Jones Seminar: Fostering Critical Thinking and Innovation — A Design Thinking Approach

Optional ZOOM LINK
Meeting ID: 937 2623 1106
Passcode: 705990

Getting engaged in the process of an authentic discovery can be transformative for undergraduate students unsure about becoming a scientist. Modern frontline research and discoveries increasingly need an interdisciplinary approach usually not offered in department-based courses. To develop an innovative mindset students often need a roadmap involving development of critical thinking abilities, hands-on active learning skills, followed by intense curiosity driven capstone research.

In this seminar we will discuss a holistic student development model that starts in the classrooms using custom made cartoon clicker questions to enhance student engagement and real time feedback, followed by guided-discovery based labs and finally immersive modular interdisciplinary research projects. We will also discuss some of the recent discoveries and achievements made by Das research group undergraduate students at UMES including plasma generation using a kitchen microwave oven, to the study of dynamics of rotating solid bodies in zero gravity.

About the Speaker(s)

Kausik Das
Associate Professor of Physics, U Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES)

Kausik S. Das, in collaboration with cartoonist Larry Gonick, has developed hundreds of cartoon clicker questions to provoke vigorous group discussions, created corresponding hands-on active learning labs, and created modular research projects so that students gain authentic research experiences. He is also involved in the astronaut training program through Project PoSSUM and has flown in zero-g parabolic flights.

Before joining UMES, Das was a faculty member and research associate in the Department of Physics at University of Toronto, Canada, and earned his PhD at the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, India. After his PhD, Das conducted research at UC Santa Barbara followed by an EPSRC fellowship at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. Earlier this year, Das received the Regents' Faculty Award — the highest honor presented by the University System of Maryland (USM) board to exemplary faculty members.

Contact

For more information, contact Ashley Parker at ashley.l.parker@dartmouth.edu.