Cresson, Pa. — Mount Aloysius College has been awarded a prestigious grant from the Council of Independent Colleges to attend the organization’s Seminar on Science Pedagogy. Only nine higher education institutes were selected nationally to participate in this seminar.

 

The conference will use methods based on research in cognition and neuroscience that have been shown by Stanford University physicist and Nobel laureate Carl Wieman, with colleagues at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of British Columbia, and Stanford, to yield significant improvements in student learning in science courses at all levels. In this model, faculty members serve more as coaches than lecturers while students are challenged by increasingly complex problems; prompt and extensive feedback allows students to emulate how scientists think and then to discover new knowledge.

 

“The dedicated faculty who sought out this opportunity were awarded with the chance to expand their knowledge in their unique concentrations,” Dr. Patricia Ireland, Provost and Sr. Vice-President of Academic Affairs, said. “With only nine institutions accepted nationally, this is a unique honor for the College. We are grateful for our faculty’s commitment to our Mountie students.”

 

The seminar will be held on the campus of Holy Names University in Oakland, California, July 2020. Team members will complete extensive preparatory work prior to the seminar, including assigned readings and an assessment of current teaching methods and student learning in introductory science courses. The CIC was awarded a grant by the W. M. Keck Foundation and it will supplement the seminars.

 

The Mount Aloysius College faculty that will attend the July seminar include: Dr. Penny O’Connor, Associate Professor and Chair of Science and Mathematics; Dr. Mike Engle, Associate Professor of Science and Mathematics; Dr. Crystal Goldyn, Assistant Professor of Science and Mathematics; and Dr. John Whitlock, Assistant Professor of Science & Mathematics.