Scholarly Teaching: Suggestions for a Road More Traveled

Excerpt: Most academic disciplines throughout the world have been in the higher education curriculum for hundreds, and in some cases thousands, of years. Teaching itself has certainly been around as long as the earliest of any given discipline. After all, without teaching no profession is possible. How else would a core set of knowledge be taught to those interested in the theoretical constructs, conceptual frameworks, and the successes/failures of those who have worked previously in the discipline? Unfortunately, the concept of consistently teaching from a base of scholarly activity is relatively new. What happens, then, when the very concept of how to teach disciplinary knowledge at the university level is questioned for the lack of having a scholarly basis? There is certainly a professional discipline of “Education,” but much of that literature is not consulted by those teaching at the university level, perhaps based on an assumption that the bulk of the scholarly work is predominantly on instruction at the primary grades. The issue I raise here is how are we to convince faculty members, both new and experienced, that our work as higher education educators within the framework of teaching should be based solidly on a professional body of scholarly work. It would seem to me imperative that all faculty members should anchor every instructional and curricular aspects of their work on some form of scholarship

Teaching So Everyone Learns: Concepts and Tips for a More Inclusive Classroom

This session is based on Universal Design for Learning and includes many tips on how to reach more students. Many classrooms are really built for fast-talking, risk-taking, extroverts. It is also common to teach best to students who are most like the instructor. This session is about how to reach a different and broader group of learners

Teaching for Learning: Applying Current Research to Improve Learning for Your Students

A proliferation of research findings have emerged recently pertaining to teaching and student learning: flipped classrooms, neuroscience applications in university students, biological bases for effective learning, and strategies to move from lectures to active learning. Unfortunately, most faculty simply don’t have time to keep up with the research articles and identify specifically how the findings pertain to actual students in actual classrooms. In this session, we will look at recent evidence that holds promise for improving student learning. We will focus specifically on concepts, strategies, and tips that can be easily implemented into just about any learning environment. By the end of this session, participants will: (1) have a better understanding of at least three key findings that apply to just about any learning situation; (2) recognize at least two commonly accepted practices that have limited support so these traps can be avoided; and (3) determine how to implement at least one new engaged learning strategy

Motivating and Engaging Your Students: Strategies for Teaching From the Psychology of Learning

This session is about things instructors can do to facilitate learning when they encounter students who seem uninterested and even apathetic toward course content and assignments. Part of the responsibility for learning belongs to students, but as faculty, we can find new ways to motivate, inspire, and maybe even cajole students to learn. In this workshop we would explore how instructors can make classroom learning, perhaps one of the most artificial learning settings, a more meaningful experience for students. The strategies to motivate students will be included throughout the session so faculty see how they work

Teaching For Deep Learning

Teaching For Deep Learning talk given at Belmont University\u27s Fall Faculty Worksho

Workshop 1: Universal Threads in All Learning: Technology-Enhanced Learning

In this workshop we will look at key educational concepts that serve as a foundation for all human learning in any context. We will then turn our attention to educational technology and note how effective educational technology solutions support those universal threads found in all learning. The focus of this workshop will be to engage with the material and to find solutions that can be implemented right away

Keynote 1: What Have We Learned From the Pandemic That May Make Teaching and Learning Stronger Than Ever

Much has been lost during the COVID pandemic. It is important to recognize lives lost, challenges we all faced, and that this has been a challenging time for all of us. That said, over the past 18 months we have also learned a lot about ourselves and how we teach. In this session we will take a look at how educational technology was an integral part of delivering the best educational experience possible during the pandemic and, going forward, what can be kept, augmented, and even built upon to create better educational experiences for our students