Personal Goals

I have two main goals for my stay here at Stanford. First, I hope to further my own knowledge of science in a broad range of topics and my knowledge of engineering in one very specific topic, most likely to be better understanding thermal boundary resistance in the field of microscale heat transfer. Second, I hope to leave Stanford with a viable plan for an after-school science program. Some of my current plans for the after-school program include allowing the students a hands on guided discovery learning experience in an informal (and fun) setting where they feel free to ask all their science questions. A key aspect of this after-school science program would be that we would perform experiments to verify or rediscover the known answers to their questions; in the process students would learn about the process which is science thinking. During this course, Designing Learning Spaces, I hope to gain insight on the considerations for designing a learning space so that I will be able to begin designing my own after-school learning space.

Dan Wow, Sarah, these are great specific goals, I'm glad that we can all contribute to them. Your interest in science and the discovery process is great for this course and is a good match for the Children's Discovery Museum project which is seeking to help younger children through the inquiry porocess. Rolf has some experience with this and might be able to guide you beyond the resources of this course.

Dave: I love that you are hoping to improve learning experiences in science--possibly one of the most underutilized subject as far as potential for incredible learning. I remember far to many days in elementary school learning science from a textbook. That should never happen, and I believe that with people like you on the problem, other children may be saved from the science textbook!

Nesra: Sarah, it's great to read that we share similar ideas and goals. I am also focusing on making science education more fun and creative for kids, encouraging them to ask questions rather than accepting the given facts. For my master's project, I am working on creating a virtual environment where kids can discover the physics principles by themselves while constructing their own physics based animations. I would love to talk further about your ideas on these issues.

Annie A Hi Sarah, Your idea to create an after-school science program sounds great, and I really hope that this class helps give you some of the skills to come up with really cool ideas for how that program could be executed.   My interest in this class also stemmed from a plan to start an after-school program for high schoolers.  I'd definitely recommend reserving a page in your design journal to keep track of any good insights that might relate to your plan, it really helped me keep the ideas fresh. 

4/18/08

"What have I learned in Grad School? How do I know that I've learned it?"

This question has been puzzling me a great deal. I feel like I must have learned something, but it's hard to figure out exactly what. I know some facts that I didn't know before I came here, such as KOH etches silicon very anisotropically and that silicondioxide can be used as an etch stop. But I don't think little facts are what I am here at Stanford to learn. I feel like I should have learned some bigger things, such as ways in which lasers could be used for experiments. But I havent learned that well enough to put together my own experiment or even describe the ways in which the lasers in my lab are being used. So, because I can't really show that I know that, maybe I dont know how lasers are useful at all. On a larger scale, I want to say that I have learned something about myself while here at Stanford, and I know that because I have a better idea about what kind of career I would like to pursue, but I'm not sure I have a better idea, so that may not be ture either.

In short, it seems as though I haven't really learned anything while in graduate school.

5/16/08

Field Trip

I took my field trip to the Y2E2 Building on campus. It was quite exciting to see the new building, and we were really impressed by the design of the space. There was plenty of room for people to gather and share ideas everywhere (door-less break rooms, glass-walled meeting rooms, open lounges, etc.). In addition, we noticed that all of these open areas allowed for natural lighting and use of natural convection for cooling the building in the evenings. I noticed that we too should be concerned about where the sun is throughout the day and the shade that may be created by the fence for the CDM project.

Dan - I'm glad to hear that thinking about the sun made an impact on you and your team thinking about the CDM space.   I'm curious to see how this gets represented in your final project for CDM.  I've learned a lot about Y2E2 from reading the reflections of so many of your classmates who also went there - I'd encourage you to link your page to your teammates pages.

5/23/08

My Field Trip to Cubberly Library

I visited Cubberly Library. It is very different from the engineering library (which is the only other library I have been to). I really liked the use of natural light to light the individual work tables hidden in the stacks. i would imagine that students who know that they are easily distracted would prefer to study there because you may not have a single person pass by you while you are studying. The main area of the library has large tables with lots of chairs, although the quite nature of the library discourages using this area for group work. There is a table and marker board for group work although it is very small in comparison to the group work areas throughout the rest of campus. Overall the library seems like a place to store books. There was very little easily apprehensible signposting, for new visitors to find things by browsing. Large windows make it a pleasing place to be though, so for the student who likes to study in extreme quite and independently this is the place for you. Unfortunately, it does not seem like other learning styles are encouraged.

Dan - Nice acknowledgement here of what this library does do well- namely provide a good place for students to study quietly.  Your point about it being overall a place to store books is also interesting - to what degree does just seeing those books or being in the same room as them encourage learning?