Tag: University of Vermont

A new study shows that eighth-grade science teachers without an educational background in science are less likely to practice inquiry-oriented science instruction, a pedagogical approach that develops students’ understanding of scientific concepts and engages students in hands-on science projects. This research offers new evidence for why U.S. middle-grades students may lag behind their global peers in scientific literacy. Inquiry-oriented science instruction has been heralded by the National Research Council and other experts in science education as best practice for teaching students 21st-century scientific knowledge and skills. 

Published in The Elementary School Journal, the study investigated whether the educational backgrounds of 9,500 eighth-grade science teachers in 1,260 public schools were predictive of the level in which they engaged in inquiry-oriented instruction. The authors found that, nationwide, there are two distinct groups of middle-grades science teachers: 1) those with very little formal education in science or engineering, and 2) those with degrees and substantial coursework in science. 

Teachers who were most likely to use inquiry-based teaching were those with both education and science degrees, and teachers with graduate-level degrees in science were most likely to teach this way. However, nationally, just half of teachers had these preferred credentials, and nearly one-quarter of eighth-grade teachers had an education-related degree with no formal educational background in science or engineering. 

The study’s findings beg the question: are middle-grades teachers well-prepared to engage in the kinds of teaching that have been shown to improve student engagement, interest, and preparation for STEM careers? Study author Tammy Kolbe, assistant professor of educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Vermont, says results “point toward the disparate nature of middle-level teachers’ educational backgrounds as a possible leverage point for change.” 

Another key finding was that teachers with undergraduate or graduate degrees in science continued to use inquiry-oriented instruction throughout their careers at a higher rate than their peers. That said, novice teachers with undergraduate minors in science who initially were less likely to teach this way eventually caught up to their peers with stronger educational backgrounds in science. “This suggests that even having an undergraduate minor in science better positions a teacher to adopt and integrate reform-oriented science teaching, compared to teachers with little-to-no formal education in science or engineering,” says Kolbe.

“We cannot expect that goals for reforming science education in the United States can be achieved without carefully examining how teachers are prepared,” says Kolbe, who co-authored the study with Simon Jorgenson, assistant professor in the Department of Education at UVM. “We show that teachers’ educational backgrounds matter for how they teach science, and suggest that teachers’ degrees and coursework are valid proxies for what teachers know and can do in the classroom. The study’s findings call into question existing state policies and teacher preparation programs that minimize content knowledge requirements for middle-level teachers.”

Source: UVM News

A press conference and reception held on June 28 at the University of Vermont Davis Center brought together dozens of students, family members, math lovers and UVM faculty as the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont received an historic endowment that will fund math acceleration for future generations of Vermont students.

Kenneth Gross, a nationally renowned UVM professor of mathematics, and Tony Trono, a visionary and popular high school mathematics teacher, originally founded the Vermont Math, Science, and Technology High School Summer Institute more than two decades ago to fill educational gaps for Vermont’s most promising math students. Since becoming part of the Governors Institutes in 2002, the program continues to inspire and prepare hundreds of young Vermonters to pursue advanced studies and careers in mathematical fields.

Tony Trono and family members of late founder Kenneth Gross were on hand as the institute was rechristened “The Kenneth I. Gross and Anthony Trono Governor’s Institute on Mathematical Sciences.”

“Ken was committed to providing enrichment opportunities for students who are talented in mathematics without regard to potential barriers,” said Mary Lou Gross. “Our family is pleased that through the Governor’s Institutes of Vermont he and Tony Trono will be remembered for their dedication to students and to the teaching and learning of mathematics.”

The quarter of a million dollar endowment by the Gross family will fund programming and tuition scholarships to ensure that high school mathematicians in Vermont will continue to benefit from the Institute’s advanced summer mathematics programs without regard to ability to pay or geography.

The Governor’s Institutes of Vermont is a 35-year old nonprofit dedicated to providing world- class advanced learning opportunities across a wide range of topics to Vermont students who otherwise would lack access to in-depth resources due to geography or income.

Gross was came to UVM in 1987 as chair of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics. In addition to creating the high summer institute with Trono, he also founded the Vermont Mathematics Initiative (VMI) in 1999 to improve k-12 mathematics and statistics education, which became a model program nationally. 

 

Source: UVM News

If you cool a wire to a very low temperature—much colder than your freezer—something amazing happens: the electrons responsible for carrying the electrical current pair up and can flow forever without slowing down or producing heat.

This remarkable phenomena, known as superconductivity, is crucial to the magnetic resonance imaging machines used in hospitals as well as large-scale particle colliders. Some metals become superconducting at higher temperatures, which has important potential for electric power transmission and superconductor-based data processing.

However, if scientists reduce the thickness of a wire down to the nanoscale size required for modern computer components—millions of times thinner than a human hair—the transition to the superconducting state can disappear, “with the electrons stubbornly refusing to get along all the way down to absolute zero temperature,” says UVM physicist Adrian Del Maestro.

Now a new study, co-led by Del Maestro and University of Utah physicist Andrey Rogachev, shows why.

The research, published July 9 in the journal Nature Physics, is the first to uncover the microscopic process by which metal wires lose their superconductivity: when the wire is small enough, a magnetic field can break apart these pairs of electrons, called Cooper pairs, which interact with other Cooper pairs and experience a damping force from unpaired electrons present in the system. The tiny wire undergoes what is called a quantum phase transition, changing from a superconductor to normal metal.

“The ability to control this transition in nanowires could lead to a new class of energy efficient information technologies based on tiny superconductors,” says Del Maestro.

New properties

To understand phase transitions, study your iced drink on a hot summer day. It’s a lesson in classical phase transitions. Apply heat and watch how its properties change. At a so-called critical point, it transforms from a liquid to a gas. Remove heat from the water by putting it in the freezer and watch it turn into a solid—ice.

Now, imagine that you’ve cooled everything down to very low temperatures — so low that all thermal effects vanish. Welcome to the quantum realm, where pressure and magnetic fields cause new phases to emerge in a phenomenon called quantum phase transitions (QPT). More than a simple transition from one phase to another, QPT can form completely new properties—including superconductivity.

Scientists discovered superconductivity more than 100 years ago—and high-temperature superconductors in 1986—but the exact mechanism for how it works remains an enigma because the majority of materials are too complex to understand the physics in detail.

But the scientists on the new study, led by groups at the University of Utah and the University of Grenoble in France, were able to fabricate and test state-of-the-art nanowires, under ten nanometers thick, out of a metal alloy called molybdenum-germanium. With these, the team, supported by the National Science Foundation, was able to closely study how nanowires can undergo quantum phase transitions from superconducting to a normal metal state when placed in an increasing magnetic field at low temperatures.

The new laboratory findings are fully explained by the theory proposed by UVM’s Adrian Del Maestro.  This is the first time in the field of superconductivity that all details of a quantum phase transition predicted by a theory were confirmed on real objects in the lab.

“Quantum phase transitions may sound really exotic, but they are observed in many systems, from the center of stars to the nucleus of atoms, and from magnets to insulators,” says Utah’s Rogachev, the senior author of the study. “By understanding quantum fluctuations in this simpler system, we can talk about every detail of the microscopic process and apply it to more complicated objects.”

Theoretical meets experimental

Condensed matter physicists study what happens to materials with all of their heat removed in two ways—experimental physicists develop materials to test in a lab, while theoretical physicists develop mathematical equations to understand the physical behavior. This new research in Nature Physics tells the story of how theory and experiment informed and motivated each other. 

As a postdoctoral fellow, Rogachev showed that applying magnetic fields to nanowires under low temperatures distorts superconductivity.  He understood the effects at finite temperatures but came to no conclusion as to what happens at the “critical point” where superconductivity falters. His work, however, inspired the young theoretical physicist Adrian Del Maestro, a graduate student at Harvard at the time, to develop a complete critical theory of the quantum phase transition.

In Del Maestro’s “pair breaking” theory, single electrons are unlikely to bump into the edges of the smallest wire since even a single strand of atoms is large compared to the size of an electron.  But, Del Maestro says, “two electrons that form the pairs responsible for superconductivity can be far apart and now the nanoscale size of the wire makes it more difficult for them to travel together.” Then add in a powerful magnetic field, which disentangles pairs by curving their paths, and “the electrons are unable to conspire to form the superconducting state,” said Del Maestro.

“Imagine that the edges of the wire and the magnetic field act like some frictional force that makes electrons not want to pair up as much,” said Del Maestro. “That physics should be universal.” Which is exactly what his theory and the new experiment show.

“Only a few key ingredients—spatial dimension and existence of superconductivity—are essential when describing the emergent properties of electrons at quantum phase transitions,” he said. The amazing agreement between the conductivity values Del Maestro’s theory predicted over a decade ago and the values measured in the new experiment sets a powerful standard for “the experimental confirmation of quantum universality,” Del Maestro said, “and underscores the importance of fundamental physics research.”

Source: UVM News

When it comes to Shakespeare, Angeline Chiu isn’t afraid to crack a joke. “You have to laugh at it. I think you have to have fun with it, or it becomes a dead letter.” Case in point: The classics professor totes a plastic skull, a reference to Yorick from Hamlet, along to many of her classes. “If I could have my students learn anything, it’s that Shakespeare’s for everybody.”

Chiu is a UVM alumna (MA in Greek and Latin, 2000). In addition to Shakespeare, she teaches courses in all levels on Greek and Latin langauge, literature, and translation. 

About Faculty Feature:

What makes our faculty members tick? In this video series, get up close and personal with our professors. Hear them talk about their passions, their paths to UVM and why they love what they study, from the mysteries of Lake Champlain’s sculpin to the stories of homeless children in Pakistan. 

Source: UVM News

University of Vermont in collaboration with the University of Maine and others will create a highly competitive University Transportation Center (UTC) called the Transportation Infrastructure Durability Center (TIDC). TIDC aims to help save taxpayer dollars by extending the life of our transportation assets, including bridges, roads and rail.

The U.S. Department of Transportation will provide as much as $14.2 million over five years for this University of Maine-led coalition, which includes the University of Vermont, University of Rhode Island, University of Connecticut, University of Massachusetts Lowell and Western New England University.

Mandar Dewoolkar, chair and professor of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UVM, will be receiving $1.25 million over five years to assist in the development of this regional initiative. UVM professors Ehsan Ghazanfari, Dryver Huston and Ting Tan collaborated on the proposal.

Additional partners include representatives from the Vermont Agency of Transportation, Maine Department of Transportation, Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Connecticut Department of Transportation, Rhode Island Department of Transportation and the American Society of Civil Engineers Transportation and Development Institute.

“This is an exciting opportunity for UVM students, research staff and faculty to perform innovative research for improving the durability and extending the life of our transportation infrastructure,” said Dewoolkar. “I look forward to this partnership with the University of Maine and others across all New England states, which will strengthen our collaboration in transportation research, education and technology transfer.” 

New England’s transportation infrastructure faces unique challenges due to harsh winter weather and short construction seasons. According to American Society of Civil Engineers, nearly 30 percent of New England roads are rated in poor condition which, on average, costs each motorist $584 annually in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs. Nationally, driving on roads in need of repair costs U.S. motorists $120.5 billion.

Working with state departments of transportation, the new TIDC seeks to identify new materials and technologies that maximize the impact of transportation infrastructure investments. The center will work along four pathways: 1) develop improved road and bridge monitoring and assessment tools; 2) develop better ways to strengthen existing bridges to extend their life; 3) use new materials and systems to build longer-lasting new bridges and accelerate construction; and 4) use new connectivity tools to enhance asset and performance management while promoting workforce development.

TIDC will harness the experience of 28 faculty researchers and train 280 student researchers from all New England states. It will focus on real infrastructure needs identified by the department of transporation partners and will prioritize extending the life of existing transportation assets to ensure cost-effectiveness.

Since 1987, the University Transportation Center program has advanced transportation research and technology at colleges and universities across the country. Every five years, academic institutions nationwide compete to form their region’s UTC.

The University of Vermont and other member universities of the new TIDC have an extensive record of accomplishments in transportation infrastructure research, education and technology transfer.

 

Source: UVM News

Following a highly successful six-year tenure as The University of Vermont’s 26th president, Tom Sullivan today announced that, after one more year, he will step out of the presidency in the summer of 2019.

“When the Board of Trustees extended an offer to serve as UVM’s president in February 2012, I was asked the length of time I could envision for this presidency. I knew the University was planning a major comprehensive fundraising campaign and the Board wanted its next president to lead a successful campaign,” said Sullivan. “Now with the University’s comprehensive campaign crossing over its campaign goal of $500 million, one year ahead of schedule, UVM is poised for its next era of reaching even greater academic expectations and aspirations. The time is right!”

Board of Trustees Chair David Daigle expressed great appreciation for Sullivan’s leadership. “In 2012 the UVM Board of Trustees sought a president who could lead our community on a mission to improve the academic and financial profile of UVM. President Sullivan has succeeded in this mission, and our entire community owes him a debt of gratitude for his selfless service to UVM. Tom has led with a passion for students and higher education, with reasoned and thoughtful decision-making, and with unwavering integrity. Our University is unequivocally stronger as a result of his efforts and accomplishments.”

Sullivan stated that he is thankful for the way the University community responded to his call to “raise our expectations and aspirations to create an academic experience of the highest quality” during his installation address in the Fall of 2012.

The University will begin a formal search process for a new president immediately, according to Daigle, with the goal of selecting a successful candidate by March of 2019. Comprehensive information about the search process will be shared with the entire UVM community, he said.

Source: UVM News