Keynote Speakers

Tamara Rosier

Teaching Metacognition: Encouraging Students to Engage in Their Learning

What if we taught our students to monitor their progress as they learn? What if they learned to make changes and adapt their thinking if they perceived confusion or conflict? As students become more skilled at using monitoring and reflective strategies, they gain confidence and become more independent as learners. Metacognition is the knowledge of one’s own thinking process and strategies, and the ability to consciously reflect and act on that knowledge to modify those processes and strategies. This session will explore ways that we can encourage, cultivate and enhance metacognitive capabilities of our students.

Tamara Rosier is the Assistant Director in The Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning at Grand Valley State University. Prior to her current position, she was the founding director of the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Cornerstone University where she taught for eight years in the Teacher Education department. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Educational Leadership from Western Michigan University in 2004.

Todd Zakrajsek

Creating Excitement In the Classroom: Strategies for Teaching from the Psychology of Learning

What can instructors 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. This session will demonstrate and explain how instructors can make classroom learning, perhaps one of the most artificial learning settings, a more meaningful experience for students. The presenter uses theories of learning and motivation as a basis for creating strategies to increase student engagement in course content and class sessions. Participants will have an opportunity to try out and experience first-hand some of these techniques.

Todd Zakrajsek is the Executive Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to his current appointment, he established both the Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan and the Center for Teaching and Learning at Southern Oregon University. While at Southern Oregon, he also taught in the psychology department as a tenured associate professor. Dr. Zakrajsek publishes and presents widely on the topic of student learning and faculty development.  He also directs two conferences devoted to teaching and learning, one national and one international.

Todd Zakrajsek and Tamara Rosier

Learning from the Literature: A Few Findings That Inform Any Discipline

There is a great deal of research pertaining to what works and what does not work with respect to student learning. In this session, the facilitators will summarize some of the recent research findings in the area of cognitive psychology, education, and physiology that hold direct implications for teaching in college and university classrooms. In addition, a number of easily adaptable classroom activities will be used during the session. At the conclusion of this session you will have a better understanding of how students learn, determine what you can do to facilitate that learning, identify some activities to help engage the students in the learning process, and have a bit of fun in the process.