MacVicar Day 2008

March 7, 2008, 3:30 PM to 5:00 PM
Kirsch Auditorium (32 -123)

To view this talk on MIT World, click here To download Dr. Wieman's slides from this talk, click here

The MacVicar Faculty Fellows Program was named to honor the life and contributions of Margaret MacVicar, Professor of Physical Science and Dean for Undergraduate Education at the time of her death in 1991. MacVicar Day 2008 will be celebrated on Friday, March 7th, when the new Fellows for 2008 will be announced at an MIT faculty reception hosted by President Hockfield at Gray House.

To celebrate undergraduate education at the Institute, the MacVicar Faculty Fellows are sponsoring an afternoon program open to all members of the MIT Community. MIT Alumnus (Physics '73) and Nobel Laureate, Dr. Carl Wieman, will present a talk entitled, "Science Education in the 21st Century: Using the Tools of Science to teach science.

Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science has advanced rapidly in the past 500 years. Guided primarily by tradition and dogma, science education meanwhile has remained largely medieval. Research on how people learn is now revealing how many teachers badly misinterpret what students are thinking and learning from traditional science classes and exams. However, research is also providing insights on how to do much better. The combination of this research with modern information technology is setting the stage for a new approach that can provide the relevant and effective science education for all students that is needed for the 21st century. Dr. Wieman will discuss the failures of traditional educational practices, even as used by “very good” teachers, and the successes of some new practices and technology that characterize this more effective approach, and how these results are highly consistent with findings from cognitive science.

Carl Wieman received his B.S. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1973 and his Ph.D. from Stanford University in 1977. He was at the University of Colorado from 1984 to 2006 as a Distinguished Professor of Physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar. In January 2007, he joined the University of British Columbia as the Director of the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative (http://www.cwsei.ubc.ca); he retains a 20% appointment at the University of Colorado, Boulder to head the science education initiative he founded. His research has been recognized with numerous awards including the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2001. He is a recipient of the National Science Foundation’s Distinguished Teaching Scholar Award in 2001, the Carnegie Foundation’s U.S. University Professor of the Year Award in 2004, and the American Association of Physics Teachers’ Oersted Medal in 2007. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and chairs the Academy Board on Science Education.