Summer Web-based Institute for Technologies in CompSci and Healthcare (SWITCH) 2020
About
Summer Web-based Institute for Technologies in CompSci and Healthcare
Our PATHS-UP/Expeditions in Computing led program will be a five-week experience where educators will delve into computer science and engineering topics such as hardware and software issues, applications, and instructional considerations.
40 Hrs
Research hours per week
$5000
Stipend
5 weeks
Supported professional development at Rice University
From Research Labs to K12 Classrooms
The main purpose of the SWITCH RET program is to bring discovery research to a large number of teachers, who can then share their research experiences and disseminate their lesson plans to their colleagues. Through teachers, we can target students and encourage them to seek careers in STEM. The program exposes these teachers to PATHS-UP’s highly engaging research.
Weekly Zoom Meetings & Guest Lectures
It was a gift to be able to learn about the Engineering Research Center and some of the research currently being conducted to positively impact the health of underserved populations in our country.
—Claudia Peinado, KIPP Houston High School
We had a presentation by Daniels friend, Arun. He apparently works for Deepmind and told us all about his work with deep neural networks and how they use them to play video games at a high level. The most fascinating part, at least for me, was his story on how the network learned to play GO and beat professional player Lee Sedol.
—Leon Rodriguez, Blanson CTE
It was good to know that Brady was addressing real issues of access within those areas and how there are cultural and other behavioral norms that stand in the way of women receiving life saving preventative treatment. I hope that the students’ work gets pushed the forefront of what we are talking about because the earlier the detection and the easier the access, the better it will be for us to treat all individuals.
—Matt Medrano, KIPP Northeast College Prep
Team & Faculty
PATHS-UP/Expeditions Rice Team
Dr. Ashutosh Sabharwal
Dr. Ashok Veeraraghavan
Dr. Carolyn Nichol
Allen Antoine
Associate Director for Mathematics and Computer Science, R-STEM
Mary
Graduate Student, Rice Computational Imaging Lab
PATHS-UP Participants
Azka Bukhari
Hogg Middle School
Matt Medrano
KIPP Northeast
College Prep
Leon Rodriguez
Blanson CTE
Christopher Franklin
Dulles Middle School
Daniel Angel
Spring Woods High School
Claudia Peinado
KIPP Houston High School
Highlight
Paper Reading & Coding Assignments
We realized how machine learning was already being incorporated into our lives, what the future holds for our current student population and how to prepare our students to create a better world in the future.
—Azka Bukhari, Hogg Middle School
My first program captures a live video feed from my webcam and uses pre-trained Haar feature-based cascade classifiers to detect my face and eyes. The process was surprisingly simple and the results quite satisfying!
—Daniel Angel, Spring Woods High School
I have become very interested in the applications for computer vision. One such application is “Eye Tracking and Gaze Detection.” A question had arisen during this week that made me think a little harder. What is the difference between Gaze Detection and Eye Tracking? Gaze Detection is where a user’s eyes are focused when sitting in front of a monitor—Essentially, where on the screen users are looking. Eye-tracking is the process of measuring the motion of an eye relative to the head.
—Christopher Franklin, Dulles Middle School
Resources
Resources for Teachers
Orientation
A 1-day orientation on engineering design, lesson development-based research, laboratory safety training, and digital media training
Leadership seminars
Collaboration
Working closely with assigned graduate student/ postdoctoral researcher mentors
Provide all resources needed to have a productive experience during the program
Presentation
The Engineering Research Symposium for Teachers, where participants will develop and produce a virtual research presentation specific to their project
The Teach for Engineering lesson for students, which participants will create & lead
Apply to be part of RET!
Teachers of all grade levels and subjects are welcome to apply, but mathematics and computer science teachers will receive priority consideration. Once final candidates have been selected, all other interviewed applicants may be placed on a wait list.