Neil Stillings

How Geoscientists Think and Learn

Decades ago, pioneering petroleum geologist Wallace Pratt pointed out that oil is first found in the human mind. His insight remains true today: Across geoscience specialties, the human mind is arguably the geoscientists most important tool. It is the mind that converts colors and textures of dirt, or blotches on a satellite image, or wiggles on a seismogram, into explanatory narratives about the formation and migration of oil, the rise and fall of mountain ranges, the opening and closing of oceans. Improved understanding of how humans think and learn about the Earth can help geoscientists and geoscience educators do their jobs better, and can highlight the strengths that geoscience expertise brings to interdisciplinary problem solving.

Molecular visualization in chemistry education: the role of multidisciplinary collaboration

Visualization tools and high performance computing have changed the nature of chemistry research and have the promise to transform chemistry instruction. However, the images central to chemistry research can pose difficulties for beginning chemistry students. In order for molecular visualization tools to be useful in education, students must be able to interpret the images they produce. Cognitive scientists can provide valuable insight into how novices perceive and ascribe meaning to molecular visualizations. Further insights from educators, computer scientists and developers, and graphic artists are important for chemistry educators who want to help students learn with molecular visualizations. A diverse group of scientists, educators, developers, and cognitive psychologists have begun a series of international collaborations to address this issue. The effort was initiated at the National Science Foundation supported Molecular Visualization in Science Education Workshop held in 2001 and has continued through a series of mini-grants. These groups are investigating characteristics of molecular representations and visualizations that enhance learning, interactions with molecular visualizations that best help students learn about molecular structure and dynamics, roles of molecular modeling in chemistry instruction, and fruitful directions for research on molecular visualization in the learning of chemistry. This article summarizes the value of collaboration identified by participants in the workshop and subsequent collaborations. [Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2005, 6 (3), 136-149]

Stimulus-response compatibility in the programming of speech.

Subjects chose between sequences of one syllable (e.g.,/gi/vs./bi/), two syllables (e.g.,/gibi/ vs./gubu/), and three syllables (e.g.,/gibidi/ vs. gubudu/), when/i/sequences were signaled by high-pitched tones and/u] sequences were signaled by low-pitched tones (high compatibility), or the reverse (low compatibility). Choice times were additively affected by sequence length and compatibility. A second experiment showed attenuated compatibility effects for sequences with different vowels in the first and second syllables. These results replicate previously reported results for choices between finger sequences, which suggests that the same programming methods are used in both output domains. Evidently, choices between response sequences can be achieved by selecting a distinguishing parameter and assigning it in a serial fashion to partially prepared motor subprograms.