University of Colorado
President's Teaching Scholars Program

New President Teaching Scholars Project Investigator Proposals

"The Computational World" - Professor Mike Eisenberg
"Report on Narrative Research" - Professor Shelby Wolf
"Creating Powerful Pedagogy with Preservice Teachers" - Professor Shelby Wolf

The Computational World

I would like to develop an undergraduate-level course that helps students not only to develop a basic understanding of computational ideas, but also to situate those ideas within a broader portrait of modern scholarship. This course, tentatively titled "The Computational World," would focus not on particular applications (spreadsheets, word processors, and so forth) nor even on isolated "skills" (e.g., how to write a program with a loop inside it), but rather on the ways in which computers have impacted scientific and artistic thinking. The course would likely include topics such as: (a) the role of simulation as a source of experiments in science and mathematics; (b) basic ideas of algorithms and their representation; (c) the notion of a "language" or notation for communication procedural ideas, as an artifact of design in its own right; (d) computational models of mind, and how they have affected the study of vision, language, and creativity; (e) "emergence" in computation and how computational models enable us to create many complex systems as a collection of myriad simpler, interactive entities; (f) the notion of "information" as an object of study. To my knowledge, there is no undergraduate course quite like this in existence, and I would like to accompany the development of the course with both innovative laboratory materials and a textbook to encourage the creation of other courses in this genre elsewhere. More generally, I would like to use this course and its development as a springboard for promoting and encouraging interdisciplinary collaborations for students and faculty in computer science.

Design-Oriented Courses: Blending Theory with Physical Fabrication

During the current semester, I have been teaching a section of GEEN (General Engineering) 1400, a course primarily for first-year and incoming engineering students. My section of the course, offered for the first time this year, focuses on the engineering of Leonardo da Vinci; the students explore da Vinci's notebooks and then use a variety of novel fabrication tools in our lab to recreate his brilliant designs. For the students, this curriculum provides an encounter with the (often-neglected) historical and biographical elements of engineering-Leonardo is an irresistibly fascinating personality and the Renaissance, a golden era of early engineering. At the same time, however, the students employ state-of-the-art devices and computational techniques as a means of rethinking this beautiful tradition of engineering. Our lab is equipped with both a computer-controlled 3D prototyper and laser cutter, as well as a variety of traditional machine tools. It should be mentioned that the GEEN 1400 students are currently, as of this writing, working on their still-unfinished larger-scale final projects.

I would like to extend the basic theme behind this course in several potentially exciting directions. One possibility would be to design a more general course in the history of engineering, integrating elements of design and historical study. Such a course could involve students in the recreation of important ideas in the history of technology - e.g., in the use of waterpower, the design of clockwork, the manufacture of textiles and paper, and so forth. (I have recently submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation suggesting course development of this sort of engineering.) Other possibilities might incorporate design and fabrication into the study of science and mathematics: for example, a curriculum in the design and recreation of important historical scientific instruments, or a course focused on the creation of small-scale scientific instruments for home or amateur use; or a course on the design of mathematical puzzles and games (e.g., topological puzzles), or mathematical artwork more generally. One particularly interesting avenue that I would like to pursue, would be a collaboration with students or faculty in psychology and the fine arts, focusing on the design and creation of physical artifacts that creatively represent optical illusions and other interesting visual phenomena.

Essentially, then, the larger agenda that I would like to pursue is one in which engineering and design are integrated with more traditionally "theoretical" study. Indeed, the time is right for this sort of integration, given the advent of powerful new design software and computer-controlled fabrication tools. Rather than viewing computers as abstract desktop devices, we can instead begin to view them as the centerpieces of a new sort of "shop"; and I believe that this new view of computers can have tremendously innovative and important education consequences.

Michael Eisenberg
Computer Science
2006
CU-Boulder

Project on Narrative Research

Narrative Research

(President's Teaching Scholars Program Project on Teaching and Learning Proposal)

I have been asked to develop an advanced doctoral seminar on Narrative Research. Although it is still somewhat rare to see academic writing take on much of a narrative flair, this course will be inspired by Richardson's (1994) advice that research writing should "deploy literary devices to re-create lived experience and evoke emotional responses" (p. 512). When one thinks of narrative, one usually thinks of the three essential features that mark literary text: (a) the sound properties of words, (b) the weaving of words into metaphors, and (c) the structure of the text as a whole. Thus, authors of narrative research craft their articles and books to take full advantage of the sound properties of language. They look for the potential in metaphor to make their points, and they may structure their texts to follow a more narrative design with rising action and a climax leading to falling action and an ultimate denouement. Consider the opening passage from my latest book:

Once upon a crisp autumn day, I was in a classroom observing a group of children reading a short tradebook about maps. The text described the prevailing view of the populace who believed the earth was flat, but then explained how a few brave thinkers suggested the spherical shape of the planet. Finally, the tradebook summarized the voyage of Magellan who set out to prove new theory by circumnavigating the globe. The children--a group of confident, worldly nine and ten-year-olds--laughed over the image of the earth as flat. I suggested that even though the theory seemed amazing to us now, that they should try to imagine the courage of those who set out into their own unknown. I explained that in ancient times, people said: "At the edges of the earth, there be dragons." The boy sitting next to me immediately jerked around in his seat, looked me square in the eye, and exclaimed: "You talk just like a book!" (p. 1)

Phrases like "the prevailing view of the populace" and "spherical shape" allowed me to play with sound, especially alliteration. The idea that "At the edges of the earth, there be dragons" became a metaphor for the courage it takes to explore the unknown, as I later encouraged my readers (preservice and inservice teachers) to take courageous steps in teaching young children about literature. At the end of the prologue, I asked them to help children "discover the rich, round world of interpreting literature with children--a world that exists beyond traditional edges" (p. 6). And with regard to structure, it made sense that I began with the words "Once upon" letting the reader know right away that this is a book about children's literature and thus has strong links to fairy tales. And of course the last words of the book are "the end."

In addition to sound, metaphor, and structure, literature also relies on the unexpected. Burke calls it Trouble with a capital T: "a story (fictional or actual) requires an Agent who performs an Action to achieve a Goal in a recognizable Setting by the use of certain Means--his dramatistic Pentad.... What drives a story is a misfit between the elements of the Pentad: Trouble" (Bruner, 2002, p. 34). Thus narrative researchers--particularly in education--often take the reader through the pentad highlighting trouble and its potential resolution. Of course, not all research tales have a happily ever after ending, so trouble may prevail.

In developing this course, I'll be reading the work of a variety of narrative researchers to select the best texts for the doctoral students to read. In addition, I'll interview my colleagues in areas outside of my own emphasis in literacy, to see what seminal narrative research pieces they would recommend from their various fields of mathematics, science, philosophy, bilingual education, educational psychology, anthropology, etc. in order to meet the needs of all doctoral students in the school of education. Although I have not as yet designed key assignments for the course, I know that the students will not only read narrative research but try their hand at writing this kind of research as well.

Creating Powerful Pedagogy with Preservice Teachers

For well over a decade, I've shepherded the children's literature methods course for preservice teachers (EDUC 4311), and while myriad questions about my practice have occupied me over the years, one central query continues to tug on my thinking: how can I help preservice teachers learn to create powerful pedagogy? For me, the term "powerful pedagogy" means curriculum, instruction, and assessment that engage children deeply in literature, moving well beyond the basic comprehension of text and into opportunities for active and analytical reflection about literature. My interest in this question is hinged to a central assignment in which my preservice teachers work in teams to develop a literary unit of instruction for an elementary classroom of children. The facets of the assignment are multiple. How effective is their children's literature section, and do the trade books they choose link well to each other in critical ways? Do the preservice teachers provide a sound rationale for the importance of their unit choice? In other words, why will it be meaningful for children? What big curricular pieces will enable them to accomplish their goals? Will the children engage in literary discussion or in writing, and/or in the arts? How will the preservice teachers link their unit to state standards? In what ways will each of their individual lessons stay on the trajectory of the central unit goals? How will they evaluate how well their children are learning? And how will they adapt their instruction to meet the needs of all children?

To assist the preservice teachers in this endeavor, I've developed model units, collected exemplary units from previous students to showcase, and both lectured and conducted small group discussions of varying aspects of the unit assignment. I serve as a mentor and a partner to each team, offering suggestions, loaning trade books and academic articles, and pointing out places for fresh ideas. Finally, I evaluate the unit assignment in stages over the course of the semester from the proposal through the first, penultimate, and final drafts. But the dilemma remains the same. While some students quickly latch on to the idea of powerful pedagogy, others need much more help in learning to create curriculum, instruction, and assessment that will draw children deeper and deeper into literature.

In earlier studies of my practice, I've followed preservice teachers as they learned to engage individual children in literature (e.g., Wolf, Carey, & Mieras, 1996), and I've explored preservice teachers' evolving understandings of diversity (e.g., Wolf, Ballentine, & Hill, 1999). But I've never researched the unit assignment. The PTSP Project on Teaching and Learning offers me the opportunity of doing just that. At the end of fall semester, 2005, I'll have the final drafts as well as the revisions of all the units created by my 60 students. I'll select fifteen students - five whose understandings of powerful pedagogy came very quickly, five that took more time to come to such understandings, and five where the understandings came quite late or perhaps weren't well understood even at the end of the course. Then using the unit drafts in stimulated recall sessions (putting the unit on the table and going through each of the sections in turn), I'll interview the selected preservice teachers to hopefully uncover when and how their "Aha!" revelations occurred and when they didn't, concentrating in particular on what aspects of the unit creation were the easiest as well as the most difficult. After completing one round of audio-recorded, individual interviews, I'll transcribe and analyze the data for preliminary patterns. Then I'll conduct a second round of interviews to present the patterns to the individual preservice teachers to triangulate my preliminary findings. In addition, this second interview will help me tease out the nuances in the patterns.

Creating powerful pedagogy is hard but essential work. If preservice teachers fail to grasp the concept during their time at the university, when they become teachers it is likely that they will fall into the trap of following the advice of their textbooks lockstep or creating a series of disconnected activities that will ultimately fail to engage children in literature. And this is clear: If children are denied the opportunity to engage in reading, they will not become readers. Thus, this PTSP project will allow me to track very young teachers as they learn to discern between "fun" but often-silly activities for children, and serious teaching that will help children become thinking individuals. The results of this study will naturally fold back into my practice, helping me understand how to communicate more effectively how powerful pedagogy is essential to the art of preservice teachers' future teaching and, even more important, their children's future learning.

Shelby A. Wolf
Education
2006
CU-Boulder