Lancelot's plan

From Education

Lancelot Kao, City College of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA. It is a large single community college with multiple campuses in San Francisco which serve more than 100,000 + students annually. It is also qualify as minority-serving institution due to her student demographics.

What your goals for the next 6-12 months to build upon what you have learned during SC07 in Reno?

There are five main goals for the next 6-12 months:

• First, I would like to build few instructional modules to use in the courses I teach, and the development of a new introductory course in computational astronomy.
• Second, I would continue to disseminate the information I learned at SC07 to the group of science faculty who could not attend SC07 through formal and/or informal presentation at City College.
• Third, I would like to bring HPC curriculum to the college and build a local cluster.
• Fourth, I would like to collaborate/organize a regional community college faculty development workshop on computational science.
• Fifth, I would like to help out SC08 Education Program by being a mentor/trainer, etc...

1. Describe the goal(s) of your plans and that of your team. (What do you plan to do? i.e., use, adapt and/or create new resources)

a. What subject area(s) and/or classes will this benefit? The instructional modules will benefit three specific astronomy courses:

• ASTR 1, Cosmic Evolution [introductory astronomy course]
• ASTR 4, Life in the Universe [introductory astrobiology course]
• ASTR 20, Introduction to Astrophysics
• ASTR ___, "Universe At Your Fingertips", a new course in computational astronomy

b. What is your estimated timeline for when you and/or your students will use the resources in the classroom? I am going to spend my spring 2008 semester to develop the modules. Modules that target ASTR 1 and 4 will be field test on fall 2008, since I will be on sabbatical on spring 2008. However, I will test the use of Metaverses interface to deliver content material to ASTR 20 students in spring 2008. I will submit a course outline of records to CCSF Curriculum Committee for the new course in computational astronomy in spring 2008.

c. What is your estimated timeline to disseminate the information to CCSF faculty? It would be done by the end of May 2008.

d. What is your estimated timeline to bring HPC curriculum to the college and build a local cluster? It depends on the collaboration and would like to develop a parallel programming course and implement in fall 2008 semester.

e. What is your estimated timeline to collaborate/organize a regional community college faculty development workshop on computational science? I hope it would be able to host the workshop during summer 2008.

2. Describe the computational resources and/or tools that you plan to use.

a. Continue to use Vensim to build modules for uses in ASTR 1, 4 and 20.

b. Explore the use of 3D visualization software (such as NCSA EasyVz) to use in lecture and instructional modules for ASTR 20

c. Explore the use of Metaverse software to facilitate distance-learning courses

d. Explore the use of OpenGrid resources

e. Experiment the use of Bootable Cluster CD to run a linux cluster

f. Learn to use both the 3dsMax and Maya to produce animation/simulation to use in demonstration or instruction modulus to use in distance-learning courses.

3. How will students’ learning outcomes be assessed?

Since I am going for sabbatical during the spring 2008 semester, I am mainly concentrate in development and planning of implementation of the curriculum. However, I maybe able to obtain some basic data with the assistance of Qwaq to assess how students in ASTR 20 class responds to the virtual interface as an experiment.

For ASTR 1 classes, CCSF Office of Institutional Research can perform a meta-anaylsis to all sections of ASTR 1 & 4 classes and compare to section of ASTR 1 & 4 with the computational science enhanced version of the course. It will also incorporate pre-testing and exit-testing of the same standardize test questions. In addition, we will perform surveys over the course of the semester to assess students' progress and attitudes.

4. What are the challenges that you face in accomplishing your team’s goal?

a. Currently, I am still in the process to build a core team of faculty to assist and develop the use of computational science tools.

b. Secondly, there are institutional resistance within science departments to adopt computational science methodologies. In fact, this is one of the most common question and concern from many science faculty in our college. They are skeptical about computational science is appropriate to be introduce in a community college.

c. There are enough release time allocation for any faculty to take time off to attend workshop or develop new curriculum.

d. We have concerns about articulation to 4-year universities -- namely to the University of California and California State University systems.

5. What assistance would you like to receive to help you accomplish your goals?

a. Expert(s) campus visit (or internet conferencing) to promote and lead basic computational science workshops from 1 to 3 days to both science faculty and informal discussion with the College administrators.

b. Provide funding for Community College faculty and students to attend computational science or supercomputing conferences and workshops.

c. Expert consultation either in person or internet conferencing with our faculty who are developing modules to use in courses.

d. Assist in lobbying to the University of California and California State University system to include computational science in lower division classes.

e. Assist in organizing and funding opportunities to have a local computational science workshop for California Community Colleges and K-12 science teachers.

6. What plans do you have for sharing what you learn throughout the process with others?

a. All the modulus will be available thru the internet. In particular, it will be submiited to CSERD, etc.

b. Attend conferences and workshops to share expereinces, etc.

c. Train other faculty within the college of the use of computational science tools.

d. Be a trainer in the use of computational science (if being asked).

7. Any other project aspects you would like to share with us?

I would like to collaborate with other community colleges within California and outside California. Tom Murphy (Contra Costa College) has visited CCSF in December 2007, and we start to collaborate the development of computational science curriculum.