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We welcome the following new students entering fall 2007:

Second-year students are:

Third-year students are:

Nephi Thompson (nthompso@sciences.sdsu.edu)

I'm developing my dissertation research project and plan to collect data this fall. I am working with Fred Goldberg to design a physical science course for pre-service teachers. Within the context of this course, I'm interested to discover how students use the discussions, simulations, and experiments established by the curriculum to support their understanding of atomic molecular theory. Nephi hopes to wrap up writing and defend soon and is currently an Assistant Professor of Physics in the Physics Department at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

 

Benjamin Williams (bwilliam@sciences.sdsu.edu)

I am a 5th year student currently working with Fred Goldberg on the Physics for Elementary Teachers (PET) project. This NSF-funded project involves design and implementation of a single semester college course for prospective elementary teachers. This course is designed to foster sense-making of certain core physics situations by the prospective teachers, to provide these future teachers multiple opportunities to analyze video of elementary students making sense of similar physics situations, and to allow the course instructor to model appropriate teaching techniques for the prospective teachers. My current work with PET involves analysis of video from the first implementation of the course.

 

Osvaldo Soto (osoto@ucsd.edu)

I am a 3rd year math education student currently working with Guershon Harel, studying how students learn mathematics and how teachers’ representations of mathematical concepts affect the way they teach. Having been a teacher for the past seven years, I find these two topics extremely interesting and look forward to learning from the experiences being provided in my classes and research assistantship. In my free time, I like to sleep. Since this free time does not currently consist of more than seven hours in any given day, I hope to get more free time in the future. Find me with any questions.

 

Funded Travel Highlights

Three MSED students accompanied Dr. Chris Rasmussen to South Korea during summer 2006. Along with Chris, Ovie Soto, Jill Nellipovich, and Cassondra Brown spent ten days at Seoul National University conducting data analysis with Dr. Oh Nam Kwon of SNU and her graduate students, and Dr. Karen Marrongelle of Portland State University with two of her graduate students from PSU. The goal of the data analysis was to develop a model for how teachers create and sustain inquiry-oriented learning environments in which students gain mathematical power and sophistication. In particular, we focused on characterizing teacher discursive moves in an innovative approach to differential equations, referred to as the Inquiry-Oriented Differential Equations (IO-DE) project.

Along with several program professors, students Bruce Ingraham and Cassondra Brown will sojourn to Merida, Mexico for PME-NA spring 2007.

For information about former students, see the Graduates page (in the Events section).

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