Weinstein to Lead Today's Provost's Seminar on Teaching

Lawrence Weinstein, University professor of physics at Old Dominion University, will speak on "Managing and Teaching Students in Large-Sized Classes" Tuesday, Feb. 2, in the Provost's Conversations on Teaching and Learning series.

The series was launched last year by Provost Carol Simpson, with support from ODU's Center for Learning Technologies. Its goal is to give faculty members the opportunity to share, think and reflect on a wide range of teaching and learning issues.

Weinstein's talk will be from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. in the River Rooms of Webb Center. All faculty members are invited. For more information about the lecture series, including a calendar of dates and conversation leaders, visit: http://clt.odu.edu/pctl.

Weinstein, a nuclear physicist, won an Outstanding Faculty Award in 2009 from the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. He has received accolades for teaching physics at every level, from Physics 101 to Graduate Quantum Mechanics. In communicating the big-picture message that physics is crucial to understanding how the world works, he demonstrates ideas and principles via experiments that employ a variety of apparatus, ranging from rubber bands to flame tubes.

Recently at ODU, he introduced SCALE-UP, which stands for Student-Centered Activities for Large Enrollment Undergraduate Programs. Students work on activities in carefully structured groups of three, sitting around tables with white boards and laptops. While the students work, the instructor roams the classroom - asking questions, sending one team to help another, gently guiding a group, all the while building relationships with the students.