Designing Spaces for Learning: What’s Next? – Monday, December 9th
Dec. 5, 2013—by Derek Bruff, CFT Director The Space, Learning, and Mobility Lab (SLAMLab) at Peabody College, Peabody International Affairs, and the Vanderbilt International Office are hosting a presentation and interactive reception on the topic of learning spaces on Monday, December 9th. “Designing Spaces for Learning: What’s Next?” features a presentation by faculty from the University of...
The Mindful PhD: Inspiration, Creativity, & New Ideas
Dec. 4, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director In “The Science of Inspiration” (2013), Eric Ravenscraft highlights the neuroscientific view of inspiration, epiphanies, and “‘a-ha’ moments”: “When you make a new connection between two ideas, it’s not just a metaphor. Your brain is literally restructuring itself to accommodate new processes…. [T]he more ‘plastic’ your brain is, the...
The Mindful PhD: Labyrinths & Learning
Nov. 20, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director I’ve been reading everything I find about mindfulness, but I’m eager for more evidence-based work on its effects on learning in the college classroom. As my previous posts indicate, recent years have seen a lot of scientific research (especially in neuroscience and psychology) pointing to the psychological and physiological...
SoTL Spotlight: Reflections from a SoTL Project
Nov. 20, 2013—by Andrew Greer, CFT Graduate Teaching Fellow Learning happens (or doesn’t), and the processes often remain hidden. Teachers tend to modify their teaching with trial and error, and base these modifications on assumptions about the problems with student learning. However, instead of being guided by hunches, scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) researchers strive to...
“Inviting Genius”: Students as Producers in African American Studies
Nov. 18, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director The CFT’s theme this year, “Students as Producers,” has given me the opportunity to talk with some talented and thoughtful colleagues across campus. On October 24, I brought together three of them to have a conversation on teaching about “Producing, Performing, & Creating Learning across the Humanities: Models of...
The Mindful PhD: Reading Like Bruce Lee
Nov. 14, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director I teach literature. My students read a lot, and I want them to read well—closely, carefully, attentively. I’ve always heard that the best readers were read to when they were young and then read voraciously when they were growing up. This makes great sense to me, but it also...
Upcoming Teaching. Writing. Learning: Conversation with Melinda Brown
Nov. 13, 2013—Fear, Tired, Dread, Excited: Student Feelings and the Research Assignment Thinking about your Spring 2014 assignments? Participate in this conversation to identify concrete strategies for writing research assignments that maximize positive student responses. Wednesday, November 20 12:10-1:00, Community Room, Central Library Opening Guest Presenter: Melinda Brown (Heard Library) Sponsored by the Center for Teaching, the...
SoTL Spotlight: A Great Conference in Banff
Nov. 11, 2013—by Nancy Chick, CFT Assistant Director Nancy is the author of a variety of SoTL articles and book chapters, as well as co-editor of two books on signature pedagogies and co-editor of Teaching & Learning Inquiry, the official journal of the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), with the Center for Teaching as its...
Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow Spotlight: Will Grissom
Nov. 8, 2013—Each month, the CFT Newsletter highlights the work of our Junior Faculty Teaching Fellows. This month, Will Grissom, Assistant Professor of Biomedical Engineering, talks about his teaching philosophy and interests: My group is currently focused on technical developments for Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI)-guided focused ultrasound and ultra-high field MRI. Ultra-high field strength MRI scanners, such...
Upcoming Teaching Worshop – Engaging Students as Learners and as Participants in Community Building: The Synergies of Service Learning
Nov. 7, 2013—Date: Thursday, November 14th Time: 4:10 – 5:30 Location: Center for Teaching Facilitator: Joe Bandy Audience: Faculty, Students (Undergraduate and Graduate), and Staff Service learning is a pedagogy that combines the learning goals of your courses and the ideals of community service in class projects that can enhance both student development and the common good. ...