Cognitive and Learning Sciences News

Donations Needed for Semi-annual Free Sale

Published September 18, 2018

Co-founders of the highly successful semi-annual free sale at Michigan Tech were featured in a segment on TV6 news on Monday evening. Female faculty began the free sale five years ago due to limited local options for women’s business attire.

Ready to clean out your closet and help students at the same time? Consider donating your gently used, clean women’s business clothing and accessories to the Free Sale. Your items will be available to all Michigan Tech students at no cost. Donations help provide students with business attire for the fall career fair. Sizes 12 and up are particularly needed this year.

It has become kind of a passion of mine and I think the reason why is because when you see those students stand taller, look a little prouder and realize that they do look wonderful and their gratefulness that they have when they are leaving is just, I think, what inspires us to keep going — Susan Amato-Henderson, Cognitive and Learning Sciences Department chair.

The next semi-annual Free Sale will be held from 11-3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, at the Meese Center. Donations are now being accepted during normal business hours at the following locations:

Van Pelt and Opie Library – Front Desk and Jeannie DeClerk’s office, 219
Lakeshore Center – Pat Muller’s office, 320 A1
Academic Office Building – First Floor and Latika Gupta’s office, 128
Dillman Hall – Tess Ahlborn’s office, 108A
Meese Center – Susan Amato-Henderson’s office, 107

The semi-annual Free Sale is held the weekend before Career Fair. Your donations have helped hundreds of students dress for success. In addition to business suits, we gratefully accept and give away business-appropriate shoes, jewelry, blouses, briefcases, blazers and more.

We are in particular need of larger sizes. Want to volunteer and join the fun? Contact Tess Ahlborn for more information.

In the News

Published September 14, 2018

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News

Kelly Steelman (CLS) was quoted in the Daily Mining Gazette on her role as president of the Keweenaw Roller Girls, which defeated the Kingsford Krush, 242-64, last Saturday in front of several hundred fans.

ACSHF Student Receives Local Hero Award

Published September 6, 2018

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Whitney Boroski, MS student in the ACSHF program and Manager of Student Health and Wellness, was recently awarded the 2018 Michigan Coalition to Reduce Underage Drinking (MCRUD) Local Hero Award. MCRUD provides leadership on state and national issues, and assists individuals, grassroots groups, and organizations to reduce underage drinking locally.

Boroski has been resourceful in creating programs and utilizing campus and community resources to assist in reducing underage drinking at the university.

Stockero tops most cited articles

Published September 6, 2018

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Sha ri Stockero (CLS/Math) co-authored two of the most cited articles in the Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education (JMTE) and Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (JRME). According to Google Metrics, Stockero’s article “Characterizing pivotal teaching moments in beginning mathematics teachers’ practice”, was the 9th most cited JMTE article from 2013-2017. Laura Van Zoest from Western Michigan University is co-author.

A second article, “Conceptualizing Mathematically Significant Pedagogical Opportunities to Build on Student Thinking”, was the 12th most cited JRME article for that same time period. The article was co-authored by Keith Leatham and Blake Peterson (Brigham Young University) and Laura Van Zoest.

Research for Teachers Poster Session

Published August 30, 2018

By Heather Powers

A poster session for the Michigan Tech 2018 Research Experiences for Teachers was held from 3 to 5 p.m. yesterday (Aug. 9) in the Great Lakes Research Center Second Floor Atrium.

The poster session concludes the NSF-funded Teacher Professional Development summer institute, “Computational Tools and the Environment.” Twelve in-service teachers were paired up with civil and environmental engineering graduate students to research topics such as water quality, lead contamination, aquaponics and renewable energy.

The results of their research have been translated into curricula for science and mathematics classes. They will present the results of their research and curriculum development at the poster session.

Group of Teachers present posters on mobile chalkboards to attendees

A presenter and a group of student onlookers

Michigan In-service Teachers Participate in Engineering Course at MTU

Published August 3, 2018

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Through the generous support of a grant from the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, 8 Michigan teachers participated in a two-week long summer institute on the campus of Michigan Tech last month. The teachers are newly admitted students in the Master’s of Applied Science Education program, housed in the Department of Cognitive and Learning Sciences. The teachers engaged in hands-on experiments in the course, The Engineering Process, which was taught by Dr. Irwin from the School of Technology. Teachers took part in both the technical and creative sides of the problem solving process surrounding engineering.

New Funding

Published July 6, 2018

By Heather Powers

Kevin Trewartha (CLS/RICC) is the principal investigator on a project that has received a $455,884 research and development grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services/National Institutes of Health. Shane Meuller (CLS/RICC) is the Co-PI on the project “Motor Learning as a Sensitive Behavioral Marker of Mild Cognitive Impairment and Early Alzheimer’s Disease.”

This is a three-year project.

Psychology Student Presents at APS Conference

Published June 13, 2018

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APS is the leading international organization dedicated to advancing scientific psychology across disciplinary and geographic borders. The 30th Association for Psychological Science (APS) Conference brought together more than 4,000 scientists from disciplines spanning the full spectrum of psychological science, some of whom hailed from our own Michigan Technological University. Attendees gained insights into research and trends from world-renowned psychological scientists, improved their skills, deepened their knowledge, and forged life-long collaborations with colleagues.

Undergraduate psychology major Elizabeth Kelliher (pictured), Madeline Peabody (ACSHF Alumna), and Professor Veinott presented an analysis of group brainstorming idea generation at the 2018 APS Conference in San Francisco, California.

For the poster, Premortem: Evaluating two structured analytic techniques for group brainstorming, Elizabeth analyzed the number of reasons and solutions generated based on traditional brainstorming research measures. Groups using the Premortem generated 58% more unique reasons for plan failure than groups using the Worst-case scenario technique. This research, which is part of a larger series of experiments, provides quantitative evidence for improving plan evaluation techniques and brainstorming. Great job, Elizabeth!

ICAD 2018

Published June 5, 2018

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Michigan Technological University has the honor of hosting the 24th annual International Conference on Auditory Display.

ICAD is a highly interdisciplinary academic conference with relevance to researchers, practitioners, musicians, and students interested in the design of sounds to support tasks, improve performance, guide decisions, augment awareness, and enhance experiences. It is unique in its singular focus on auditory displays and the array of perception, technology, and application areas that this encompasses. The overarching theme of this year’s conference is sonification as ADSR (art – design – science – research).

Portions of this conference have been made available for free to the general public:

Presentation from Dr. Stefania Serifin

June 11th, 11 a.m. – 12 p. m.
Forestry Building Room G02

20 Years of Sonic Interactions

Sonic interaction design is a fertile field of investigation at the intersection of sound and music computing and interaction design. For the past twenty years together with several collaborators we have been designing sonic interactions for different applications, ranging from physics based simulations of musical instruments and everyday objects, new interfaces for musical expression, cultural heritage, walking and rehabilitation, learning and training, as well as virtual and augmented reality. In this talk, she will present an overview of these activities reflecting on their impact and perspectives for the future.

Presentation from Dr. Carryl Baldwin

June 12th, 11 a.m. – 12 p. m.
Forestry Building Room G02

Auditory Displays to Facilitate Attention Management in Highly Autonomous Systems

Two recent crashes in January 2018 involving Tesla’s Model S, underscore the importance of the need for driver’s to maintain awareness in semi-automated vehicles, even when the autopilot is engaged. Despite manufacturer’s warnings and cautionary statements in owner’s manuals, decades of research in vigilance indicates that this will be a challenge, if not impossible for most drivers. This talk will focus on our recent and on-going research developing novel methods of assisting the driver with attention management in highly autonomous systems. Included in this discussion will be a discussion of the methods to develop and validate effective auditory collision avoidance alerts, driver state monitoring with low-cost physiological sensors, and using specific types of music as a means assisting operators with maintaining sustained attention.

Diversity Workshop

June 12th, 3:30 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Forestry Building Room 144

A hands-on workshop on the development of audio-based educational tools and teaching scenarios of activities pertinent to the ICAD domain.

Sonification Concert

June 13th, 6 p.m. – 7 p.m.
Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts

Experience experts’ takes on sonification in concert setting.

You may also register for the full conference here. For more details, visit http://icad2018.icad.org/

Partial funding is provided by the Visiting Women & Minority Lecture/Scholar Series (VWMLSS) which is funded by a grant to the Office of Institutional Equity and Inclusion from the State of Michigan’s King-Chavez-Parks Initiative.

Michigan Tech’s Mi-STAR kits to be supplied by Nasco

Published May 31, 2018

By Heather Powers

Michigan Tech’s Mi-STAR program recently signed an agreement with Nasco that will allow Nasco to prepare and sell kits for use with the Mi-STAR curriculum in middle school science classes.

Mi-STAR’s curriculum and its associated professional learning program were designed and developed in full alignment with the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and the Michigan Science Standards. The curriculum is unique in that it integrates content and methods across the traditional disciplinary boundaries of Earth and space science, life science, engineering and physical science. Engineering principles are fully embedded in the curriculum; engineering is not treated as an afterthought or add-on by Mi-STAR.

Although the curriculum is still being developed, all of the 6th-grade units will be available in time for the start of school in fall 2018. Several 7th- and 8th-grade units will also be available for the fall. When completed, the entire middle school curriculum will address all of the middle school standards.

Mi-STAR’s curriculum and associated professional learning support student-centered instruction in middle school classrooms. Each unit in the Mi-STAR curriculum addresses a real-world problem that is of wide interest to 21st-century society. By maintaining a focus on real-world problems, the curriculum helps students understand how science and engineering are used to design solutions to issues that are relevant to their communities and the world.

“By partnering with a major corporation to produce and deliver kits to schools, Mi-STAR will be able to expand its reach and provide better service to educators and other users” says Jackie Huntoon, provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Michigan Tech. Huntoon noted “anything a STEM-focused University like Michigan Tech can do to increase students’ interest in science before they graduate from high school will ultimately benefit our state and the nation.

“Michigan Tech scientists and engineers have devoted a lot of time and effort into making Mi-STAR the best it can be—and these efforts are really having a positive impact on Michigan’s teachers and students.”

Mi-STAR was founded in 2015 through a generous gift to Michigan Tech from the Herbert H. and Grace A. Dow Foundation. In 2017, Mi-STAR was identified as a promising program by STEMworks at WestEd.

School districts partnering with Mi-STAR have been successful at obtaining support from the Michigan Department of Education to enhance their teacher’s professional learning and to improve science learning outcomes among their students while using the Mi-STAR curriculum and professional learning program. In 2018, Michigan Tech received funding from the National Science Foundation Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program that will be used to increase the number of teachers proficient with Mi-STAR’s NGSS-aligned curriculum and who are prepared to lead reform efforts in their schools, districts and the state.

As of January 2018, Mi-STAR was used by more than 450 teachers in more than 100 schools/districts with an estimated 45,000 students. Nasco was started in 1941 by a vocational agricultural teacher, Norman Eckley. Starting as a simple operation in a two-car garage, Nasco has grown to an enterprise publishing more than 35 different catalogs, with an annual circulation exceeding 5 million, to customers in education, agriculture, healthcare training and lab sampling worldwide featuring materials available for a wide array of educational, training and production needs.

by Jackie Huntoon, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs