On Wednesday, March 10^th, UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator from Engineering Prof. Ross Bagtzoglou met with ECE Engineering Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

Prof. Bagtzoglou invited Associate Professor in Residence Sarira Motaref to speak about the HuskyCT site and course resources and later Department Head & Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering Prof. Maria Chrysochoou and Research Assistant Connie Syharat shared their research “Neurodiverse Initiative Discussion: “Leveraging Neurodiversty for Engineering Innovation” with the group.

UConn Engineering courses offered through UConn ECE.

On Tuesday, March 30^th, UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Marine Sciences, Claudia Koerting, met with ECE Marine Sciences Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

The group met to discuss the positives and negatives of teaching during COVID-19 and their shared ideas for projects at home and virtually. Later, the group discussed the book “Soul of an Octopus “, by Sy Montgomery which they received  in advance of the workshop day to discuss with UConn Faculty panel:

• Jamie Kleinman, Assoc. Professor in Residence of Psychology at UConn Avery Point
• Patti Brown, Adjunct Faculty at UConn Avery Point. Patti was a high school teacher at Fitch and has her master’s from UConn in oceanography and has experience teaching heartfulness/meditation
• Karen Dobley Adjunct Professor at UConn Avery Point whose expertise is in animal behavior and ecology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UConn ECE Marine Science courses offered through ECE.

On Wednesday, March 24^th, UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Italian and Assistant Professor in Residence Tina Chiappetta-Miller met with ECE Italian Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

The group met to discuss teaching during COVID-19 and their best strategies and resources. Later, Assistant Professor Camilla Zamboni from Wesleyan University shared her talk “Teaching Italian through Games: Practical Approaches for a Gameful Pedagogy” with the Instructors.

Each Instructor received a copy of the board game Dixit. The game is based on picture cards that the players use words and expressions in the target language (in this case Italian) to describe in a cooperative and story-building ways. Prof. Zamboni discussed how to adapt games like Dixit to the Italian classroom (as well as provide a few online options) and why games can work as great teaching tools.

 

UConn ECE Italian courses offered through ECE.

On Tuesday, April 6th, UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Biology, Dr. Tom Abbott and colleagues Jean Laughman and Dr. Christopher Malinoski met with ECE Biology Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

The group met to discuss future curriculum directions and pedagogy in our classrooms. Later, Dr. Abbott showed Instructors how to use computational techniques in the 3D Modeling of Proteins, and its use in the addressing of complex health problems and its possible implementation in ECE Biology classrooms.

The figure below and its description were taken from a public protein database and can be visualized and analyzed using a computer-modeling program called PyMol.

“Spike glycoprotein, a class I fusion protein harboring the surface of SARS-CoV-2 (SARS-CoV-2S), plays a seminal role in the viral infection starting from recognition of the host cell surface receptor, attachment to the fusion of the viral envelope with the host cells”

The morning ended with a discussion on the merits of molecular modeling skill development and its implementation in our classrooms. Dr. Abbott and Dr. Malinoski also shared a scientific animation project with the instructors.

 

UConn Biology courses offered through Early College Experience.

On Thursday, April 8th, UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinators for English Scott Campbell and Jason Courtmanche met with ECE English Instructors for their spring professional development conference.

UConn English courses offered through Early College Experience.

ECE English website

 

On Wednesday, January 6th  UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Chemistry Dr. Fatma Selampinar met with ECE Chemistry Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

The group enjoyed a conversation about how they are teaching their UConn chemistry courses in remote and hybrid settings. Also discussed were questions about course content and final exams.

Later the group participated in an interactive presentation by Dr. Jessica Rogue Department of Chemistry, University of Connecticut titled “Integrating lessons in Bionanotechnology Research with Lessons in Teaching.”

UConn Chemistry courses offered through UConn ECE.

 

On Wednesday, January 13th UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Maritime Studies Laurie Wolfley met with ECE Maritime Studies Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

Also in attendance were UConn faculty members, Mary K Bercaw Edwards, Syma Ebbin and Nathaniel Trumbull. ECE Instructors and UConn Faculty enjoyed a group enjoyed conversation about how they are teaching their courses in remote and hybrid settings.

Later, Mary K Bercaw Edwards and Craig Edwards shared an interdisciplinary workshop on “Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous” complete with live and prerecorded musical performances of period music played and sang by Craig on multiple instruments including guitar, fiddle, mandolin, accordion and banjo. After a short break, Syma Ebbin shared her talk “Climate Change: Impacts and Solutions” with the group and a short Q&A period occurred.

UConn Maritime Studies courses offered through UConn ECE.

 

On Wednesday, February 10^th  UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for American Studies Laurie Wolfley, Faculty Coordinator for Latino and Latin American Studies Anne Gebelein, and Faculty Coordinator for U.S. History Matt McKenzie met with ECE American Studies, Latino and Latin American and U.S. History Instructors for a professional development conference.

Guest speaker Dexter Gabriel shared his research about Juneteenth and the origins of Black History Month with the group. After his talk, he engaged in an interactive group discussion with Instructors. Dr. Gabriel is an

After a short break, the attendees broke into small groups to discuss their favorite lessons and ideas for envisioning new lessons revolving around African American and Latino History. Later the instructors spent time in a discipline specific breakout session with their faculty coordinator discussing their course specific questions.

 

UConn American Studies, U.S. History, Latino and Latin American Studies courses offered through UConn ECE.

On Friday, February 26^th,  UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinators from UConn’s Literatures, Cultures and Languages Department (Spanish), Guillermo B. Irizarry and Eduardo Urios-Aparisi met with ECE Spanish Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

Guest speaker Carlos Gardeazábal-Bravo from Colby College shared his presentation “Taller multimodal sobre derechos humanos latinoamericanos” (“Multimodal workshop on Latin American Human Rights”) with the group and answered their questions. His talk included the implementation of film and other practical applications.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After Dr. Gardeazábal-Bravo’s talk, ECE Faculty Coordinators Prof. Irizarry and Prof. Urios-Aparisi spoke with the ECE Spanish Instructors to discuss issues and resources of environmental issues and their course specific questions and concerns.

UConn Spanish courses offered through UConn ECE.

On Wednesday, March 3^rd , UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator from Allied Health Sciences Prof. Bruce Blanchard met with ECE Allied Health Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

Prof. Blanchard discussed AH 1100, AH 2001 and AH 4092 courses with the Instructors and spoke to course content, the HuskyCT sites, assessments, and their challenges and concerns they’ve experienced teaching their courses remotely this year. Later in the afternoon, guest speaker Dean McKay, PhD, ABPP; Department of Psychology Professor; Fordham University spoke to the Instructors about “Unique Stressors in the Age of COVID: Five Major Dimensions and General Coping Strategies”.

UConn Allied Health courses offered through UConn ECE.