Active Learning and Marginalized Students

  October 1, 2015 , ,

Active learning is popular in the education research community right now. According to the University of Michigan Center for Research on Learning and Teaching, active learning is a “process whereby students engage in activities, such as reading, writing, discussion, or problem solving that promote analysis, synthesis, and evaluation of class content.” This mode of teaching and learning stands in direct contrast with traditional lecture-style learning, which tends to take place in a lecture hall. The spaces in which the learning takes place are important but the of the class is far more important. Active learning environments are centered on students learning by doing, whereas traditional learning environments are centered on the passage of knowledge one way from the instructor to the students. Universities are investing vast resources into constructing classrooms specifically to facilitate active learning environments, often with round tables, whiteboards, and technology tailored to meet the needs of an active learning classroom. The question: is the investment worth it? According to a 2014 study published in Life Sciences Education, the answer is a resounding yes — especially for black and first-generation college students. The researchers implemented a “moderate-structure” change in an undergraduate Biology course, which effectively meant turning the course into an active-learning environment. They found that the performance of all students clearly increased versus a traditional Biology course. This performance increase was especially pronounced in black students and students in the first generation of people in their family to attend college, for whom the achievement gap was halved. … Continue reading

Know thy audience – What it means to speak at a TEDx event

  October 1, 2015

Over the course of the summer I had the great pleasure of speaking at a local TEDx conference in Vicenza, Italy. The theme of the conference was “Planting the Seeds” and the day consisted of 16 talks by speakers from various disciplines including agriculture, architecture, design, education, history, science, and technology. It was a truly marvelous event. It took place in the oldest, still standing roofed Renaissance theater, the Teatro Olimpico. The event was not only available as a live-stream online, but the team of organizers also set up an additional live-streaming location not far away from the theater. In my talk, I focused a lot on the research I am currently doing for my dissertation, in which I look at emerging practices of civic engagement on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In particular, I related the use of social media during the large scale protest events around the turn of the decade such as Occupy Wall Street or the Arab Spring to anti-corporate discourses that have been popping up frequently on Twitter over the course of the last couple of years. I am very happy about the talk I have given. However, developing that talk was easier said than done, and it really reminds me of the importance of audience awareness which I frequently emphasize to my students who have taken the classes I teach at Georgia State. The first thing to note is that a TEDx conference, despite featuring academic researchers as speakers, doesn’t really compare to … Continue reading

First Steps in the Student Innovation Fellowship

  October 1, 2015 , , ,

My name is Saif Ali. I am a freshman Physics major at Georgia State University, so this is my first year as a SIF (Student Innovation Fellow). I will provide a short auto-biography of myself so that you, the reader, know whose work you are reading. I place my heritage in the country of Bangladesh where my family was born and raised, but I was born here in Atlanta which means I am first-generation American. I graduated from Woodstock High School in the Spring of 2015. At that point, I already knew I was going to GSU, but I was not aware of the SIF program. I became aware of this through the Honors College and immediately knew this is the place I wanted to be. Being exposed to this kind of academic atmosphere is the best way I can start my path to a career in science where research is the main focus of the job. I am mostly involved in the 3D 1928 Atlanta project. This project involves a team of four researchers and four builders who are re-creating 1928 Atlanta in an Oculus Rift setting. My assignment is researching Peachtree Street, also referred to as Whitehall Street during that time. I have accumulated a significant amount of photos that are from that era, but there are predictable problems that I have run into. I have found pictures that are dated around or on 1928, but I have also found many pictures of Atlanta from the 1930s. I … Continue reading

3D-Atlanta

  October 1, 2015

Old Decatur Street, home to the blues, rag-time juke joints and the old jail house. Sound familiar? Maybe not to you, but in the 1920’s Decatur St. was dubbed Atlanta’s Bourbon Street. A bustling African American red-light district, Decatur Street was synonymous with high crime, low fashion and good times. Today, students at GSU are using new technology to create an interactive experience that immerses users in the streets of this bygone era. 3D-Atlanta seeks to create a 3D gaming environment of a historically accurate 1920’s Atlanta city block. Beginning where Classroom South is today, 3D Atlanta is a completely immersive digital environment designed to work with the virtual reality display system, Oculus Rift. Because the project requires a combination of historical photographs, 3D renderings and researched facts, 3D Atlanta is a wholly unique educational endeavor. The project combines the disciplines of computer science, digital animation, graphic design, urban planning and historical research in new and exciting ways. Stepping out of Classroom South will never be the same. GSU’s Student Innovation Fellows invite you to travel back in time and visit 3D Atlanta.

SIF Digital Humanities Projects Highlighted at GSU Scientific Computing Day

  September 20, 2015 , , , , , ,

Last week, GSU held its first Scientific Computing Day, a one-day symposium to foster interactions and collaborations between researchers at Georgia State University. The event provides researchers on the frontiers of computation research to present their work and exchange views with a multidisciplinary audience. As one might imagine, SIF collaborators have much to contribute to such an event, and the SIF was well represented, particularly in the digital humanities section of the conference, which was dominated by SIF-affiliated projects. A panel, which included Brennan Collins, Joe Hurley, Robin Wharton and previous SIF fellow Robert Bryant, discussed “How Technology Will Shape the Future of Humanities Research.” The panel’s presentation drew heavily on SIF-funded projects, including 3D Atlanta, 3D Modelling, and a variety of mapping projects.  SIF’s also contributed to the day’s poster-session, where Sruthi Vuppala and Dylan Ruediger presented a poster on “Digital Critical Editions of Medieval Texts: the Hoccleve Archive and the Digital Humanities.”