
“I’ve been teaching the same course, the same way, for years. Wouldn’t it be more interesting for me if I found a fresh way of teaching it the next time around?”
“I’ve been asked to teach a course for the first time… where do I start?”
“Every semester I start out with this stack of notes and articles that I want to include in my course, but it’s just too much stuff to cover. How can I do a better job of deciding what to cover?”
“Each semester I start out fresh to teach a subject that I really love and that I strongly feel is important for students to learn. But, they look bored, they don’t come to class, they do poorly on exams. Is there something that I can do to help motivate my students to be more engaged with the subject?”
“My classes have such a mixture of students. Some are really well prepared but others just don’t seem to know how to succeed in my classes. However, if I get a chance to talk to one of these less successful students I usually find that they really desire to succeed and they express more interest in the course topic than I would have guessed from their grades and attendance. Is there something I can be doing to increase the success of more of my students without lowering my standards?”
If so, or if you are interested in learning more about what research in cognition, teaching, and learning implies for college instruction and picking up fresh ideas through conversations with colleagues, then please consider signing up for “Designing Courses for Effective Student Learning”
When:
Thursday and Friday, May 16-17, 2013, 8:30 to 3:30 both days
Where: Registrants will be contacted with location on UNM main campus
Goal: To combine presentation, discussion, and activity to engage UNM classroom instructors to design learner-centered courses that align outcomes and assignments while adopting a variety of demonstrated teaching and assessment methods that are consistent with diverse learning styles of students. Participants will frame fresh answers to these questions:
Who should come? All UNM instructors are welcome including tenured and tenure-stream faculty, lecturers, adjunct and visiting faculty, part-time instructors, graduate teaching assistants. Instructors of large-enrollment courses are particularly encouraged to attend because instructional changes in these courses have the potential to produce the most positive changes in learning outcomes and student persistence.
Enrollment is limited to 25 people. All participants will receive copies of "How Learning Works: Seven Research Based Principles for Smart Teaching" by Susan Ambrose and others.
Please complete the online reservation form if you wish to attend.
Click here to register for the May 16-17, 2013 Institute
How much does it cost ? Nothing for UNM instructors!
Why? Educational-methods and cognitive-psychology research shows that instructor lecturing is less effective for most students than are learner-centered, active-learning approaches with aligned formative and summative assessments. Adoption of educationally effective learning-engagement practices leads to improvement of desired outcomes for all students, but research shows that historically underserved students benefit the most. Openness to rethinking instructional design has potentially large benefits for UNM’s richly diverse student population.