WHAT: The Ģ����ý will be bringing comedians Ron Funches, Nick Vatterott, and Michael Ian Black to perform this weekend for students and the Rochester community. Yellowjacket Weekend celebrates the start of the academic year. The weekend includes a student activities fair, live music, fun foods, movies, giveaways, carnival games and rides, athletic competitions, and the featured comedians.

The community is welcome to participate in the carnival on Saturday, Aug. 6 from 2:30 to 6 p.m. on Wilson Quad.

ABOUT: Michael Ian Black is an actor and a comedian who regularly tours the country performing standup. He has been featured on numerous television shows including The State and VH1’s I Love The… series. Black has also held multiple roles in films, both behind and in front of the camera. He directed and co-wrote the comedy films Run Fatboy Run and Wedding Daze, and has appeared in the films This Is 40 and Wet Hot American Summer.

Black has also written several novels, for both adults and children. His memoir You’re Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex and Other Humiliations is currently in development for a television series. Black writes book reviews for The New York Times, and he is working on three upcoming novels.

Ron Funches is a comedian who has performed on TBS’s Conan O’Brien Show and is currently featured on NBC’s new sitcom Undateable. Nick Vaterott has toured with Chicago’s famous Second City comedy troupe and has performed on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.

TICKETS: Tickets are $7 for Ģ����ý undergrads (with I.D.), $10 for graduate students, faculty, and staff, and $15 for the general public. Tickets can be purchased at the Common Market in Wilson Commons or online at .

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Call the Common Connection at 585-275-5911.

What is exploration, and what distinguishes it from travel, discovery, or adventure?

Stewart Weaver’s survey of the history of exploration, slated for publication by Oxford University Press in December, offers a compelling set of answers.

In 160 succinct pages, chronicles journeys of discovery from the pre-history trek of humans across the land bridge over the Bering Strait some 12,000 years ago to the mid-20th century deep sea voyages of Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Along the way, Weaver identifies what defines exploration during each era and places these historic achievements in the largest possible global context: that of the natural history of the earth itself.

An avid hiker and coauthor with Maurice Isserman of , an award-winning history of Himalayan mountaineering, Weaver gives as much credit to those who climb mountains and don scuba gear as to the first people to set out across the open ocean. “A true explorer,” writes the at the URochester, “is a traveler who seeks a discovery.” Through brief accounts and assessments of their missions, Weaver captures the adventure, the wonder, and the legacy of these feats.

Exploration typically grows out of the cultural exchange of goods and ideas when two populations meet, explains Weaver. Native peoples, who often served as unsung guides, are essential to success. According to Weaver, these individuals embody “what exploration is often fundamentally about: mediation, intercession, cultural negotiation and sometimes, even, symbiosis.”

Weaver includes famous explorations, from the Lewis and Clark expedition to the first moon landing. But the slim volume—part of Oxford University Press’s well-known “” series—also makes room for lesser-known undertakings, like the numerous attempts to reach the South Pole and the rivalry and glory seeking that ensued among countries and individuals during those early 20th century efforts to set a new “farthest south.”

Throughout, Weaver reviews the scholarly and popular debates that have turned men like Christopher Columbus from among the most celebrated to the “now much-denigrated.” Columbus, writes Weaver, “may have been more persistent than most explorer-adventurers of his age; he may have been unusually adroit when it came to the all-important art of securing royal patronage. But he was far from being either the lone visionary or the arch villain of competing classroom mythologies.”

Taken together, the millenia-long record of travel provides a reminder of the extreme hardships involved in venturing into the unknown. For example, during the numerous 19th century attempts to find the fabled Northwest Passage through the Canadian Artic, John Franklin’s ship became stuck in the ice, condemning the expedition’s 24 officers and 105 men to a slow death from scurvy, starvation, and botulism. The conditions the crew and others like them endured as they “over-wintered, sick and starving, in these dark and frozen wastes defy description,” writes Weaver.

So what drives humans to such lengths? For Weaver, the answer lies in human nature. “For all the different forms it takes in different historical periods, for all the worthy and unworthy motives that lie behind it, exploration—travel for the sake of discovery and adventure—is it seems a human compulsion, a human obsession even (as the paleontologist Maeve Leakey says); it is a defining element of a distinctly human identity, and it will never rest at any frontier, whether terrestrial or extra-terrestrial.”

 will receive the inaugural Virginia Gray Best Book Award for her book The Influence of Campaign Contributions in State Legislatures. The Gray Award, presented by the state politics and policy section of the American Political Science Association, recognizes the best book on state politics in the last three years.

with coauthor Thad Kousser of UC San Diego will receive the 2014 Best Paper Award presented by the state politics and policy section of the American Political Science Association. The award is for their paper “Contingent Partisanship: When Party Labels Matter–and When They Don’t–in the Distribution of Pork in American State Legislatures.”

, will receive the 2014 Leon Weaver Award for his paper “Party System Polarization and the Ideological Congruence Mechanism.” The award, sponsored by the APSA section on representation and electoral systems, honors the best paper in the subfield presented at the previous year’s meeting of the American Political Science Association.

along with Kristian Skrede Gleditsch of the University of Essex and Giacomo Chiozza of Vanderbilt University will receive the 2014 Lijphart/Przeworski/Verba Dataset Award, sponsored by the APSA section on comparative politics, for the dataset . This dataset contains comprehensive information on leaders of 188 countries from 1875 to 2004.

Researchers at the URochester have been looking at how the color red affects the way that people perceive others for a number of years now. One previous study looked at how men perceive women differently when they dressed in red versus other colors. In that study, participants were shown photos of women that were identical, with the exception of their clothing color. The men in that study saw the women that were wearing red in the photos as appearing more sexually interested and available than the women who were wearing other colors.

Researchers wanted to find out if women shared the same perceptions as the men did, so they did the same study with a group of women, asking them how they saw these women in the different photos. As with the previous study, the women surveyed also saw those in the photos that were wearing red as being more sexually interested than those women who were wearing other colors. Researchers also found that the participants in the study were more likely to see the women that wore red as being more sexually promiscuous and less likely to be able to commit to a monogamous relationship. When asked if they would be likely to introduce these women to their husband or boyfriend, they were less likely to do so with the women wearing red as well.

Adam Pazda, a graduate student in psychology and lead author of the paper published in , said that like previous studies, the takeaway is that it’s important to be aware of the impact that color can have on perception. While it may not mean that women should put away that red dress and never wear it again, it could be helpful to understand the complex relationship of color and perception as they navigate the social world.

Now in the of this systematic error in decision making, researchers find that monkeys also share our unfounded belief in winning and losing streaks. The results suggests that the penchant to see patterns that actually don’t exist may be inherited—an evolutionary adaptation that may have provided our ancestors a selective advantage when foraging for food in the wild, according to lead author Tommy Blanchard, a doctoral candidate in brain and cognitive sciences at the URochester.

The cognitive bias may be difficult to override even in situations that are truly random. This inborn tendency to feel that we are on a roll or in a slump may help explain why gambling can be so alluring and why the stock market is so prone to wild swings, said coauthor Benjamin Hayden, assistant professor brain and cognitive sciences at the URochester.

Hayden, Blanchard, and Andreas Wilke, an assistant professor of psychology at Clarkson University, reported their findings in the July issue of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition.

To measure whether monkeys actually believe in winning streaks, the researchers had to create a computerized game that was so captivating monkeys would want to play for hours. “Luckily, monkeys love to gamble,” said Blanchard. So the team devised a fast-paced task in which each monkey could choose right or left and receive a reward when they guessed correctly.

The researchers created three types of play, two with clear patterns (the correct answer tended to repeat on one side or to alternate from side to side) and a third in which the lucky pick was completely random. Where clear patterns existed, the three rhesus monkeys in the study quickly guessed the correct sequence. But in the random scenarios, the monkeys continued to make choices as if they expected a “streak”. In other words, even when rewards were random, the monkeys favored one side.

The monkeys showed the hot-hand bias consistently over weeks of play and an average of 1,244 trials per condition. “They had lots and lots of opportunities to get over this bias, to learn and change, and yet they continued to show the same tendency,” said Blanchard.

So why do monkeys and humans share this false belief in a run of luck even when faced over and over with evidence that the results are random? The authors speculate that the distribution of food in the wild, which is not random, may be the culprit. “If you find a nice juicy beetle on the underside of a log, this is pretty good evidence that there might be a beetle in a similar location nearby, because beetles, like most food sources, tend to live near each other,” explained Hayden.

Evolution has also primed our brains to look for patterns, added Hayden. “We have this incredible drive to see patterns in the world, and we also have this incredible drive to learn. I think it’s very related to why we like music, and why we like to do crossword puzzles, Sudoku, and things like that. If there’s a pattern there, we’re on top of it. And if there may or may not be a pattern there, that’s even more interesting.”

Understanding the hot-hand bias could inform treatment for gambling addiction and provide insights for investors, said Hayden. “If a belief in winning streaks is hardwired, then we may want to look for more rigorous retaining for individuals who cannot control their gambling. And investors should keep in mind that humans have an inherited bias to believe that if a stock goes up one day, it will continue to go up.”

The results also could provide nuance to our understanding of free will, said Blanchard, who was drawn to the study of decision making during prior graduate training in philosophy. “Biases in our decision-making mechanisms, like this bias towards belief in winning and losing streaks, say something really deep about what sorts of creatures we are. We often like to think we make decisions based only on the information we’re conscious of. But we’re not always aware of why we make certain decisions or believe certain things.

“We’re a complex mix of biases and heuristics and statistical reasoning. When you put it all together, that’s how you get sophisticated behavior. We don’t know where a lot of these biases come from, but this study—and others like it—suggest many of them are due to cognitive mechanisms we share with our primate relatives,” said Blanchard.

This research was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation to Hayden.

American children learn the meanings of number words gradually: First they understand “one,” then they add “two, “three,” and “four,” in sequence. At that point, however, a dramatic shift in understanding takes place, and children grasp the meanings of not only “five” and “six,” but all of the number words they know.

Scientists have also seen this pattern in children raised speaking other languages, including Japanese and Russian. In all of these industrialized nations, number learning begins around age 2, and children fully understand numbers and counting by the age of 4 or 5.

A new study from cognitive scientists at MIT and the Ģ����ý finds the same developmental trajectory in children from a farming and foraging society in the Bolivian rainforest. But there, it occurs much later — beginning around age 5, and finishing around age 8.

The findings suggest that number learning is a fundamental process that follows a universal pathway, says Edward Gibson, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at MIT. However, the timing of the process depends on a child’s environment — specifically, how much exposure he or she has to numbers and counting.

“We were interested in exploring this in a language culture where numbers are not really a dominant component of that culture,” Gibson says. “It appears they do go through exactly the same stages of learning number words, it’s just way later.”

Gibson is the senior author of a paper describing the findings in the journal Developmental Science. The paper’s lead author is former MIT graduate student Steven Piantadosi, now an assistant professor at the URochester. Julian Jara-Ettinger, an MIT graduate student, also contributed to the paper.

Less exposure to numbers

In the United States, most parents start teaching their children numbers as soon as they are able to talk. However, that is not true of the Tsimane’, a society of about 13,000 people in the Amazon River basin, nor do Tsimane’ children have exposure to toys or television shows that emphasize number learning. “Numbers are just not a big deal in their culture,” Gibson says.

Most Tsimane’ children start going to school around age 5, but education levels among adults vary widely, from zero to 12 years of schooling. Although the Tsimane’ live in a fairly remote area, they do have some contact with Spanish speakers living nearby. The Tsimane’ language has words for numbers up to 15, but their words for numbers larger than that are borrowed from Spanish, Piantadosi says.

During a 2012 trip to Bolivia, the researchers tested the counting ability of 92 Tsimane’ children by giving each child eight pennies, then asking the children to hand them a certain number of pennies.

Based on each child’s success rate with numbers one through eight, the researchers could classify them into different stages of number learning. Children were classified as knowing how to count if they performed perfectly or made only one mistake. Most of the remaining children fell into groups that knew only the number one, the numbers one and two, the numbers one through three, and a few that knew one through four — the same breakdown seen in children in industrialized countries.

The results suggest that those counting stages are universal in child development, the researchers say.

“It easily could have been the case that stages that you see in U.S. kids are just some artifact of education or ‘Sesame Street’ or how parents talk to their kids here,” Piantadosi says. “The more exciting possibility is that those stages are really fundamental to learning numbers. There’s something about trying to acquire that conceptual linguistic system that pushes you through those different stages of knowledge.”

The only difference seen in the Tsimane’ children was that counting abilities developed much later. The researchers found true counting ability in Tsimane’ children ranging from ages 5 to 11, but most 5- and 6-year-olds, as well as some children as old as 8, had not yet learned it.

The findings suggest that these stages of number-learning are a necessary part of the process of building number concepts, says Barbara Sarnecka, an associate professor of cognitive sciences at the University of California at Irvine who was not part of the research team.

“Basically, everyone seems to follow the same path to number knowledge, whether they are a preschooler in a highly industrialized, numerate society or a 12-year-old in a farming and foraging society in Bolivia. That tells us a lot about how number concepts are built in the mind,” she says.

“Data-driven development”

Last year, Piantadosi, Josh Tenenbaum, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and former MIT postdoc Noah Goodman developed a computational model of how this number-learning process could work.

The model takes as its input a number word, such as “two,” and contextual information, such as how many objects are present when the word “two” is heard. The model accumulates evidence and tries out different algorithms for counting objects and assigning a number to a set of objects. Those algorithms build on simple operations that can be performed on sets of objects, such as removing one object or combining two sets.

“It turns out the naturalistic data that parents would provide to kids should be enough to figure out how counting works without having to build in a lot of innate knowledge about counting,” Piantadosi says. “You can construct a counting algorithm out of simpler set operations.”

This suggests that data input is critical to learning to count, Piantadosi says. “Our explanation of what’s going on with the Tsimane’ kids is that it just takes them longer to get data. They go through the exact same stages, but it takes them two or three times as long to get an equivalent amount of data as a U.S. kid,” he says. “It’s a data-driven developmental process.”

If they obtain permission from the Tsimane’, the researchers are interested in studying whether educational strategies such as teaching preschool Tsimane’ children to recite the numbers one through 10, as American parents often do with their young children, would enable them to learn to count earlier.

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

The assessment also provides immediate and meaningful feedback making it an important new tool for understanding and improving instructional quality, according to psychologists from the Ģ����ý and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“Education researchers broadly agree that teachers matter,” explained co-author Edward Deci, the Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences at the URochester. “But there is less consensus about precisely what defines effective instruction and how to measure it. This assessment is able to capture the vital signs of teaching. It’s a bit like a doctor taking your blood pressure and pulse for a quick picture of your health,” said Deci.

Deci, Diane Early, a scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Ronald Rogge, an associate professor of psychology at the URochester, reported their results in the Summer 2014 issue of the High School Journal.

In this study, the researchers asked trained observers to rate the classroom instruction of 58 math and English teachers in four high schools in Arizona using a tool developed by the , a non-profit that uses evidence-based practices to help struggling schools. The 15-item tool focuses on three aspects of instruction: the engagement of students, how closely schoolwork aligns with state and local standards, and whether coursework is appropriately challenging. Called the EAR Protocol—short for Engagement, Alignment, and Rigor—the assessment already has been used in more than 100 schools, but this current study is the first to test the its objectivity and ability to predict student learning as measured by standardized tests.

The protocol is based on educational research showing that when students’ basic psychological needs are met, learning outcomes improve, explained Deci. For example, when teachers are excited about their subjects and supportive, students are more likely to be engaged. When instructors present challenging schoolwork along with structured supports for mastering those assignments, students build a genuine sense of competence and confidence. “It’s like learning how to play tennis. You improve when you play with someone who is just a bit better than you are,” he said.

The researchers found that higher classroom ratings for engagement, alignment, and rigor were correlated with better student outcomes on standardized tests, after controlling for prior year test scores.

“The assessment captures surprisingly complex and fundamental qualities of teaching,” said Early. “It’s easy to use and 20 minutes is short enough for administrators to fit into the confines of their busy workday. And it’s adaptable for all grades and subjects, from math and English to art and physical education.”

The study also showed that observers can use the tool reliably. “Different observers of the same classroom came to the same conclusions,” explained Early.

By highlighting areas where teachers need improvement, the assessments can help identify what kinds of professional development may be most helpful, the authors wrote. Follow-up assessments can then test to see if additional training enhances classroom instruction. “It’s hard to know whether you are improving if there is no objective feedback measure,” explained Early.

The assessment also helps teachers and administrators focus on the same key indicators of teaching quality: engagement, alignment, and rigor. “If adopted widely, the evaluations could provide a common language for talking about the vital signs of high-quality teaching,” said Early.

The research was supported by grants from the Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, both to the URochester.

“Scott was a fabulous teacher,” said Greg Carlson, professor of linguistics and brain and cognitive sciences. “Students really loved him. He made an effort to know something about every student in his classes, and virtually every time I walked by his door, he had a student in there.”

When Paauw was teaching at the University of Buffalo, his undergraduate fans even created a Facebook page in his honor, said Carlson. “At Rochester, the classes he taught grew and grew. He was a huge asset and played an important role in the growth of the department in recent years.”

Paauw joined the University in 2007 as an adjunct instructor while he was completing his doctorate in linguistics from the University of Buffalo. He gradually transitioned to full-time, serving as the department’s undergraduate advisor and teaching a variety of courses, including the introductory course to linguistic analysis.

“He had upwards of 100 students in each of his introductory classes and got to know each and every one of them,” said Zoe Weinstein, who took numerous courses with Paauw before graduating this spring with a double major in linguistics and Chinese studies. Weinstein said that Paauw was the reason that she and many of her fellow linguistics majors fell in love with the discipline. “He was welcoming, open, and passionate about the field. You could really tell he loved what he did,” she said.

Scott Paauw leads a senior seminar in 2013 on linguistics field methods in which students work with a native speaker to create a description of the grammar of the speaker’s language. Photo by J. Adam Fenster

During lectures, Paauw drew from a wealth of personal experiences. Raised in Indonesia, he grew up speaking multiple languages and became fascinated by the linguistic diversity of the country, home to more than 300 languages. For two decades, he ran an English school in Indonesia before getting his master’s in theoretical linguistics from York University in Toronto.

In his research, Paauw explored how different Malay dialects in Indonesia interacted and influenced each other when populations migrated or traded. “The whole idea of language contact, what happens when two languages meet, is a fascinating one to me,” he said in a 2006 interview. The study of that interaction is “by its very nature … interdisciplinary, because we have to look at historical factors, linguistic factors, sociological factors, and all of these interplay in a very interesting way,” he said.

A self-described historian at heart, Paauw thought that the beauty of language lies in “how cultures interact, how cultures define their language, and how contact between languages, cultures, and societies reshapes the language.”

In the classroom, he invited students to join his journey of discovery. If he knew a student spoke or was studying another language, for example, he would ask them for examples and insights. “He treated his students with such respect,” said Weinstein. “He knew that everybody he met had something to offer.”

“Scott lived to teach, there is no doubt about that,” said Cuyler Gauthier, a 2014 graduate who majored in linguistics and film and media studies. “He had that magical quality where all of his students thought that they were his favorite because he devoted so much of his energy to them to make them feel as though they were the only thing that matter to him—and this was true.”

“As Scott’s health began to fail towards the end of the school year, he told his friends on a number of occasions that students and their success were the reason he wakes up in the morning.He was the ultimate teacher and will be greatly missed and remembered by many,” Gauthier said.

Family and colleagues are in the process of setting up the Scott Paauw Fund for undergraduate student research. The University flag near Eastman Quadrangle on the River Campus will be lowered June 26 in his memory. Details on a fall memorial service will be posted .

“Joanna has contributed immeasurably to the progress that has been made in strengthening arts, sciences, and engineering, and we are hugely in her debt,” says Peter Lennie, provost and the Robert L. and Mary L. Sproull Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering. “In every dimension of our activities, Joanna’s distinctive attributes—incisive thinking, unflinching integrity, great personal humility, and unfailing generosity—have moved us powerfully forward, and have earned the respect and affection of all those who have worked with her.”

In the coming weeks, Lennie will announce transitional leadership for arts and sciences as well as a committee to lead a national search for Olmsted’s successor.

“Joanna has been an exemplary dean, and her influence extends far beyond arts and sciences,” says President Joel Seligman. “She has been a particularly valuable advisor in fostering collaborations among all of our schools. I will really miss her.”

Olmsted juggles one of the largest portfolios among the University’s deans, working closely with chairs and faculty from 18 departments and 12 programs in the humanities and the arts, social sciences and natural and physical sciences. She is admired by colleagues for her broad interest in and genuine respect for research across all disciplines. “She embraces the whole University,” says Richard Feldman, dean of the College.

Olmsted’s legacy is perhaps most strongly reflected in the University’s core strength: the high caliber of the faculty she has helped recruit and retain over the years. “Joanna meets all candidates and works tirelessly with departments to help them hire the strongest faculty. Her involvement has often been crucial to the success we have enjoyed,” says Lennie.

Olmsted’s wisdom and comprehensive understanding of the University are a godsend for newcomers, says Robert Clark, senior vice president for research and dean of the Hajim School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, who arrived from Duke University in 2008. “If I need to come in and talk about an issue, she always has an open door.”

As a first-time dean, Feldman also has appreciated Olmsted’s guidance and friendship. Several times a week, at the end of the day, he stops by her office on the way home. “I just sit down and sort of decompress. Just chat. And, you know, we always laugh. There is a sense of humor and a willingness to not take ourselves too seriously. When she told me that she was stepping down, that was the first thing I thought of. I know I will miss that.”

Olmsted joined the Rochester biology department in 1975, after completing a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and her doctorate at Yale University. Supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, she explored the function and regulation of cellular organelles, with particular emphasis on cytoskeletal components. She served on editorial boards, as a councilor of the American Society of Cell Biology, and chaired the NIH Cellular Basis for Disease Study Section. In 1995, she was appointed the inaugural associate dean of faculty, later serving as dean of faculty development and interim vice provost and dean of faculty, before becoming dean of arts and sciences in 2007.

Olmsted’s scientific grounding shines through in her leadership style, say colleagues. Her approach is to ask questions, to listen and absorb, to keep an open mind, and not to jump to conclusions, says Feldman.

“She always approaches issues from an impartial, calm, analytical perspective,” adds Lamar Murphy, University general secretary and the president’s chief of staff. “Joanna defines precisely what the goal is, and from the goal, she finds the right strategy. In a quiet but powerful way, she has made immensely valuable contributions to the University. She is a wonderful colleague and has earned the trust and respect of faculty and staff throughout the institution.”

As a successful researcher at a time when few women made it into the ranks of faculty, and now as one of the University’s most respected administrators, Olmsted has helped to open doors for women, adds Murphy. Her example of excellence and unfailing high standards are an inspiration to both women and men, she says.

Above all, Olmsted “has made the University a much better place for faculty and students,” says Lennie.

By Rachel Goldstein

Through the innovative use of online videos, William Spaniel, a doctoral candidate studying bargaining and warfare, makes complex ideas accessible and entertaining for students at the URochester and across the globe. Those innovative teaching methods and Spaniel’s commitment to learners have earned him fans in the classroom and online.

His Game Theory 101 , a collection of 300 videos, has over ten thousand subscribers and approximately 2.2 million lifetime views. In total, Spaniel’s four massive open online courses (MOOC), hosted on his website, YouTube, and Udemy, have a following of at least 7,000 students. Additionally, Spaniel has self-published two digital textbooks: (2011) and (2012), the first of which has sold over 30,000 copies.

“In four years of graduate school, William has created an online teaching presence that puts him at the forefront of the revolution we are now seeing in higher education,” says David Primo, the Ani and Mark Gabrellian Professor and director of graduate studies in political science. “While many in the ‘old guard’ fear online education, William embraces it as a powerful tool that, if done well, enhances face-to-face education.”

Spaniel began producing videos and posting them on YouTube in 2009 when he noticed the lack of online resources for learning game theory. The production requires three simple tools: a high quality microphone, PowerPoint, and a video software program called CamStudio, which essentially takes images of the computer screen while simultaneously recording the microphone.

“The reason that I started with the video format, and that I’m still using it, is that it’s much easier to learn game theory with someone visually showing you what’s going on with a cursor,” explains Spaniel. While a textbook, linear and static, is better at reinforcing issues and definitions, videos allow learners to see from slide to slide how a particular game tree is evolving.

As his collection of videos progressed into something more coherent, he created an introductory course to game theory. The project “snowballed,” according to Spaniel, who has established a prominent online presence, gained followers, and continued producing videos for online classes—creating independently what large companies such as Coursera offer.

“It is amazing to me that a company with that much reach bleeds money,” says Spaniel, “while I, by myself, with a much smaller audience, can bring in more than enough to justify the amount of time that I put into it.”

Although Spaniel does not foresee online lectures replacing face-to-face interactions, he does recognize videos as a tool for learning, understanding that everyone learns at a different pace.

“Videos are much better as a reference for people who need to see the material again,” says Spaniel. “There may be a particular issue that someone might not understand, but for whatever reason, they didn’t want to raise their hand,” he explains. The videos allow students to review lectures at their own pace, on their own time.

Set to graduate in May 2014, Spaniel is not only working on his dissertation, “Bargaining over the Bomb: The Successes and Failures of Nuclear Negotiations,” but also teaching his first undergraduate class at Rochester, Civil War and International Systems. He posts online in video format, all of the lecture material covered in class. As a result, fewer students need to attend office hours or send him e-mails, but it is not because the students don’t have questions.

“Students are answering the questions themselves using the material I had already given them,” says Spaniel. Video view counts jump right before an exam, giving him insight into student study habits. More importantly, the students have done well on their midterms this semester.

For Spaniel, the online feedback that he receives is another plus.

“Unlike in the real world, people are much more honest in their online criticism and also more instantaneous,” says Spaniel. The game theory class, now in its fourth incarnation, has been edited and revised based on comments from viewers, which in turn helps Spaniel improve as a lecturer in the classroom.

His effective teaching methods have not gone unseen by the University community either. Spaniel was one of seven individuals to earn the 2014 Curtis Peck Award for Excellence in Teaching by a Graduate Student.

Letters of support written by undergraduates for the Edward Peck Curtis nominations describe Spaniel’s teaching as “inspirational,” “passionate,” and “innovative.” Students praise his dedication to helping each individual succeed, and appreciate that he “peppers his slides with jokes and anecdotes” to make the material more relevant and entertaining.

“He has an extremely good reputation among the students,” says Hein Goemans, an associate professor of political science for whom Spaniel has worked as a teaching assistant. “Teaching comes totally natural to him, and I think that is what makes him so effective.”