Current Projects

CISE was awarded a Math Science Partnership Grant from the State of Virginia to increase the subject matter knowledge and teaching skills of elementary science teachers. Core partners include (i) department of Physics, Computer Science and Engineering (PCSE) and the Office of Teacher Preparation at CNU, (ii) multiple high-needs school division partners - Portsmouth, Newport News and Hampton City Public Schools and (iii) the National Institute for Aerospace. Together we have designed a program of professional development activities that will assist local schools in closing the achievement gap in science for all students. We have offered an introductory one-week summer workshop and a semester-long course in science content. A second course will be offered in the Spring 2008 semester with a reflective/summary workshop in June of 2008.
Technology Enhanced Learning of English and Science is a partnership between CNU and Northampton County Public Schools. The PI is Dr. Rebecca Wheeler of the English Department at CNU with Chaudhury serving as co-PI. The project brings together middle school teachers of English and Science to apply the Code Switching techniques to students' vernacular grammar and the use of TELS online units to provide content, rich, inquiry based curriculum where students write about the science they are learning. All science teachers from NC Middle School attended the Hampton Roads Regional TELS Symposium, Aug. 6-7, 2007 and have participated in follow up training to ensure they are ready for the TELS project runs. English teachers have also participated in Professional Development activities at NCPS in order to prepare them to engage in Code Switching lessons with their students. CNU students from the MAT program are assisting Profs. Wheeler and Chaudhury on this project. It is funded by a NCLB grant from State Council for Higher Education in Virginia (SCHEV).
The Physics, Computer Science and Engineering (PCSE) Department together with Information Technology Services has initiated a video iPod project. Participating faculty will develop three hours of educational video. They will be able to draw on the facilities and staff of the Multimedia Computing Laboratory in the PCSE Department. The videos will be published as video podcasts and in formats suitable for download. Look on the CISE web site for future updates.
Several projects for K-16 learners have been created using etoys in Squeak. Squeak is a free, multimedia, object oriented programming environment that runs on several different computer platforms. All of the projects use the fun etoy environment of Squeak that is designed to inspire and enhance learning. Squeak has the power to build higher order thinking skills, because learners can deconstruct the projects, reconstruct the projects, and construct new projects using simple graphical programming tiles. Before you can enter the exciting world of Squeak, you need to download the Squeak plugin at www.squeakland.org. You can find the Squeak projects at www.pcs.cnu.edu/~rcaton/squeak.html.