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Title: Creating a
Comfortable Learning Environment
Who: Meredyth Appelbaum, Assistant Professor, Psychology
Description:
How can we better foster student learning by understanding more about
our students and their backgrounds? How can we create a comfortable
learning environment in which students will rise to our expectations?
How can we work with our students to foster deeper learning? Come join
the discussion and help initiate a dialogue on the assumptions we make
about our students and how we can create a more comfortable learning
environment to foster greater learning.
Title: How to Develop the Great Lecture
Who: Ken
Bain, Vice Provost for Instruction, Director of the Teaching and
Learning Resource Center, and Professor of History
Description:
The venerable college lecture has been both maligned and revered in
recent years, caught between those who say it is an outdated and
ineffective form of teaching and those who use it with conviction and
success. The critics have raised important questions, yet even
some of the harshest critics still talk to their students, making
explanations and asking questions. For most faculty, a
lecture is still the primary means of instruction. What can
we learn from some of the best lecturers, those people who have
enormous success in using the lecture to capture students' interest and
attention and to help them learn? In this highly
interactive session, participants will have a chance to examine
videotaped excerpts of some highly successful lecturers, to explore
some of the secrets to their success, and to work on applying those
secrets to their own lectures. Participants should emerge from
the discussions with a better understanding of their own strengths and
weaknesses as lecturers and with some very specific ideas they can
implement immediately. Enrollment is limited. Facilitated
by Ken Bain, and based on his study of outstanding teachers at various
universities.
Title: How to Create a Promising
Syllabus
Who: Ken
Bain, Vice Provost for Instruction, Director of the Teaching and
Learning Resource Center, and Professor of History
Description: Can
the make-up of the syllabus influence how students learn? What
does the research on human learning and motivation suggest about how
best to create a stimulating syllabus? What kind of syllabus do
highly successful teachers use--those who have enormous success in
fostering deep student learning? What can we learn from one
another about constructing a great syllabus. Bring your favorite
syllabus and join the discussion. This seminar will help
participants consider the values of a new form of syllabus that
reflects the findings of the learning sciences and the practices of
highly successful teachers. Enrollment is limited.
Facilitated by Ken Bain, and based on his study of outstanding teachers
at various universities.
Title: Facebooking My Space: An
Introduction to New Technologies and Their Impact on University Life
and Learning
Who: Dana
Wilber, Assistant Professor, ECELE Department
Facebooking MySpace: Workshop Presentation (PPT)
Description: This
one-hour seminar is designed to introduce faculty to a variety of
technologies of interest to our students (Instant Messaging, Facebook,
MySpace, text messaging) and then to a conversation about the
centrality of these technologies to our students’ lives. Through this
workshop, participants will be asked to consider the uses of technology
by their students for nonacademic purposes as a possible bridge in
helping support students academically. The presentation will include
examples of uses of blogs and blogging in my courses, as well as other
potential uses of blogs and wikis (as well as podcasts and other
technologies if time allows) as technologies well suited to higher
education and student learning, particularly for the students we have
at Montclair State. Throughout, I will include recent research on
technology uses by college-age students, work on the integration of
technology in higher ed, and research on the literacy skills of
graduates.
Title: Second Life: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning in a Virtual World
Who: Laura Nicosia, Assistant Professor, English Department w/ AJ Kelton, Director, CHSS Technology Services
Description: SecondLife, and other Massively Multi-user Virtual Worlds (MMVWs), are just now hitting the horizon of popular culture. Many technology gurus and high-recognition companies are investing time and money in the profound impact of this “Blackboard-on-steroids” application. This workshop will explore several potential benefits of the synchronous and constructivist learning environments that are possible in SecondLife. Additionally, the workshop will discuss pedagogical strategies to engage critical thinking, scaffold prior knowledge, and foster collaboration within virtual learning worlds.
Title: "The Pedagogy of Participation," or, What I Learned During My First Semester of Teaching
at Montclair State University from the Gen Ed Students in HIST 110-02, Introduction to American Civilization.
Who: Neil
Baldwin, Distinguished Visiting Professor of History at MSU and
Co-Chair of the American Studies Task Force.
Description:
The academic syllabus I constructed for this class was exhaustive and
comprehensive, covering broad themes in American History from the
Puritans to the Cold War. However, during the course of the
semester, the emphasis shifted to an equally useful goal, as the
students gained satisfying insights into how to think analytically and
creatively while I shaped the discussion of the subject matter to
conform more readily to their unique 'Millennial' minds. These
many cultural perceptions and teaching strategies have applications far
beyond the boundaries of one particular class -- all the more reason
for me to share them with the Seminar participants.
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