Discovering, Integrating and Applying Knowledge: Effective Educational Practices for Today’s Students and Tomorrow’s Innovation
Program Highlights
Preliminary Program (pdf)
Thursday, April 10, 2008, 7:00 – 8:30 p.m.
Keynote Address
Preparing Students for the Rigor and Responsibility of a New Global Century
Emerging research on student success has turned a spotlight on educational practices that raise the level of persistence and achievement for today’s college-going population. “Engaged learning practices”—such as learning communities, first year seminars, undergraduate research, infusing society’s big questions into the curriculum, and connecting knowledge with choices and actions—have educational benefits for all students. Soberingly, the research also suggests that students who could benefit the most from these engaged learning practices may not be the ones actually taking part. Dr. Treisman will explore the emerging research on practices that raise student achievement and discuss the implications for current efforts to help more students reap the full benefits of college. He will identify ways to tie high impact educational practices to “big questions”—e.g., learning communities, undergraduate research, and problem-based learning—and integrate them into the disciplinary and departmental curricular efforts.
Uri Treisman, Professor of Mathematics and Executive Director of the Charles A. Dana Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Uri Treisman’s research and professional interests include mathematics and science education, education policy, and community service and volunteerism. He is actively engaged in designing programs that strengthen the teaching and learning of mathematics and science from kindergarten to graduate school. Dr. Treisman is a founding board member of the National Center for Public Policy in Higher Education and has served on the policy and priorities committee of the Education Commission of the States. For his research at the University of California Berkeley on the factors that support high achievement among minority students in calculus he received the Charles A. Dana Award for Pioneering Achievement in American Higher Education.
Friday, April 11, 2008, 9:15 – 10:15 a.m.
Plenary
The Impact of Teaching and Institutional Conditions on Student Learning
The Wabash National Study of Liberal Arts Education is a longitudinal study of engaging learning and teaching practices, programs, student experiences, and institutional conditions the promote liberal education. The study, which began in the fall of 2006, includes over 6,000 students from 25 institutions, ranging from community colleges to research universities. This plenary address will focus on evidence gathered from the study of the impact of a wide variety of teaching practices and institutional conditions on critical thinking, moral reasoning, leadership, attitudes about and orientation to diversity, well-being, and the inclination to inquire. The plenary will also present both the extent and impact of these conditions and practices for students who traditionally have been underserved in higher education.
Charles F. Blaich, Director of Inquiries, Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts, Wabash College
 |
|
Charles F. Blaich |
|
Charles Blaich is the Director of Inquiries at the Center of Inquiry in the Liberal Arts. In addition to teaching Psychology at Wabash, he served as the co-chair of Cultures and Traditions, an interdisciplinary year-long course for all sophomores. While at Wabash college, Blaich received the College’s McLain-McTurnan-Arnold Excellence in Teaching Award and was awarded two National Science Foundation grants. His recent publications include "Do Liberal Arts Colleges Really Foster Good Practices In Undergraduate Education?" in the Journal of College Student Development, and "Liberal Arts Colleges And Liberal Arts Education: New Evidence On Impacts" An Association for the Study of Higher Education- Educational Resources Information Center (ASHE-ERIC) monograph.
Saturday, April 12, 2008, 11:00 a.m. - 12:15 p.m.
Plenary
From Communities of Practice to Communities of Action: When Being a Good Teacher is Not Enough
If we are to realize the ambitious agenda envisioned in College Learning for the New Global Century, we must do more than just teach our own students well. This plenary will address what is required of us as a community of educators committed to achieve equitable learning opportunities for all students. We will examine a high school exit exam and discuss the implications of such tests for college-level teaching and learning. Facilitators and participants will discuss what must we do to safeguard, encourage, and advance effective educational practice—in our classrooms, on our campuses, and in our communities.
Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich, Co-Directors, The Washington Center for Improving the Quality of Undergraduate Education, The Evergreen State College
Emily Lardner and Gillies Malnarich work with educators in two- and four-year post-secondary institutions to develop strategies and practices leading to the success of all students by organizing and developing institutes, retreats, workshops and publications, frequently in collaboration with other professional groups who share a similar mission. Co-directors of the Washington Center (www.evergreen.edu/washcenter) since 2000, they lead its national learning communities work, which includes the annual summer institute and a new project on designing and assessing integrative learning, as well as other curricular reform, educational equity, and faculty enrichment initiatives.
Lardner has taught academic writing and introductory composition courses for many years and continues to do so in Evergreen’s Evening and Weekend Studies program. Recent publications include "Approaching Diversity Through Learning Communities" in Sustaining and Improving Learning Communities and she is the lead author of Diversity, Educational Equity, and Learning Communities. Prior to the Washington Center, she was the associate director for writing assessment at the University of Michigan, where she helped to develop portfolio-based assessments of writing and programs to support writing across the curriculum.
Malnarich has taught developmental education and sociology in education programs, community schools and colleges, universities, and Evergreen's Evening and Weekend Studies program. She is the lead author of The Pedagogy of Possibilities: Developmental Education, College-level Studies and Learning Communities, and recent writing appears in Responding to the Challenges of Developmental Education, Teaching Inclusively, and Ethnicity Matters. Before joining Emily Lardner at the Washington Center, she worked with educators and campuses throughout British Columbia on system-wide practices related to abilities-based teaching and assessment, faculty development, and institutional effectiveness.
Concurrent In-conference Workshops
The conference includes a wide range of 90 minute interactive workshops allowing participants to examine topics in greater detail and leave with specific ideas for new approaches to their own work. Below are a few examples.
The Arts as Student Engagement
This workshop offers a hands-on experience designed to bring greater understanding of arts integration and the value of the mind processes of the arts as a method of student engagement. Arts activities will help participants explore a variety of concepts—tranference, metaphor, imagination, reflection, perception, creativity, and interdisciplinary thinking—that lend insight to the broad applicability of active learning pedagogy.
Organized by Roxanne Reed, Oklahoma City University
Intellectual Entrepreneurship: One Model of Engaged Learning
This panel will explore the philosophy and practice of “intellectual entrepreneurship (IE),” illustrating how it provides a productive way to create engaged learning. The University of Texas at Austin’s Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium (IE)—an inter-collegial initiative designed to educate “citizen-scholars”—will serve as the case study.
Organized by Rick Cherwitz, The University of Texas at Austin
|
