Holden Thorp (Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs)
Gina Frey (Florence E. Moog Professor of STEM Education, Chemistry; Executive Director, The Teaching Center; co-Director, CIRCLE)

“Growth Mindset” Plenary Slides

Ron Cytron (Professor, Computer Science and Engineering)
Jaleh Fazelian (Subject Librarian, Islamic Studies and South Asian Studies)
Makiba Foster (Subject Librarian, American History and Women and Gender Studies)

Incorporating Mobile Devices slides

According to a 2013 survey, about 40% of college students have used tablets for coursework and two-thirds have used a smartphone. Students also report that they would like to use their mobile devices more often in their courses. This session will provide the opportunity to learn about strategies for incorporating the use of mobile devices in the classroom, including WU-texter, an application developed and implemented by Ron in a computer science course.

Carolyn Dufault (Education Specialist, Office of Education, School of Medicine)

Applying Metacognition in the Classroom slides

Recent cognitive-science research has provided evidence that faculty and students are not always accurate at predicting which teaching and learning strategies will promote effective memory and understanding. This session will review when, why, and how these types of metacognitive errors occur. Carolyn will also discuss recent research on strategies that can be applied to increase effective metacognition in the classroom.

Kathryn Miller (Professor and Chair, Biology)
Denise Leonard (HHMI Postdoctoral Research Associate, Biology and The Teaching Center)

Evaluating Critical-Thinking and Writing Skills slides

Engaging students in the writing process and providing opportunities for students to reflect on their writing are key strategies for improving critical thinking skills. These strategies helped to guide the redesign of Biology 3191, Molecular Mechanisms in Development, into a writing-intensive course. In this session, Kathy and Denise will describe the development of a study that is evaluating the redesigned course and its effects on students’ critical-thinking and writing skills, as well as on the students’ perceptions of their abilities as writers.

Amanda Moore McBride (Associate Professor and Associate Dean, Social Work)
Tonya Edmond (Associate Professor, Social Work)
Carolyn Lesorogol (Associate Professor, Social Work)
Aaron Hipp (Assistant Professor, Social Work)
Andria West (Manager of Operations, Social Work)

Active Learning Pilot slides

After a faculty survey revealed that 8/10 courses in the Brown School include active learning or collaborative group work, the School developed a pilot project on the design of new learning spaces. This project—which includes formal evaluation of the effectiveness of the layout, furniture, and technology in a pilot classroom—is informing the design of classrooms in the new building. The presenters will describe the pilot project, providing examples from several Spring 2013 courses, as well as share insights from surveys of faculty and students who used the new classroom.

Jami Ake (Senior Lecturer, Interdisciplinary Project In Humanities; Assistant Dean, College of Arts and Sciences)
Douglas Knox (Assistant Director, Humanities Digital Workshop, Arts and Sciences Computing)

Gender-Based Violence Database slides

This session will highlight the instrumental role that undergraduates can play in developing community-focused projects, using digital media. Jami and Doug will use a recent Violence Against Women Bibliography Project as an example of meaningful student learning, in which students engaged in problem-based inquiry by participating at every stage of digital-project creation and development.

Allyson Zazulia, MD (Associate Professor, Neurology and Radiology, School of Medicine)

Team-Based Question Writing slides

Students often ask for practice questions to help them prepare for exams. This session will illustrate how to give students the tools to produce such questions themselves while also fostering self-directed learning, collaboration, and critical-review skills via an outside-the-classroom group-learning exercise that can be easily adapted to nearly any course in any discipline. Allyson will discuss the rationale for, and implementation of, this exercise as well as lessons she has learned from integrating the exercise into a neurology course.

Heather Corcoran (Associate Professor, Design)

Contact presenter for session materials.

In the Communication Design program in the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, students learn how to create clear, informational artifacts—including apps, maps, and books. Students participate in the larger field of interdisciplinary design, which seeks to understand how messages are sent and received, as they learn about the related topics of attention, understanding, and behavioral change. This session will explore methods of teaching communication design that may be transferred to teaching across disciplines— such as project-based and experiential learning, visual research, approaches to making, technology as tool and output, and collaborative group work.

Michael Cahill (Research Scientist and Project Manager, CIRCLE)
Mairin Hynes (Lecturer, Physics)

Active Physics slides

The Department of Physics at Washington University has recently developed and evaluated a new Introductory Physics curriculum that integrates active-learning techniques into a large lecture class. These techniques include conceptual discussion questions, interactive demonstrations, and group problem solving. After describing the goals of the new, active-learning curriculum, Mairin and Mike will present results from the evaluation of the course, which has demonstrated that active learning, relative to the traditional lecture-based approach, promotes greater conceptual understanding and more expert-like perceptions of the discipline.

Megan Daschbach (Lecturer, Chemistry)
Gina Frey (Florence E. Moog Professor of STEM Education, Chemistry; Executive Director, The Teaching Center; co-Director, CIRCLE)
Eleanor Pardini (Lecturer and Assistant Director, Environmental Studies)

Ecology in the Active Learning Classroom slides

Please note special location and time. This session takes place in the Active-Learning Classroom from 12:40 – 2:20. Box lunches will be provided for participants. A collaboration between Arts & Sciences and The Teaching Center has created a space that can accommodate a wide range of active-learning approaches, including group work. The design of the room allows instructor and students to transition smoothly from low-tech to high-tech tools—using chalkboard and paper as easily as projection screens and laptops. Participants in this interactive session will be able to try out the flexible technology and furniture in this classroom as they learn about how the features of the room have been used in a chemistry course using Process-Oriented Guided-Inquiry Learning (POGIL), a discussion-based Peer-Led Team Learning (PLTL) course, and an Introduction to Ecology course in which interactive lecture is the primary method. Participants will also learn about insights drawn from surveys of faculty and students who have used room. This classroom room was redesigned with support from the Arts & Sciences Annual Fund.

Aaron Addison (Director, GIS and Data Services, Olin Library)

Teaching with GIS slides

Geographic Information Systems (GIS) offer students and instructors powerful tools for visualizing and analyzing data. However, students do not often enter a course with the skills needed to work with visual data. In this session, Aaron will present several examples of how the GIS Center has worked with faculty across disciplines to incorporate GIS into teaching. Aaron will also draw on these examples to describe the impact GIS has had on faculty and students at Washington University.

Kurt Thoroughman (Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering)

Developing Connections During Introductory Coursework slides

The Department of Biomedical Engineering has designed and piloted an online intervention to help students build connections, context, and community during the first and second years. The aim of this project is to provide an environment in which students realize how foundational ideas in the discipline underlie current engineering problems. Students participate in group discussion and projects, and build their own scholarly and pre-professional identities by gathering personal artifact libraries and writing reflective essays. Kurt will report on the first three semesters of this project, including newly developed modules that connect students to challenges and opportunities at the Medical School and in the St. Louis community.

Cindy Brantmeier (Associate Professor, Applied Linguistics and Education)
Mike Strube (Professor and Associate Chair, Psychology)

SESSION CANCELLED

Can students effectively self-diagnose strengths and weaknesses in their class performance? Can such self-assessment lead to benefits for the students? Cindy and Mike will present results from their research, which has shown a positive relationship between student ratings of their own skills and subsequent performance in a course. Students in this study used criterion-referenced self-assessment (SA) instruments that were tailored to course objectives. Cindy and Mike will describe how using an SA instrument can benefit individual learners across disciplines and provide a valuable departure from traditional testing formats.

Beth Fisher (Director of Academic Services, The Teaching Center; Lecturer, Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies)
Michelle Repice (Assistant Director of Academic Services, The Teaching Center)

Inclusive Teaching slides

Inclusive Teaching Strategies handout

Inclusive Teaching worksheet

In this session, participants will discuss research on diversity in the college classroom, including phenomena such as the effects of “stereotype threat” on student learning and performance. Participants will also discuss teaching practices that are instrumental in creating and maintaining a fair, inclusive, and challenging learning environment for all students.

Bryn Lutes (Assistant Director of Academic Services, The Teaching Center)
Mitch Kundel (Assistant Director of Academic Services, The Teaching Center)

Blackboard Discussions Slides

How can student participation in discussions enhance their learning and engagement during class? In this session, Bryn and Mitch will present examples of strategies for incorporating Blackboard discussion boards into courses, including structuring online discussions to ensure that they are integrated with class discussions, utilizing group-discussion boards to support peer review of student writing, and using discussion boards to provide to students opportunities to ask questions about assignments. The session will include brainstorming of additional ways to incorporate Blackboard discussions.

Eli Snir (Lecturer, Management)

Empowering Sophomores for Independent Research slides

This session will provide an opportunity to learn how a capstone poster-presentation assignment in a required Business Statistics course has helped to empower students to learn how multiple linear regression analysis can support independent research well beyond the course, including in study-abroad projects. Eli will discuss the development and implementation of this research assignment in a relatively large (50-student) course, as well as the implications this type of assignment can have for later work in upper-level courses. Student posters from past projects will be shared with session participants.

Boahemaa Adu-Oppong (graduate student, Biology)
Kimberley Sukhum (graduate student, Biology)

Wikipedia Course slides

When students write for Wikipedia, they learn to construct a clear argument, to understand the nature of evidence, and to defend their work. Anyone can teach an official Wikipedia course and bring their students into the Wikipedia learning community. The presenters will discuss strategies for transforming your course into a Wikipedia course, providing suggestions on how to get started as well as examples from a Behavioral Ecology course.

To win an attendance prize, participants must be present when winners’ names are drawn at the reception.