Maine at Fort Kent (UMFK), a small
college in remote, rustic Fort Kent in far northern Maine directly next
to the Canadian border. I developed and directed the BSES program
and also taught numerous different environment-related courses ranging
from wildlife management to water pollution, from environmental philosophy
to environmental education. With a total two-year course repertoire of
up to 13 different courses added to my program administration duties, there
was no time for research, nor was it expected. Just developing and then
keeping up with this diversity of courses was difficult and, being somewhat
of a perfectionist, I never really felt fully satisfied with my diffuse
teaching duties. I did find the time, though, to create, and serve as first
president of, the Maine Environmental Education Association. I also,
for the second half of my 22 year career at UMFK, served as chapter
president and grievance officer for the University of Maine System faculty
union, fighting many battles with the administration in the interest of
faculty rights. Finally, I served as one of the influential voices in our
state for more environmentally enlightened forestry practices ( I have
a Berkeley BS Degree in forestry), writing, organizing and attending conferences
on the subject, and appearing on TV. In 1998, I retired from UMFK
as a full professor and started devoting my time to improving my home,
managing my 65 acres of meadow and forest land, shortening our long, cold
winter by traveling south for months in early spring with my wife
in my fully restored 1962 Chevrolet pickup truck and camper, trying
to stay strong and healthy through daily exercise, vitamin supplements,
and good nutrition, and just relaxing from years of work under constant
pressure. One enjoyable retirement activity has been writing for the Maine
Nature News, an electronic nature journal, and describing some of the
highlights and associated philosophical reflections of my virtually daily
walks in the hills surrounding my lakeside home. In this process, I have
received a good introduction to wildlife tracking with the help of Tracking
and the Art of Seeing by Paul Rezendes and become more alert to all
the interesting things one can observe and experience in nature once one
pays close attention. I also enjoy working with, and learning more
about, my computer and, when I cannot be outside, spent much of my
in front of my monitor.
My favorite book and internet site:
I don't have one. So far, while I have been reading health- , computer-,
and other technical magazines and texts and consulting Peterson and Audubon
nature guides, I have not had the leisure to do much enough general
reading to pick and recommend a favorite book. My favorite internet sites
used to be the ones that display my portfolio; but for the
last year and the half, viewing them has been a major source of anxiety
and regret in my retired life.
- I worked for many years in the private sector, starting as a technical instructor with Intel (thanks to Victor Jackson, also from SESAME), then moving to the Technical Support field. My last corporate job was as a VP of Worldwide Service for Scopus, an enterprise software vendor. I was responsible for Tech Support, Training, both for customers and for employees, and Documentation.
- Since 1998, I've been working as an independent consultant helping technology companies create and improve support centers. It's a great fit for me as I get to see many different organizations with different sets of issues, so there's not risk of being bored. I also get to do both consulting and training, my first love. I teach mostly so-called soft skills: handling customers, management skills, and my favorite, train-the-trainer for professionals without a formal training background.
- I published a book ("The Art of
Software Support" at Prentice-Hall and dozens of magazine articles about
various aspects of tech support management.
Favorite book: Too many to say! The
one I use the most is probably the Sunset garden book. Favorite web site:
http://www.aldaily.com/
Mary Stoddard Trainor (nee Manteuffel)
After graduating SESAME in 1979,I worked for 19 years at Los Alamos National Lab (LANL) in the areas of educational technology, human factors, simulation design, strategic planning, and computer training (ended up there with my ex husband, divorced right after I moved there in 1982). In 1987 I married Jim Trainor (Physicist from U.C. Riverside, who was Deputy Div. Director at LANL for the Physics Div.). We have three children (ages 23-14). About 10 years ago, both Jim and I sensed a call to the ordained ministry in the Episcopal Church and went back to school! We both have degrees in theology now, and were ordained 4 years ago. We had thought we would do ministry on the side, but God had other plans. We both took early retirement from LANL early a few years ago and have been working as full time ministers in Albuquerque since then. (We are about to move to El Paso, Texas where Jim will be the rector of St.! Francis on the Hill Episcopal Church and I will be the Assistant to the Rector). It is an exciting and extremely meaningful life we lead, and I indeed have put to use all the good stuff I learned in SESAME! I am a creative person (prerequisite for SESAME, right?), and so have managed to have an incredibly exciting time in my careers applying my skills to a variety of interesting problems .
Our children are Erica (age 23) who is in the Peace Corps in Nicaragua (graduated from CU-Boulder in Geology), Karl (age 21, incredible artist and photographer, majoring in biology at CU), and Lucas (age 14, trombonist and computer freak).
Jim and I are so very blessed with our exciting lives dedicated to service to the Lord, and are able to apply all we learned as U.C graduates and as U. C employees (LANL is a contractor of the Univ. of CA).
Uri is professor of mathematics and director of the Charles A. Dana Center for Educational Innovation at The University of Texas at Austin (www.utdanacenter.org).
After completing my SESAME doctoral work in 1985 (which it must be said would never have happened without Leon Henkin's magnificent support, caring, and at the last hour, good typing skills) I worked at PDP on the Berkeley campus in a variety of programs aimed at nurturing high minority student achievement. In 1989 I went to Swarthmore College as E.M. Lang Visiting of Mathematics and Social Change. In 1991, I accepted a professorship at the University of Texas at Austin, where I've been happily ensconsed ever since.
I've been privileged to lead several large scale efforts aimed at strengthening mathematics and science teaching in Texas. I've been the executive director of the Texas Statewide Systemic Initiative (SSI) since 1993. In this role, I managed the process of developing Texas's mathematics and science curriculum frameworks, which were adopted by the State Board of Education in 1997. More than 20,000 teachers participated in SSI professional development workshops in the 2000-2001 academic year. In a somewhat related domain, I've been president of the board of the Consortium for Mathematics and its Applications since 1996.
In the last few years much of my research and professional service has focused on educational policy especially on matters related to equity. In this vein, I've served as chairman of the College Board's Council on Academic Affairs, as a member of the Policy and Priorities Committee of the Education Commission of the States, and as a founding board member of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education. I've completed terms on the National Academy of Sciences' Mathematical Sciences Education Board and on its Coordinating Council for Mathematics, Science, and Engineering Education. I'm currently serving on the Academy's Strategic Research and Education Planning Committee. I've become very interested in econometric modeling and its application to the design of cost of education indices. I've just completed a major school finance modeling project for the Texas Legislature. A Technical Report and an executive summary describing this work can be found on the Dana Center's website.
Outside of my professional work, I
am involved in many efforts that seek to strengthen volunteerism, volunteer
management, and public service. In 1993, Texas Governor Ann Richards appointed
me a founding member of the Texas Commission on Volunteerism and Community
Service. I was reappointed by Governor Bush in 1997.I've served on the
Commission's executive committee and as its vice chair.
Favorite Book: Selected Poetry of
Yehuda Amichai Website: Fromage.com
Dr. Von Blum has had over twenty years'
experience in science education teaching, development, research, and evaluation.
She received her Ph.D. in Science/Mathematics Education from UC, Berkeley,
where she served for five years on the research faculty, and was also a
lecturer
in biology. She has been a Program
Manager at NSF in Development in Science Education, gaining a unique perspective
into national problems and solutions in science education, including teacher
preparation and evaluation.
Since 1979, Dr. Von Blum has directed
several major technology-related development projects (funded by the EXXON
Education Foundation, The State of California, Department of Education,
and the National Science Foundation), both within the University of California
(at UCLA, and UC Irvine), and in the private sector (as Director of Science
for Jostens Learning Corporation). Currently, she is an independent consultant
with her own evaluation group, Mar Vista Research
and Development, working largely
on the evaluation of major educational projects. Recently, these have included
evaluations for Sigma Xi: The National Research Society, and Zero Population
Growth. Currently, she is the Lead Evaluator for the following projects:
SCORE (MBRS Support of
Continuous Research Excellence Program,
Department of Biology, California State University, Long Beach; LBESTEP
(the Long Beach Elementary Science/Math Teacher Education Partnership),
a CETP Project at California State University, Long Beach; Project SUMS,
a math reform
effort (LSC) at California State
University, Fullerton; Head Start on Science, an early childhood education
project at California State University, Long Beach; and MARC U*STAR, an
undergraduate minority training program at UCLA. She is also acting as
a consultant to the
Biology Department at UCLA in the
development of a multimedia program, the "Virtual Santa Monica Bay."
Dr. Von Blum has also worked as a
Senior Research Evaluator at Inverness Research, conducting interviews
and focus groups, making observations, preparing surveys and analyzing
survey findings, and writing reports, as part of larger efforts to provide
insight into the educational process and educational reform at all levels,
federal, state, and local. She was the Inverness Research lead researcher
evaluating Meet the Microbes through the MicrobeWorld Activities-the outreach
component, produced by NABT-accompanying the video series Intimate Strangers:
Unseen Life on Earth.
Best Book: Toss-up between "Poisonwood
Bible" and "Guns Germs and Steel,"
among others.
I am working with Bernie Gifford, Rogers Hall, Carolyn Huie Hofstetter, and Mark Holodniy, M.D. (from Stanford Medical Center) on representational fluency and conceptual understanding in HIV Treatment Practice. I have a Masters in Public Health and have been working in HIV medicine for the last 17 years.
I can credit Herb Thier with helping me on my career track. I was teaching visually impaired students in the Oakland Public Schools many long years. Herb came to me and asked me to try out the first SAVI (Science Activities for the Visually Impaired) kits for Lawrence Hall of Science. I had great time trying out the kits and asked Herb about jobs in science curriculum development. He recommended that I get some additional science background. I came to Cal for a Masters in Public Health, just as the AIDS epidemic, was starting and got involved in studying infectious diseases.
The SESAME Program has given me an
opportunity to bring all my different pasts together.
Kathleen M. Fisher earned a B.S. in science from Rutgers University, a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of California - Davis and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Atomic Energy Commission. She has worked in biology education research for more than 20 years, focusing on biology learning and especially on how to maximize biology learning with meaningful understanding. With the SemNet Research Group, she developed the SemNetTM software in 1983-87 and has been using it in teaching and research since that time. Kathleen is currently Professor of Biology and Director of the Center for Research in Mathematics and Science Education at San Diego State University. She is serving on the Executive Board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Pacific Division. Kathleen and colleagues recently formed Semantic Research Inc. to develop and market the SemanticaTM series of eLearning tools.
Kathleen recently served on the Board
of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching (NARST) and
was North American Co-Editor (with James Wandersee of Louisiana State University)
of the International Journal of Science Education.
Kathleen also recently worked with
the Science Media Group at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
in Cambridge, where she helped to develop a series of eight live, interactive
televised workshops about science teaching for K-12 teachers nationwide.
She also appeared in two of three Harvard-Smithsonian/Annenberg/CPB one-hour
programs about science teaching aired on Public Broadcasting Stations and
in several of their Private Universe series programs.
Alan J. Friedman is the Director of the New York Hall of Science, New York City's public science-technology center. Since he was appointed its director in 1984, the New York Hall of Science has become a leading science-technology center, with special recognition for its work in encouraging new technologies, in creating new models for teacher training, and in evaluating the effectiveness of informal science learning. The New York Hall of Science is also known for its special commitment to the diverse population of the New York City area. The American Association for the Advancement of Science recognized Dr. Friedman's work in developing the Hall of Science by naming him the 1996-97 winner of the AAAS Award for Public Understanding of Science and Technology.
Before coming to New York Dr. Friedman served as Conseiller Scientifique et Muséologique for the Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, Paris, and was the Director of Astronomy and Physics at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley for 12 years. He is the co-author, with Carol C. Donley, of Einstein as Myth and Muse (Cambridge University Press, 1985). Dr. Friedman received his Ph.D. in Physics from Florida State University and his B.S. in Physics from the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and of the New York Academy of Sciences.
His interests include museums, science education, and the relations between science and the broader culture. He recently completed a two-year term as Chair of the Cultural Institutions Group of the City of New York, which represents 33 museums, theaters, zoos, botanic gardens, and historical societies. This became a particularly interesting activity when he had to lead the association in responding to an attempt by the Mayor of New York to close down one of the member museums over a painting the Mayor found to be morally offensive. Politics, religion, and museums make very uncomfortable bedfellows, he discovered.
Favorite Book:
Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
Favorite Web Site:
www.irish-times.com (I love Ieland. Check out the live view of Dublin.)
During 1972 - 1985 I helped five SESAME students get their Ph.D., and they, along with other SESAME faculty, helped me to understand the problems of teaching and learning mathemeatics, andthemethodology of conducting research on tsuch problems. [In order: Nitsa H., David F., Hadas R., Francoise T., Uri T.] During 1978 - 85 Uri created math workshops for minority freshmen taking Math 1 (basic calculus) at Cal, tremendously improving their performance, and his dissertasion dealt with that. During 1989- 94 Uri and I organized Summer Math Institutes that gathered minority math majors from around the country and brought them to Berkeley for an intense immersion in mathematics complemented by information about graduate work which led many of them to go on to graduate school. In 1991 I retired, and began to do some teaching at Mills College; with the aid of colleagues there I organized Mills Summer Math Institutes for women math majors nationally, which subsequently brought many of them to graduate study. During in 1995-2000 I shifted the locale of my instructional work to the Berkeley Public Schools, working with teachers and pupils in grades 9-12, 4 and 2. I gave freshman seminars in math at Cal in F '98 and S '01. In this F '01 semester,for the first time since 1947, I'm doing no teaching at all.
Title of Favorite Book: Dubliners, by James Joyce
Favorite Internet Site:
II shun all Internet assiduously.
Marcia C. Linn (B. A.; Ph.D. Stanford
University) is professor of development and cognition specializing in education
in mathematics, science, and technology in the Graduate School of Education
at the University of California, Berkeley. A fellow of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science, she investigates science teaching and learning;
gender equity; and design of learning environments. In 1998, the Council
of Scientific Society Presidents selected her for its first award in educational
research. From 1995-1996 she was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study
in the Behavioral Sciences. In 1994, the National Association for Research
in Science Teaching presented her with its Award for Lifelong Distinguished
Contributions to Science Education. The American Educational Research Association
bestowed on her the Willystine Goodsell Award in 1991 and the Women Educator's
Research Award in 1982. Twice she has won the Outstanding Paper Award of
the Journal of Research in Science Teaching (1975 and 1983). She has served
on the board of the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
the Graduate Record Examination Board of the Educational Testing Service,
and the McDonnell Foundation Cognitive Studies in Education Practice board.
Her publications include Computers, Teachers, Peers -- Science Learning
Partners, with S. Hsi (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2000); WISE Science
with J. D. Slotta in Educational Leadership, (2000); The Tyranny
of the Mean: Gender and Expectations, in Notices of the American Mathematical
Society (1994); and Designing Pascal Solutions, with M. C. Clancy
(W.H. Freeman, 1992).
Alan Schoenfeld is the Elizabeth and Edward Conner Professor of Education and Professor of Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley. Schoenfeld obtained his Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford in 1973. He has served as faculty chair of the Graduate School of Education at Berkeley, and also chaired the Division of Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology.
Schoenfeld's research is on thinking, teaching, and learning, with an emphasis on mathematics. One focus of his work has been on problem solving � e.g., his book Mathematical Problem Solving provides a characterization of what it means to "think mathematically" and describes a research-based undergraduate course in mathematical problem solving. Other foci are on assessment and modeling the teaching process. He was principal investigator for the Balanced Assessment project, whose goal was to produce mathematics assessments consistent with Standards-based instruction. His current research focuses on studying how and why teachers make the decisions they do, "on line," in the classroom. Schoenfeld is past President of the American Educational Research Association, was lead author for grades 9-12 of the National Council of Teachers' of Mathematics Principles and Standards for School Mathematics, and chairs the Joint Policy Board for Mathematics' Task force on enhancing the Educational Activities of Faculty. He was one of the founding editors of Research in Collegiate Mathematics Education, and is associate editor of Cognition and Instruction. For fun, he serves as a volunteer in the Berkeley public schools.
I don't have a favorite website, though
http://mathforum.org/
, the math forum, would probably be a candidate; my favorite book for the
time being is Chez Panisse vegetables by Alice Waters.
Elizabeth Stage is Director of Mathematics
and Science Professional Development, Educational Outreach, University
of California Office of the President (UCOP), responsible for programs
on higher education campuses throughout the state.
After serving as a SESAME lecturer
from 1978-81, I went to the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) where I continued
to do research on adolescents' mathematical reasoning with Bob Karplus
and Steven Pulos, served as evaluator for EQUALS, started the Bay Area
Mathematics Project, and became director of Mathematics and Computer Education.
I did several technology in mathematics and science teaching projects,
as a result of which I served as a fellow at Harvard in Spring, 1988. In
1989, I left LHS and went to UCOP to start the California Science Project,
a statewide professional development program modeled after the Writing
and Mathematics Projects. I'd also gotten involved in developing state
frameworks and assessments and served on California's Curriculum Commission,
including a couple of years as chair during some interesting textbook adoption
controversies. I took a two year leave to go to the National Research Council
to serve as "director of critique and consensus" for the development of
the national science education standards, which landed me the job as director
of science for New Standards, a project that developed performance standards
and assessments (constructed response and portfolio). We also worked with
districts (e.g. Chicago and New York City) to provide professional development
that would allow their teachers to support student learning to achieve
these standards. In January 2000 I started the Mathematics Professional
Development Institutes, a state-funded, University-based effort to deepen
teachers' understanding of the mathematics that they teach. In January
2001 I got responsibility for all of the state-funded, University-based
professional development in mathematics, science, and physical education
and health. Although the administrative demands are considerable, I've
been able to collaborate with people like Jim Stigler at UCLA and Deborah
Ball at University of Michigan to inform our work.
But I don't have a photo of myself on my hard drive and since I read and surf a lot, it's hard to pick a favorite book or website, so my entry will be incomplete!
Herbert D. Thier is currently an Academic Administrator Emeritus at the Lawrence Hall of Science, University of California, Berkeley. He is Director of the Science Education for Public Understanding Program [SEPUP] and a number of other grants at the University. Thier received his B.A. in Physics and Biology from the State University of New York, Albany in 1953 and his M. A. in School Administration in1954. He received his Ed. D. in Curriculum and Administration from New York University in 1962. Thier was a science teacher, science coordinator and school administrator between 1954 and 1963. He was Assistant Superintendent of Schools for Instruction when he met and began to work with Bob Karplus on the start up of the Science Curriculum Improvement Study. Since 1963 he has been leading Instructional Materials Development and Teacher Enhancement projects in science at the Lawrence Hall of Science. He received (with M. Linn), the JRST Research in Science Teaching Award, of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching in 1975. Thier received the Distinguished Service to Science Education Award, of the National Science Teachers Association in 1994 and the Distinguished Service to Science Education Award, of the Connecticut Science Supervisors Association in1996. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and is listed in Marquis' Who's Who in America. His new book titled: Developing Inquiry-Based Science Materials: A Guide for Educators was published in June, 2001 by Teachers College Press.
Favorite Internet site www.lhs.berkeley.edu/sepup
Favorite Book: Developing Inquiry Based Science Materials- A Guide for Educators by Herbert Thier
Involvement with SESAME students and faculty remains one of the most pleasant associations I�ve had at Berkeley, where I am still teaching and researching.
Through the Group I first heard of self-paced instruction in the 1970s, which led me to start self-paced Fortran and Basic computer programming courses here because none existed anywhere at the time. These were taken over by Mike Clancy and converted to more modern languages, and have served more than 20,000 students over the years. Setting up the first personal computer lab on campus in Tolman Hall was fun and met an interim need. Realizing that it was possible to create novel courses led me to put together EECS 1, officially called "The First Course" but subtitled "Electrical Engineering Uncovered", which has a fun lab where students look inside electronic and software tools and for which I co-authored a textbook. The SESAME influence also was instrumental in my producing several videos � an overview of NSF�s Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers, one about our Sensor & Actuator Center in particular, and a video for the Berkeley Fire Department on the need for buffer zones to avoid disastrous firestorms coming from the wildlands, as they did in 1923 and 1991.
The
picture was taken in a panda research facility in Sichuan Province, China.
She is a real, live 9-month panda cub who�s thankfully more interested
in the bamboo she�s nibbling than in me.