The 10th Annual Teaching Professor Conference
Pre-conference Workshops
Optional Programs: Jump-start your learning and get even more from the conference by participating in these intensive pre-conference workshops. You can choose from morning and/or afternoon sessions. Enrollment is limited and a separate registration fee of $175/workshop is required.
Friday, May 31, 2013 | $175 each
Making Discussion Work in Support of Student Learning
8:00 am-Noon
Presenter: Jay Howard, Butler University
Faculty often wish to engage students in discussion in class, but sometimes our efforts fall flat and we give up the effort. Why should we seek to utilize discussion in class? What classroom norms sometimes undermine discussion? Which students are most likely to participate and which ones choose not to participate? For what reasons? How can an instructor manage both the dominant talkers and the non-talkers? During this pre-conference workshop, we will engage each of these questions utilizing a review of the research to identify ways to structure class discussion to maximize student participation and learning.
We also will work to apply insights from the scholarship of teaching and learning to address key challenges in your courses. Discussion will include:
- Strategies for preparing students for effective and productive discussion
- Ground rules that help make students feel sufficiently safe to participate in discussion
- How to structure discussion to help achieve learning goals
- Effective uses of discussion in online courses
- Using the syllabus to communicate to students the value of discussion
Come prepared to talk about the challenges you face in using discussion in your courses and to learn from others!
Keywords: discussion, participation, scholarship of teaching and learning, engagement
Technology for Blended Courses
8:00 am-Noon
Presenters: Ollie Dreon, Millersville University, Ike Shibley, Penn State-Berks, and Tim Wilson, University of Western Ontario
Blended design provides the synergistic combination of online and face-to-face (F2F) teaching. Numerous benefits accrue to the learner and the institution. The flexibility of blended courses allows teachers to imaginatively redesign almost any course to best fit the needs of the learners; and the increased flexibility for learners provides more accessibility to higher education. A concern for most faculty is deciding what technology to deploy in the design of a blended course. This pre-conference workshop will help faculty, administrators, faculty developers, and course designers make more pedagogically informed decisions regarding the technological requirements of blended design.
Technology that will be discussed includes: learning management systems, screen capture software, clickers, collaborative technology, audio/video editing software, and the most recent animation software. Presenters will take a learner-centered approach to course design to help participants make the most pedagogically sound technology choices for their blended courses.
Keywords: blended courses, technology, blended design
The Ins and Outs of Writing in the Quantitative Classroom
1:00 – 4:30 pm
Presenter: Patrick Bahls, University of North Carolina, Asheville
Composition scholars have argued convincingly that students require meaningful writing instruction at all stages of their college careers, and in every discipline. Although, traditionally, writing has played a minor role in courses with quantitative content, there are ways of challenging students in such classes with engaging writing activities. Workshop participants will learn how to design effective writing assignments in quantitative courses, emphasizing informal “writing-to-learn” activities. We will also discuss responding to and assessing student writing.
Specifically, participants will learn how to:
- identify learning goals to be met through writing,
- design writing-to-learn activities that help students approach more involved writing projects,
- develop effective means of providing feedback on student writing (including through peer review), and
- assess a variety of student writing projects.
Keywords: writing, assessment, communication
What Makes Teaching Learner-Centered?
1:00 – 4:30 pm
Presenter: Maryellen Weimer, professor emerita of Teaching and Learning at Penn State Berks and editor, The Teaching Professor newsletter
Interest in learner-centered teaching continues to grow. More and more faculty are working to incorporate policies, practices, techniques, and approaches that focus on learning. Is that what makes teaching learner-centered? Is there any difference between active learning, student engagement and learner-centered teaching? During this workshop, we will explore characteristics that can be used to define and differentiate learner-centered teaching. Clear thinking about what it means to be learner-centered enables teachers to better select and design experiences for students that promote their understanding of course content at the same time they develop important learning skills.
Learning goals
- participants will be able to identify specific characteristics that make instructional strategies, courses, and teachers learner-centered
- participants will be better able to select and design strategies with learner-centered features
- participants will be introduced to a variety of learner-centered activities
Activities
- participants will share experiences and use them to consider what makes strategies learner-centered
- participants will work with colleagues to make active learning strategies more learner-centered
Keywords: learner-centered, teaching, learning
The Brain and Learning: A User’s Guide
1:00 – 4:30 pm
Presenters: Lisa K. Bloom and Kristina L. Petrocco-Naupli, New York Chiropractic College
This session is focused on basic knowledge of how the human brain functions during various types of learning experiences. Current teaching strategies address many of these neuroanatomical and neurochemical features, but fundamental knowledge of the brain structure and function can improve situation-specific application of these strategies for the educator.
During this workshop, the presenters will engage participants in interactive lecture with direct application and problem solving applied in small group activities, included modeling the concepts presented. Participants will work in teams to strategize and apply brain-based learning activities to classroom scenarios. They also will identify brain based strategies that impact learning and design an implementation plan for their classroom.
After attending this session, participants will be able to:
- Recognize the effects of multitasking on students and adapt his/her presentation style by including these strategies in the implementation plan.
- Identify key areas of the brain involved in learning and memory through individual and team work.
- Identify the basic neurology of the brain’s reward centers and recognize the best parameters for implementing reward systems in various educational environments through classroom scenarios.
- Use basic neuroscience to select the optimal technology to match the learning needs of the students which will be included in the implementation plan.
Keywords: brain, learner centered, technology, teaching effectiveness
