Upcoming Events
29th Annual Fall Conference on Teaching and Learning Featuring Dr. James M. Lang
Date and Time
Wednesday, August 23, 2023 8:30 AM - 2:00 PM
RSVP
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Location
Eberhard Center, Room 215
Robert C. Pew Grand Rapids Campus
Description
Wednesday, August 23, 2023
8:30 a.m. — 2 p.m.
Eberhard Center
Teaching Distracted Minds: Old Challenges, New Contexts
Keynote presentation: Dr. James M. Lang
Faculty frequently express concerns about the distractions and distractibility of our students, but our real focus should be on how we help students achieve attention. These sessions draw upon scholarship from history, neuroscience, and education in order to argue that distractions are endemic to the human condition and can’t be walled out of the physical classroom or online course. Instead, we should focus on creating educational experiences that cultivate and sustain attention. Participants will learn about a variety of potential pathways to developing such experiences for their students.
James M. Lang, Ph.D. is the author of six books, the most recent of which are Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It, Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning, and Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty (Harvard University Press, 2013), and On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching. A former Professor of English and Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption University, he stepped down from full-time academic work in 2021 to concentrate more fully on his writing and teaching. Jim writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education; his work has been appearing in the Chronicle since 1999. He founded and co-edits a book series on teaching and learning in higher education for West Virginia University Press.
The conference will take place in-person with several options for virtual breakout sessions. The keynote will be recorded and posted for later viewing.
Information
For more information, please visit: 29th Annual Fall Conference on Teaching and Learning (2023)
Contact
Pew Faculty Teaching and Learning Center
[email protected]
(616) 331-3498