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How valuable would an instantaneous focus group of say, 10 million people, be to a political candidate or ad agency? A researcher with the Institute for Advanced Computer Studies is developing an application for computers, tablets and smartphones that can instantly aggregate huge volumes of data. While on sabbatical last semester, computational linguist Philip Resnik began testing React Labs during the Republican presidential debates. As the candidates spoke, participants who had downloaded the app could respond with “Agree,” “Disagree,” “Spin” or “Dodge.” Polls and focus groups are too removed from the event, says Resnik, who has done similar data-mining work for federal agencies looking for trends in online information in other countries. Social media is full of immediate opinions ripe for analysis, but on the downside, it’s a mess … and harder to ask specific questions. “React Labs is an attempt to hit the sweet spot between those two extremes,” he says.–MAB
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Future STEM Teachers are “Drawn to Science” Educating the next generation of science teachers just might start with a handful of crayons. Professor of education Randy McGinnis and his team are studying how students’ views of their own teaching methods evolve by having them draw pictures of themselves teaching science. With $1.6 million in support from the National Science Foundation, the research, known as Project Nexus, is providing new insight into how aspiring teachers think of themselves—and what they still need to learn. “The drawings allow us as researchers 14 terp spring 2012
to study, in a creative way, science classroom teaching identity and how it changes over time,” McGinnis says. Producing more, well-prepared teachers and graduates in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) fields is an urgent topic at the state and national levels. Part of the challenge of preparing those science educators, McGinnis says, is making STEM more interesting to young students so they will pursue these disciplines in college. “We need to keep STEM from becoming too rigid, so we’re linking formal
science education with informal science education,” he says. “We want future science teachers to practice merging the formal education norms we know, like classrooms, standardized tests, grading systems, etc., with informal science education, like the voluntary learning we do when we visit museums, zoos and aquariums.” He says teachers who give schoolchildren experiences that connect them to scientific principles can impart an understanding of real-world application. The pictures he asks his students to draw at the beginning and end of the course bear out students’ grasp of formal Photography by John T. Consoli / photo credits
and informal teaching methods. A gallery of drawings on the project’s website, DrawnToScience.org, depicts stick-figure teachers standing in front of a classroom, overseeing students working together or encouraging students to “Go explore!” Elementary education major Jem Ace ’12 said after student teaching in Prince George’s County this semester, she’d draw herself differently a third time, outside with students. “I’ve learned through this experience that science is more than opening up a textbook,” she says.–RS
Photography by John T. Consoli / photo credits
Clark School bioengineers recreated the university’s logo using fluorescent E. coli bacteria to demonstrate how programmable biofabrication can be used to put living cells where desired. Placing and maintaining live cells in specific locations can expand researchers’ understanding of bacterial infection and antibiotic resistance and allow them to develop new ways to diagnose ailments, regenerate tissue and personalize medical care.
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