Dan Claes, Karl Richstatter, a junior science education major from Lincoln, and Greg Snow assemble one of the cosmic ray detection devices they hope to install at Nebraska high schools.

NU Wins $1M NSF Project

Seeing Cosmic Rays in All the Right Places

By Tom Simons, Public Relations

Dan Claes flipped the toggle switch on the book-size black box and it immediately began producing tones, some high-pitched, some lower-pitched, sometimes several close together, sometimes spaced a few seconds apart.

What the University of Nebraska-Lincoln assistant professor of physics and astronomy was demonstrating was a cosmic ray detection device. The tones were the impacts of cosmic rays ­ protons and nuclei of light atoms, "little pieces of stars," Claes said ­ that constantly bombard Earth from all directions.

The detector is similar to those that he and Greg Snow, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at NU, hope to install at high schools across Nebraska in the next few years, thanks to a $1 million seed grant from the National Science Foundation.

The Cosmic Ray Observatory Project's goal is to install cosmic ray detectors at many of Nebraska's 314 high schools and link them via the Internet in what would be the geographically largest cosmic ray detection network anywhere. Each school's equipment would include a detector to register the impact and energy of cosmic rays, a Global Positioning System device to record the exact time and place of the strikes, and a simple personal computer to keep track of the data and link it to other CROP sites.

A school's science classes will be able to set up their own experiments, but they will also be part of a much larger experiment coordinated by the university.

"In the typical high school science experiment, everything is canned, presented recipe-style and designed to be completed in a 45-minute period," said Claes, a former high school physics teacher. "The answer is sort of predictable, but here, they will actually be part of a long-term, ongoing experiment that, like any real research project, carries no guarantees. They'll learn a little bit about what scientists do, but more importantly, they'll come away with the impression that what scientists do is fun and interesting, and worth pursuing.

"They will be part of an integrated experiment and they will feel like they personally and their school are contributing real, live, useful data to a larger enterprise."

That larger enterprise will be an effort to learn more about two key features of cosmic rays that scientists don't understand ­ where they come from and how they achieve their high energies.

"Some primaries (single protons) carry the same energy as a driven hockey puck," Claes said. "There is no known phenomenon, not even the supernova explosion of a star, that we believe can drive a proton to that high an energy. Yet they exist, and we don't know where they come from."

When cosmic rays hit molecules in Earth's atmosphere, they create an avalanche of more particles called an 'air shower.' Those particles in turn initiate other collisions that make more and more particles. Eventually millions of particles are hitting Earth's surface.

"The idea is that using a grid of detectors we can intercept a sample of those particles," Snow said. "Based on both counting the number of particles and looking at the relative arrival times of the particles, we can learn something about their original energy and the incident direction of the original particle ­ whether it's straight above or at an angle. By looking at this debris down on Earth you can sort of reconstruct information about the original particle.

"One of the nice features about our experiment is the detectors are spread out over a much larger geographic region than any of the other major enterprises that are being mounted to study cosmic rays. In a certain way, we have an unprecedented sensitivity to judging whether, say, 'does an area the size of the state of Nebraska light up all at once?' Because of the GPS equipment we'll be able to tell if all the schools detect a big bunch of particles coincidentally."

Thanks to the NSF grant, Snow and Claes are now ready to begin putting CROP in place after brainstorming on it for the last three years. They will be able to fund summer workshops, stipends and expenses for high school teachers and students, a graduate student, a technician, undergraduates doing technical work and purchase of the GPS equipment and computers. They inherited the detectors free of charge from a completed cosmic ray project in Utah.

Snow said the goal after four years is to have a network of 20 to 30 schools in the Lincoln-Omaha area, plus at least one in each of the state's 19 Educational Service Units to serve as a hub for expanding in its region. The first group of high schools participating in CROP will include Lincoln Northeast, the Zoo School in Lincoln, Norfolk and Mount Michael Benedictine in Elkhorn.

Helen Moore is one of two 2000 Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award winners.

'The Sociological Imagination'

Helen Moore Learns from Her Students

Helen Moore displays a confident exuberance about her teaching, for which she was awarded one of two 2000 University of Nebraska Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Awards.

She talked with Kelly Bartling of the Office of Public Relations about teaching, sociology, women's studies and her community involvement.

Q: Dr. Moore, what is it about sociology that compelled you to enter the field?

A: Sociology offers an opportunity to use what C. Wright Mills calls the 'sociological imagination.' That is what sparks my work. The sociological imagination consists of a lens or lenses, perspectives, theories and opportunities to address a question. For any social behavior or pattern I can bring students to an understanding not just of the factual basis, but ways to interpret those facts and ways those facts are imbedded in their own lives, and in the lives of people very different from themselves.

I came into sociology not with the expectation of getting a Ph. D. I think that's true for many, especially women who are coming to the discipline, we didn't have clear career trajectories, or mentors, although I was lucky to have senior women in my graduate program. I got very interested in studying schools, educational processes, looking at the world around me and what I understood, and what I came to understand differently, through sociology.

That makes it so easy to be a teacher and a learner. I have the tools from my discipline to be a good teacher and I appreciate that part of it.

Q: Can a person be taught to be a teacher or is it a talent?

A: I think there are specific skills associated with teaching; there are also perspectives on teaching. What makes a good teacher is definitely up for debate; and who can teach well to which students is also a very interesting question. I don't claim to be an outstanding teacher or a teacher who is good for every type of student who might come through my classes. But I learned more about teaching over the years and the scholarship of pedagogy and the scholarship of teaching is the thing that we can learn and can get better at.

Q: The university has been proactive in encouraging peer review of teaching, and mentoring. Are these practices essential?

A: Absolutely. I learned to teach initially in a very privatized model: what you did in the classroom was very private. The only people who observed it were the teacher and the students. The evaluation process was very self-contained. It was in women's studies and sociology when I began to see how to open that up and learn from my peers and from students how to move forward, into the 'craft' of teaching.

Sociology and women's studies have given me important ways to bring my thinking about learning: who are the learners, how do they learn, where do they learn? I teach in many different arenas, not just in a typical classroom. I am always looking for new places, whether it's in the community, in the educational programs in the rape/spouse abuse crisis center, or if it's in innovative programs in the university ... to graduate students or undergraduate students. I'm interested in looking at educational processes in many different places because it helps me understand more about my own craft.

Q: How does your teaching style or philosophy differ from others' and how does this improve your effectiveness in the classroom?

A: I see the classroom as a dialogue between the teacher and the student. We're both learners in that setting, but I do have access to information, models, skills, research and background that these students don't have, so it's my job to bring that information to that dialogue and it's their job to bring themselves to that dialogue and to figure out how that fits with their growing understanding of a topic.

Q: Look back at Helen Moore on her first day, in her first class as a teacher. How is she different from Helen Moore today?

A: (Laughs) Some of those elements are still there and some of them I have removed gladly, happily, gleefully. I was much more directive, much more unidirectional in my teaching; I was using a banking model of education: 'Here's the knowledge, I'm banking it into the students and the payoff is someday that they learn how to use that knowledge.' I didn't know very much about college student development, how they developed cognitive skills and thinking strategies.

Over the years my students gave me feedback that the information was important, the ideas were challenging, the structure and organizational aspects were positive, but they wanted more participation, more access, more dialogue, and I knew that was an area in which I was not very strong, so I went to different resources, senior faculty mentors, people in other disciplines, feminist pedagogy, scholarship on community and liberatory education models and I learned from them ways to open up and expand my teaching, make it more inclusive.

Q: So your classes are typically structured around your questioning of the students and your dialogue with them?

A: That's important to me. I'm not a socratic educator in the classic sense. I don't see that as my great skill. But I do want my students to gain some skills about asking questions, learning to write and speak, and question learning different models available to them so they can see how that improves their thinking, their analysis, and hopefully improves their problem solving.

Q: How have students or their learning processes changed over your career?

A: The changes have been in the faces in the classroom. It's a much more diverse group of people and I think that has strengthened us in many ways. It's challenged me as a teacher and it's challenged all the students in the classes to understand how that diversity works. I came to UNL because it was an open admissions university. The broad range of student abilities, interests, experiences, is a wonderful challenge to my teaching.

We still don't have the diversity that would really bring a whole range of experiences to our students, whether that's because of lack of economic access to the class, or because students are unwilling or unable to be fully involved in their classes or fully identified in their classes.

Q: What do you enjoy most about this stage of your career and where do you go from here?

A: I do my favorite things; that's one of the reasons I love this job is because my scholarship, my research, my teaching, the professional work that I do, the sociological journals, all comes together. It links in important ways and it brings my teaching to a focus.

I also have a firm philosophy on the importance of graduate education: I want our graduate students to have the full appreciation of the opportunities and responsibilities that they carry in scholarship and in teaching.

My colleagues are very supportive. This is a department that encourages faculty to do their best in whatever dimension that work is. Without having had a women's studies program or really supportive sociology department I would be much more narrowly focused, and maybe some people would say that would be better. Maybe that would have met someone else's priority, but not mine.

This certainly is more than enough for me to do right now. When I have spare time I'm working on my third book, I continue to publish articles and my scholarship continues although at time's it's at a simmering back pot on the stove, other times it's up front. I don't think I would be doing anything radically different in 10 years, but the balance may be different.

Helen A. Moore, professor of sociology Ph.D. 1979, M.A., 1976, B.S., 1974, University of California, Riverside Specialization: Sociology of Education, Stratification, Inequality, Women, Race and Class Professor Sociology 1991- present; chair, 1992-97; associate professor 1985-1991; Director, Women's Studies Program, 1982-87; Director, Bureau of Sociological Research, 1981-83; assistant professor 1979-85 Editor, 1999-2003, "Teaching Sociology," the journal of the American Sociological Association UNL McNair Outstanding Undergraduate Mentor 1999, Chancellor's Commission on the Status of Women Award 1998, UNL Faculty Volunteer Spirit Award 1997, James Lake Academic Freedom Award 1996, NU Distinguished Department Teaching Award 1996; Chancellor's Exemplary Service to Students Award 1988, UNL College Distinguished Teaching Award 1985 Involvement with Minority Opportunities through School Transformation and NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates; UNL Ronald E. McNair Undergraduate Research Program UNL Academy of Distinguished Teachers, 2000-

April 7 Colloquium Explores Dimensions of Teaching

By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations

We know good teaching when we see it. Or do we? That's the question behind work done by members of UNL's Academy of Distinguished Teachers, who have been working for about a year to develop a framework for documenting teaching excellence.

The resulting draft is ready for public review at a "Conversation on the Dimensions of Teaching" scheduled for 2:30-4:30 p.m. April 7 in the Nebraska Union. The conversation is co-sponsored by the Teaching Academy and the Academic Senate, which has invited faculty from all departments to participate. Faculty who did not receive personal invitations are also encouraged to attend.

Dan Bernstein, professor of psychology, is the unofficial leader of Academy of Distinguished Teachers' efforts to create the framework. Bernstein has been working in this area of study for several years as a Carnegie Fellow.

"When you talk to people about why teaching is skipped over in faculty evaluations, people say it's because they don't know how to measure good teaching. Student evaluations and voices are good tools, but they only present part of the picture," Bernstein said. "We want to get to those dimensions of teaching, those framing aspects of teaching, that can be presented as intellectual work."

In some contexts, he said, occasionally promotion to full professor status hinges on a person's teaching record, Bernstein said. "What are we looking for in these individuals? How do we know a truly worthy teacher?"

Bernstein said that in January 1999, about 200 faculty got together to talk about how to recognize good teaching. The table notes from the sessions were collected and summarized and hammered into a rough draft. For the past nine months, the teaching academy group has refined that draft, which is now being put forward for more review.

Bernstein emphasizes that the April 7 event will be a true conversation and dialogue among faculty about the dimensions of teaching. He wants to avoid formal presentation and lecture and get down to the business of discussing, critiquing and improving the draft document.

The draft document is available on the web at <http://www.unl.edu/asenate/welcome.htm>

The draft framework has six dimensions - student learning, course intellectual content, instructional practice, reflective development of teaching, involvement in teacher leadership and appropriate student perceptions. Three levels of teaching competence have been chosen: inadequate performance, competent professional work and exemplary teaching.

The majority of faculty are expected to fall into the professionally competent categories, Bernstein said. The exemplary categories, determined through peer review, might support merit raises or promotion based on teaching. The inadequate category might call for an external review to help the faculty member improve.

There are 19 members of the academy, Bernstein said, and two members are added annually. The charter group was selected by the Office of Academic Affairs about five or six years ago. Now the body expands by selecting its own members.

"The teaching academy really is the appropriate group to provide leadership in this area," said Gail Latta, academic senate president. "The senate recognizes that governance in this area is at the department level. What we hope to do is to facilitate the dialogue in helping departments come to internal consensus on how teaching is incorporated into tenure and review."

Latta said that the framework helps "us recognize that teaching is not a one-dimensional activity. Because it's never been fully appreciated for its complexity and the multiple scholarships that are involved in its execution. We hope to tease out those dimensions to allow the various parts to be documented."

Bernstein said the key is to determine was facets of a teaching portfolio that faculty wish to present as evidence of good teaching. Portfolios tend to be huge and unwieldy, and unreadable, he said. By developing the framework, "folks know what to represent and have a clear target in terms of what they need to provide evidence of their work product."

"People sometimes view teaching as a performance. But the hour in the classroom is a very small piece of the act of teaching. It must be intellectually sound. Is the material up to date? What about the appropriateness of the approach. How is the person facilitating the learning environment? And most importantly, are the students learning?" he said. "Is there evidence of students' acquiring the deep understanding that we call learning?"

Bernstein said that while students have primary responsibility or their own learning, faculty do have a role to play and the framework helps to more clearly define that role.

For more information about the colloquium, contact the Academic Senate Office at 472-2573.

New Handbook Offers Resources for Inclusive Teaching

By Kim Hachiya, Public Relations

A new publication, Teaching for Inclusion: A Resource Book for NU Faculty, has won positive comments.

Suzanne Prenger, inclusive teaching and diversity specialist in the Teaching and Learning Center, edited the nearly 200-page book that is chockful of strategies for teaching for inclusion as well as facts about the university's students and comments from those students.

Prenger worked on the book for about 18 months. "The Teaching and Learning Center was finding more and more faculty who are serious about their teaching and who are interested in ensuring learning. They want to know how to reflect diversity in their teaching, how to reach different groups and what helps students learn and what impedes them," she said.

Most existing diversity education materials are aimed at K-12 teachers, Prenger said, so it became obvious that something new needed to be created for the post-secondary level. Her goal was to help faculty recognize the diversity that does exist on campus and to encourage faculty to think about their knowledge of these groups and how their preconception might be affecting their teaching.

Chapters give demographic information specific to the state and UNL and have positive and negative comments from students. Chapters cover gender; social class; African American students; Latino/Hispanic students; Native American students; Asian American students; European American students; international students; gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students; religious diversity; special physical or learning disabilities; and non-traditional students.

Students were interviewed to find out what strategies worked and that didn't. Not all the student comments are negative. Students were asked "what are faculty doing that help you learn?" Prenger said. Among responses: access to faculty during and outside of office hours, faculty who asked students "how can I be helpful," faculty who didn't publicly single out students but still found ways to be helpful.

Evelyn Jacobson, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, said the inclusion of student comments makes the book credible. Many of the student comments are followed by a learning tip or suggestion.

Both Prenger and Jacobson think the handbook will be used and will spark conversation about best-practices. "We hope we find strategies others are using that we haven't heard about yet," Jacobson said.

Prenger said the project was time-consuming but intellectually enriching.

"I enjoyed this terrifically," she said. "I learned from students and I found faculty really are willing and eager to do things."

The publication was funded through the Faculty Liaison Task Force for Diversity, the office of the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs and the vice chancellor for IANR.

The handbooks are available from the Teaching and Learning Center, 121 Benton Hall, 472-3079.

Task Force Suggests Changes in Life Sciences

A faculty-led group considering how the university can become a leading research university in the life sciences has issued its report.

"We must emphasize research clusters and implement a structural reorganization if we want to be on the cutting edge in life sciences," said Tony Joern, professor of biological sciences and a co-chair of the Task Force on Integration and Enhancement of the Life Sciences.

The task force was appointed in January, 1999 by Brian Foster, then dean of the College of Arts and Sciences; Donald Edwards, dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources; and Darrell Nelson, dean of the Agricultural Research Division.

The task force included nine faculty members from IANR, five from Arts and Sciences and two others; it was co-chaired by Joern, and David Mortensen, professor of agronomy. Mortensen replaced Mark Morrison, who left the university prior to the completion of the report.

The task force was asked to provide recommendations for the future shape of life sciences programs at the university. Life sciences-related research and teaching is now scattered among a number of programs in arts and sciences, agriculture and natural resources and the agricultural research division.

The report includes several recommendations including:

o a more aggressive approach to obtain research funding.

o organization of research clusters to coordinate cross-disciplinary activities in order to provide flexible and desirable programs in strategic research areas.

o development of mechanisms to heighten institutional and faculty aspirations.

o evaluation of administrative structures including restructuring of colleges.

o increased faculty participation in development of research policy.

o development of strong working relationships with the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

"This report is candid, creative and proposes ideas that will most likely be perceived as controversial," said Richard Edwards, senior vice chancellor for academic affairs. "But we must be responsive to the best thinking of our faculty."

IANR Vice Chancellor Irv Omtvedt commented, "They have challenged us to remove existing institutional barriers to developing enhanced research and teaching programs, and this action is essential if there are barriers that prevent the university from developing strong integrated programs in the life sciences."

The report will be discussed in open campus forums scheduled for 3 p.m. April 7 in the Beadle Center Auditorium and 3:30 p.m. April 11 in room N177 of the Beadle Center.

A full copy of the report can be seen on the university Web site at:<h ttp://www.unl.edu/svcaa/priorities/plan/lifesciencesreport.html>.