Ninth Annual Rensselaer Colloquium on Teaching & Learning
May 11 - 12, 2009
The Office of the Provost sponsored the Ninth Annual Rensselaer Colloquium on Teaching and Learning held May 11-12, 2009. The colloquium brought us exciting keynote speakers from UC-San Diego, Bucknell, and Rensselaer.
The colloquium was open to all faculty, staff, and graduate students. Faculty of other colleges and universities, as well as area school district administrators and teachers, were also most welcome.
Day 1
May 11:
The Science of Art — The Art of Science
8:30 - 8:45
Refreshments available
8:45 - 9:00
Welcome & Introduction EMPAC Theater
Prabhat Hajela, Vice Provost & Dean of Undergraduate Education, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Brad Lister, Director, CIUE
Morning Keynotes
9:00 - 10:00
Roger Reynolds
Professor of Music, UC San Diego
At the Interface of Art and Science: Opportunity, Manifestation, Transformation, Obligation
What is found at the interface between music and digital technology? Singularly, a watershed opportunity in music history: the ability to transfer what had previously been the province of imagination into the realm of shared experience. (My dreams become your experience.). In what ways is this realized? One can manifest sonic content that could not arise in the real world: synthesized sound, spatial trajectories for sounds, and their intricate temporal reformulations (phenomena that defeat fingers and defy inertia). One now has also the ability to transform naturally occurring sound materials powerfully and malleably, without loss of their essential identities. Such modifications are at the core of music’s meanings.
These are but some of the horizons that technology now offers musical art. Such disciplinary interfacing ought to involve the obligation to inform oneself, to be able not only to communicate effectively with collaborators more expert than oneself, but also to have direct experience with, and then useful intuitions about, the interplay of music and computation. This obligation is shared by both aesthetic and technological perspectives. A ten-year collaborative project between Ircam and UCSD will be described as an instance.
Roger Reynolds is an American composer with a degree in engineering physics, Reynolds is a very eclectic and experimental artist whose work explores the boundaries of space, perception, and technology. Musically influenced by the American Experimentalists and the Second Viennese School, many of his works are built around texts derived from mythology and postmodern literature, and his impressive catalog covers a wide range of musical territory from string quartets to multimedia productions involving computers, video, dance and theater. Among numerous other awards and commissions, he won the 1989 Pulitzer Prize for his Whispers Out of Time for string orchestra. Watershed, a "pathbreaking exploration of the new DVD medium," was released by Mode Records in January of 1999 and features his music. He is currently professor of music at the University of California at San Diego.
The works of Reynolds draw from many modern authors, including García Márquez, Joyce, Beckett, and of course, Borges.
10:00 - 11:00
Andrea R. Halpern
Professor of Psychology,
Bucknell University,
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania
Mental Concerts: Musical Imagery and the Brain
Many people report that they can imagine all kinds of sounds, particularly music. Even nonmusicians can call up favorite pieces for internal listening. And musicians may find this ability useful in their profession, as when carrying out mental practice or studying scores silently. For some years, I have been exploring the neural underpinnings of this phenomenon. I will describe studies that require both generation and manipulation of auditory images. I also consider some of the theoretical and practical challenges involved in capturing such an “internal” experience. To summarize some results: studies using techniques such as lesions, PET, fMRI, and TMS have converged on the importance of secondary auditory structures, frontal areas, and supplementary motor area in mediating the experiences of a tune running through one’s head. Some of these structures overlap with those involved in processing heard music, and some appear to be unique to the imagery or perception experience, respectively. For instance, we have not, to date, found activation in the primary auditory cortex during auditory imagination. Studies requiring more active manipulation of internal music show structures in common with other demanding mental tasks like mental visuospatial rotation.
For Andrea Halpern, music is more than a hobby, it's also her area of research. A cognitive psychologist, she has been a leader in the field of music perception, as well as a singer with the Susquehanna Valley Chorale.
Halpern's research has focused on studying music memory as "a way of generalizing memory phenomena." She has used music to examine which areas of the brain are responsible for auditory processing. She has found that many of the brain areas active when we perceive music are also active when we imagine music. As she says, "the idea that we can 'hear' a song in our heads has physiological legitimacy to some extent."
She also has looked at the question, "What do people learn about a piece of music on first exposure?" By looking at how individuals learn music, Halpern is "trying to understand how memory works at the 'front end' as information is entered into our brains."
During her 26-year Bucknell career, Halpern has mentored more than 85 undergraduate and masters students, involving them in her research. In 2004, she was named a Fellow by the Council on Undergraduate Research, recognizing her work with undergraduate researchers.
11:00 - 11:15
Break
11:15 - 12:15
Asst. Prof., Cognitive Science, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
How to Co-opt an Ape Brain for Language and Art
Our brains are the most complicated devices in the universe, but they
are only good at doing what they evolved to do. Cultural creations like
language and art "work" on our brains only when they have the "shapes" our brains are good at processing. What are our brains good at? They're great at processing nature, and I will show that art and language have, accordingly, culturally evolved over time to mimic nature. We're avid language users and art buffs not because our brains evolved for language or art, but, rather, because language and art culturally evolved to look and sound like what our brains evolved to process and crave.
12:15 - 1:30
Lunch - EMPAC Evelyn's Café
Afternoon Plenary Session EMPAC Theater
1:30 - 2:30
Michael Balter
Anthropologist and Author: The Goddess and the Bull
The Origin of Art and Symbolism
Humans are capable of incredible creativity. We make art, music, and literature, and our everyday language is colorful and innovative. As one researcher put it, we are the "symbolic species." What are the roots of this symbolism, and why and how did we evolve these abilities? We cannot find the answer by simply looking for the earliest works of art, such as cave paintings, because we cannot be sure that even earlier examples of symbolic behavior have been lost over time; and since language does not fossilize, we cannot know how long ago our ability to talk to each other evolved. Instead we must look for "proxy" indications in the archaeological record, such as the ability to make sophisticated tools and the use of colored pigments. This search leads us to hominid species that predate Homo sapiens, and raises important questions about how and why such abilities helped us to survive over the ages.
Michael Balter was born in Alaska's Aleutian Islands and grew up in Los Angeles. He attended UCLA from 1965-69, where he was a leader in the movement against the Vietnam War. From 1969-71, he organized GI's against the war as a soldier stationed at Fort Ord, California. After receiving his bachelor's degree in biology from San Jose State University, he returned to UCLA, where he was granted a master's degree in biology in 1977.
Balter then went into journalism, first at Pacifica's Los Angeles station, KPFK, and then as a freelance writer for the L.A. Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and Los Angeles magazine, among others. He was also an oral historian at UCLA's Oral History Program. During the early 1980s, he worked on the American Civil Liberties Union's lawsuit against L.A.'s police department for spying on peaceful political groups.
In 1988, Balter married an Englishwoman and moved to Paris, where he wrote for the International Herald Tribune, Islands, Travel & Leisure, Bon Appétit, and the Columbia Journalism Review, among others. From 1993-2002 he was Paris bureau chief for Science, for which he now works as Contributing Correspondent. Balter also writes for the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times. He divides his time between Paris, where he lives with his wife and daughter, and Boston, where he teaches science journalism at Boston University.
2:30 - 3:30
Panel Discussion
Evolving Consilience of Art and Science
Roger Reynolds, Andrea R Halpern, Mark A. Changizi, and Michael Balter
3:30 - 5:00
Reception - EMPAC Evelyn's Café
Music by the Perfect Duo
Day 2
May 12:
Innovations in Teaching at RPI
Morning Speakers EMPAC Theater
8:45 - 9:00
Refreshments, Welcome & Introduction
9:00 - 9:45
Virtual Heliodon: Spatially Augmented Reality for Architectural Daylighting Design
Barbara Cutler, Asst. Prof.,
Computer Science
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
We present an application of interactive global illumination and spatially augmented reality to architectural daylight modeling that allows designers to explore alternative designs and new technologies for improving the sustainability of their buildings. Images of a model in the real world, captured by a camera above the scene, are processed to construct a virtual 3D model. To achieve interactive rendering rates, we use a hybrid rendering technique, leveraging radiosity to simulate the inter-reflectance between diffuse patches and shadow volumes to generate per-pixel direct illumination. The rendered images are then projected on the real model by four calibrated projectors to help users study the daylighting illumination. The virtual heliodon is a physical design environment in which multiple designers, a designer and a client, or a teacher and students can gather to experience animated visualizations of the natural illumination within a proposed design by controlling the time of day, season, and climate. Furthermore, participants may interactively redesign the geometry and materials of the space by manipulating physical design elements and see the updated lighting simulation.
Barb Cutler is an Assistant Professor in the Computer Science Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. My research interests include computer graphics, geometry processing, algorithms, programming language design, and design tools for architecture. Previously she was a student and then Post-Doctoral Lecturer at MIT in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science doing research in the Computer Graphics Group which is part of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
9:45 - 10:30
Telematic Music in the Context of Learning, Interaction, and Creativity
Jonas Braasch, Asst. Prof.,
School of Architecture
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The idea to broadcast music over long distances by electronic means is nearly as old as the invention of the telephone. However, live interaction with co-located ensembles has only recently raised significant interest, even though the required technology already existed in the 1930s. But only the introduction of several personal video conferencing systems in the beginning of the new millennium sparked a broader cultural desire to interact live with other musicians over the Internet. Although present systems typically pose a number of challenges, such as insufficient bandwidth, transmission latency, and echo feedback, the opportunities are immense including the possibilities for educational activities. Solutions to these challenges include technological developments, the creation of more suitable music styles, and/or the combination of both, in form of intelligent agents that help to connect the distributed musicians.
Jonas Braasch was born in 1971 in Wipperfürth, Germany. From 1992 until 1998, he studied Physics at the University of Dortmund where he received a diploma degree. Afterwards, he obtained a three-year doctoral scholarship within the graduate school "KOGNET" (cognition, neuronal networks) at the Ruhr-University Bochum. In 2001, he received a Doctor-of-Engineering degree for his thesis: "Auditory Localization and Detection in Multiple-Sound-Source Scenarios", in which he investigated the human ability to localize sound sources in a multi-source environment. He also investigated the precedence effect and simulating human hearing in reverberant conditions. Jonas Braasch second field of research is related to musical acoustics (History and Technology of Musical Instruments). He has conducted a number of investigations on the free-reed stops of concert-hall and church organs. In 2004, he completed his Ph.D. thesis in this field at the Institute of Musicology of the Ruhr-University Bochum. Through the years 2004-2005, Jonas Braasch worked in the Sound Recording Area of the Faculty of Music at McGill University as Research Associate/Assistant Professor. In Jan. 2006, Dr. Braasch started as Assistant Professor in the Program in Architectural Acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
10:30 - 10:45
Break
10:45 - 12:15
Adding the Sense of Touch to the Virtual Environment
Suvranu De, Assoc. Prof.,
Mechanical, Aerospace, & Nuclear Engineering
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
From the learning of fine motor skills to the expression of intimate artistic emotions, touch plays an inextricable role in our everyday life. Current advances in science and technology are making it possible, for the first time, to reach out and interact with computer-generated environments, shake hands across continents and create phantasms where the sensory modalities intermingle and coalesce creating the illusion of "touching the sound" or "seeing the music!" In this talk I will introduce the rapidly growing field of "haptics" and how it is finding an increasing role in design, modeling and other techno-artistic applications. The future, of course, can only be more exciting! It is anticipated that EMPAC will provide the perfect forum for these and other applications.
12:15 - 1:15
Lunch - EMPAC Evelyn's Café
Afternoon Workshops
1:15 - 4:15
Web 2.0 Technologies and Blended Learning CII 3206
Marie-Pierre Huguet, Ph.D.
Senior Course Developer
Caelynn Prylo
Course Developer
In this hands-on workshop, participants are led through a series of mini presentations, discussions, and activities that enable them to identify, compare, contrast, and use the tools, techniques, and technologies presented and consider their application in blended learning. The highly interactive approach allows participants to test some of the tools, techniques, and technologies discussed and ultimately develop their own successful blended solution. Though the focus is on Web 2.0 technologies (such as YouTube, podcasting, blogs, wikis, and social networking), topics presented include overviews of course design models, media creation tools, assessment tools, accessibility tools, and their effective integration into the Blackboard environment.
1:15 - 4:15
New Visions in Information Technology and Web Science Lally 102
Atsushi Akera, Assoc. Prof,
Science & Technology Studies
Jim Hendler
Information Technology
The Information Technology Program and the Tetherless World Constellation will be sponsoring a program development workshop on "Web Science" and its curricular implications for the IT Program. Web Science is a new and emergent field of study that intersects with our existing curricular strengths in the field of information technology. It promises to provide our students with unique opportunities to extend their IT skills through more formal analytical insights into various technical and social phenomena associated with the World Wide Web. We expect growing student interest in this area, and plan on using the workshop to allow the IT Faculty to explore productive ways to modify our curriculum and other academic programs both to garner and encourage this student interest. Others with an interest in this topic are invited to attend.
1:15 - 4:15
Teaching the Art of Learning: Can We Teach Our Students How to Learn From Lectures? CII 3112
Bill Puka, Prof.
Cognitive Science
Bram van Heuveln, Jim Fahey, Clinical Asst. Profs.,
Cognitive Science
Many students see class lectures as one-way streets for transmitting information, a process that requires little active engagement on their part with the substance of the material presented. In light of this, and in an effort to make this process less dreary for all, we lecturers often focus on how to make ourselves and our presentations more entertaining, even titillating. Instead, perhaps we should focus more on ways to help our students become active and engaged participants in the lecturing process. Can we teach them how to listen? How to take notes? How to think critically, creatively and wisely about the material presented and thereby take ownership of the learning process?
Workshop participants will be asked to join us in discussing ways we might help our students to improve their lecture-learning-skills. Cognitive Science research on "best practices" will be presented.
