Pedagogy Seminars

Directory of old seminars and abstracts:

Coming soon

Seminars available online:

Dendy Sloan and Cynthia Norrgran, October 3rd 2013

The German Army, An Explosion, and a Bicycle Accident: How the Brain Learns and Solves Problems

In these short 45 minutes, we will provide a new, macroscopic hypothesis for how the brain learns, and a well-established microscopic theory of memory, based upon modern neuroscience evidence. Along the way, we’ll look at three human case studies, so the seminar is not too dry.

Francis Crick said, concluding a 1979 Scientific American issue on the brain, “What is conspicuously lacking is a broad framework of ideas (about the brain).” We believe the last 34 years have provided evidence to construct a “broad framework” hypothesis about how the brain works. We’ll also provide attendees with a sheet of seven pedagogical guidelines from neuroscience.

This seminar will state the “bottom lines” of our new book, Neuroscience, Memory, and Learning. As a minimum, attendees should have a nice, free sandwich; come early for food – we’ll start talking at noon. As a maximum, attendees will come away inspired, with hard-science evidence for how to be a better learner. (Individual results may vary).

Dr. Kristine Callan, CSM Department of Physics

Team-Based Learning and its Implementation at Duke University

Team-Based LearningTM (TBL) is one of the many methods that have recently been developed for “flipping” a classroom (i.e., moving content delivery outside of the classroom, freeing up in-class time for interacting with the material). The motivation for doing so is often to shift the course goals from “knowing” to “applying” and the students’ roles from “passive” to “active” so that (hopefully) deeper learning takes place.

There is more than one way to flip a classroom, however, so in this talk I will describe the TBL method as prescribed by the people who developed (and trademarked) it. I will also discuss how 17 faculty at Duke University collaborated to implement TBL-like methods in a variety of classes at both the undergraduate and graduate level with the help of a fellowship created by Duke’s Center for Information Technology. The faculty found that the campus-wide fellowship was helpful for trying innovating teaching methods like TBL for the first time.

While there is not yet enough data to say whether or not TBL improved student learning in these flipped courses as compared to their traditional counterparts, there are preliminary indications that students and faculty are benefiting from the new approach.