gradSTEP 2008
Keeping Pace with the Present:
Practical Approaches to Teaching Tomorrow’s Learners

Saturday, January 19, 2008

8:30am – 3:00pm
Featheringill Hall

(This event has already taken place)

Held in January each year, gradSTEP provides several workshops and discussions on teaching, learning, and professional development issues across the disciplines. This year's event focuses on the need to take stock of changing undergraduate demographics and learning styles, available teaching resources at Vanderbilt, emergent approaches to teaching and learning, and newer technologies and how they translate in the classroom.

All Vanderbilt graduate and professional students, as well as post-doctoral fellows, are invited to attend. And lunch will be provided!

Schedule of Events

Further Information

Registration & Light Breakfast
8:30am to 9:00am

Welcome Address and Introduction
9:00am to 9:20am

Who are Tomorrow's Learners and What Might They Teach Us Today?

Session I
9:30am to 10:45am

Engaging the Learners of Today (and Tomorrow?) with Web 2.0 Technologies
Facilitator: Jeff Johnston, Assistant Director, CFT

*** THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL AND CLOSED TO FURTHER REGISTRATION. ***

According to a recent YouTube video, a student today will read 2300 web pages and 1281 Facebook profiles this year, and 8 books.  She will write 42 pages for class assignments this semester, and over 500 pages of email. Most of today’s undergraduates are “digital natives,” they have grown up immersed in computer technologies such as the Internet and cell phones.  These students enter our classrooms with different experiences, expectations and learning styles than previous generations of students.

How can we, as educators, hope to reach these increasingly diverse multi-taskers?  Many of today’s web technologies can be powerful tools for creating effective, engaging learning environments. Tools and services like Facebook, wikis, blogs, podcasts, Multi-User Virtual Environments (e.g., Second Life), and social bookmarking sites are all designed to facilitate creativity, collaboration and sharing between users.  These technologies (often collectively called Web 2.0 technologies) also empower student participation and authorship in new and exciting ways.

This workshop will briefly explore characteristics of today’s students (and what current trends might mean about tomorrow’s students), and aspects of popular Web 2.0 technologies that are particularly suited to facilitating learning.  Participants will then have the opportunity to think about applying these technologies to courses they plan to teach in the future and to get suggestions from other workshop participants.

What in the World is Going On in My Classroom?
Facilitator: Eileen Campbell-Reed, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

Do you ever wonder, is my teaching hitting the mark? Are my students comprehending my lectures? Are they learning the skills, ideas and ways of thinking that they need to understand our subject? How can I know before grading the term paper or final exam? This workshop will help you to answer these questions using several Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs) for uncovering the minds of your students and getting the feedback you need to improve your teaching and their learning.

Service Learning: Integrating Classroom and Community
Faciltator: Laura Taylor, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

Over the last decade, service-learning has become an increasingly popular component in undergraduate education.  By integrating meaningful community service with structured reflection, service-learning is thought to encourage deep learning, teach civic responsibility, promote democratic participation, and strengthen communities.  This workshop will introduce participants to the practice of service learning, exploring both its opportunities and challenges via a panel of faculty members and students involved in service-learning courses.

Critical Thinking: Information Literacy as a Liberal Arts Curriculum
Facilitator: Michael Risen, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

While information literacy would apparently be the language of tomorrow's learners, important questions remain about what role it plays in the college classroom. What is "information literacy"? Also, what practices can be implemented to enhance students' interpretation of information through social, political, and cultural contexts? This workshop will discuss a framework for answering these questions by viewing information literacy not only as a technical tool, but also as a new way of developing understanding course content.

Plenary with Dr. Elizabeth F. Barkley
11:00am to 12:15pm

This year’s plenary speaker will be Elizabeth F. Barkley, professional teacher, author, speaker, and musician. Dr. Barkley has co-authored Collaborative Learning: A Handbook for College Faculty, which outlines detailed procedures for using collaborative learning techniques (CoLTs) in the classroom and offers practical suggestions on a wide range of topics, including how to form groups, assign roles, build enthusiasm within groups, promote problem solving, and evaluate and grade student participation.

Lunch
12:15pm - 1:00pm

Lunch will be provided!

Session II
1:00pm to 2:15pm

Engaging Students with Dr. Elizabeth F. Barkley
Facilitator: Rebecca Chapman, Graduate Teaching Fellow, CFT

Panelist: Dr. Elizabeth Barkley, Professor of Music, Foothills College

Do you ever feel as though you're the only one engaged when you teach? Do you ever find yourself looking into an abyss of disinterested student faces?
Do you remember feeling disinterested yourself as a student?

Join this year's plenary speaker, Dr. Elizabeth Barkley, as she leads a conversation on various classroom learning techniques and student engagement techniques. In this follow up session to the plenary, participants will reflect on which techniques worked for them as students, which did not, and how we might assess the degree to which various techniques are, indeed, engaging our students.

Presenting with Confidence:  Strategies for Effective Public Speaking
Facilitator: Allison Pingree, Director, CFT

In our academic and professional lives, we're called on to give presentations in a variety of formats and for a variety of audiences: conference papers, class lectures, research presentations, lab overviews, etc. 

In this session, we'll analyze what characterizes effective presentations, as well as the common challenges we face in giving them. Then we'll develop strategies and plans for upcoming presentations, and, time permitting, give a few people the chance to practice and get feedback.

Preparing a Dynamic Teaching Statement and Portfolio
Facilitator: Patricia Armstrong, Assistant Director, CFT

*** THIS WORKSHOP IS FULL AND CLOSED TO FURTHER REGISTRATION. ***

Whether you've been teaching for two weeks or two years, it's no easy task to present your teaching in a dynamic way in a teaching statement and/or portfolio.  With this challenge in mind, the facilitator of this workshop will help you identify your core teaching values and determine how those values influence your teaching practice, be it actual or anticipated, so that you can create an engaging teaching statement and portfolio.  In this workshop, we'll explore questions such as: What exactly is a teaching statement?  A teaching portfolio?  What purpose do they serve, and how will having one or both help on the job market and beyond?  What's the most effective way to communicate about core teaching values and practices?  This session is intended for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows preparing for the job market or who want to get a jump on that preparation.    

To Friend or Not to Friend: Connecting with Students in a Web 2.0 World
Facilitator: Derek Bruff, Assistant Director, CFT

***THIS WORKSHOP HAS BEEN CANCELLED.***

Web 2.0 technologies—blogs, social networking web sites like Facebook, virtual worlds like Second Life—allow instructors to connect and communicate with their students in new and different ways.  Connecting with students is an important part of the teaching and learning process, but new technologies bring new challenges in using them effectively and ethically, particularly since many of these technologies blur the line between public and private personas. When a student walks into an instructor’s office hour, both student and instructor usually have a sense of how to relate to each other.  How should students and instructors relate to each other in a Web 2.0 world?
 
In this session, we’ll discuss some ways to use Facebook to connect with students, as well as the ethics of doing so.  Should instructors have Facebook profiles?  What should instructors say about themselves in their profiles?  Should instructors “friend” their students on Facebook?  How should instructors and students navigate this new way of connecting with each other?  Our discussion will focus on Facebook but will have implications for a variety of current and future web technologies.

Wrap-up Session: Talk Back with Tomorrow's Learners
2:30pm to 3:00pm

How do "tomorrow's learners" really think and learn? To find out, the CFT has tapped a few select undergraduates to join gradSTEP as participants and observers. In the closing session of the day they will share their insights and observations about the plenary session and workshops they attended. You won't want to miss what they have to say! Dessert and coffee will be provided.

(This event has already taken place)

For information on past events, please see our gradSTEP Archive.

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