Below are the four tracks and their topics for the breakout sessions:

1

In this session participants will gain a basic understanding of a Learning to Learn Camp with a focus on how it creates a quality learning environment for both students and faculty to improve their performance using active and cooperative learning, multiple types of assessment, peer coaching, and mentoring. As a result of this environment, participants experience significant growth in learning skills and confidence in their ability to perform at a high level of competence in challenging situations.

This session will discuss the processes involved in creating an academic skills center. Beginning with assessment of need, alignment of the center with an institution’s goals and mission, and projected costs, the process continues with the approval for the establishment of the center by the institution’s key decision-makers.  Once the proposal has been approved, the project advances through various other steps, including the acquisition of funding, the selection of space, the hiring of personnel, the marketing of the center, the design for daily operations, and ways to assess the effectiveness of the center in increasing student success. 

The instruction of Learning Disabled students is a major challenge for universities across this country and abroad. The percentage of LD students enrolled in college has significantly increased over the past ten years. However, many college professors continue to emphasize content over pedagogy. This presentation will describe and demonstrate best practices for professors to utilize in college classrooms that will do more than simply accommodate students with learning disabilities.

2

Teaching with Technology (Dennis James)

This workshop covers the different types of multimedia and how they can be effectively applied to face-to-face and online classes.  This is not a "how to create multimedia" session, but is a "how to use multimedia to improve teaching and learning". Additionally, see how the use of student response systems improves engagement, learner-to-faculty and learner-to-learner. Learn how you can actively engage the students during the entire class period, gauge their level of understanding of the material being presented, and provide prompt feedback when dealing with 25 to 500 students at a time. We will share some best practices and encourage group discussion.

Motivating Student Success (Cy Leise)

The dynamics of motivation require educators to continually assess the effectiveness of learning activities and to use varied techniques to maintain an appropriate level of persistence with learning tasks. Process education, taken as a whole, provides a wide array of principles and techniques for addressing motivational challenges faced by educators and learners. In this session participants will be introduced to a glossary of terms drawn from theory, research, and practice that identify specific kinds of motivation and also how contextual factors influence motivation of decisions, goals, and behavior. An observational assessment model and a five-level growth rubric will be introduced as tools for assessing the quality level of individual motivation before participants are asked to work in teams to discuss learner case stories from their experience that have been problematic from a motivational perspective. Information will be collected from the teams on their case story analyses, including motivational assessment insights and identification of relevant process principles that could help with motivational problems.

Life Coaching as an Advising Model (Victor Harms)

Life coaching is a relatively new professional process and role designed for enhancing personal development. It is a good fit for the academic advising because the emphasis is on decision making and goal setting intended for positive learning and growth. In this session a model of life coaching with the acronym FOCUS (Formulate, Organize, Clarify, Utilize, and Sequence) will be presented with emphasis on how it can be adapted to advising sessions. Participants will then work in pairs to do brief role play scenarios to get a sense of how to use the model. A closing exercise will provide an opportunity to ask questions about life coaching as a process and to provide assessment of their learning from the session.

Teaching Problem-Solving (Barbara Williams & Jim Morgan)

Some academics favor a definition of problem solving that is all encompassing, with most tasks falling as a sub-set of problem solving. While powerful, this global definition can be too vague to be helpful for most (especially novice) users. Tools have been created to help distinguish between the processes of problem solving, design and research. In this workshop participants will use these tools and participate in activities to help solidify definitions of each process. Various ways of applying these tools and concepts in a project-learning environment also will be explored.

Creating a Team-Taught Interdisciplinary Course (Jacqueline El-Sayed)

Team teaching an interdisciplinary course requires special attention to communication and leadership skills during its design, development, implementation, and assessment.  The team-teaching format works better in upper-level courses than in basic knowledge or problem intensive courses where a single facilitator is needed to assure continuity and progress. In an interdisciplinary course, professors can contribute on the basis of their unique backgrounds and also can share their individual expertise in the facilitation of integrated performances that cut across the disciplines. Participants in this section will be provided an overview of the benefits of team teaching, a demonstration of an interdisciplinary team teaching technique, and facilitated discussion about designing, implementing, assessing and evaluating a team-taught course.

Active Learning in Large Classes (Mark Jonas)

The general belief among many faculty is that constraints associated with large classes (60 – 600) prohibit the use of active learning activities. This workshop introduces general principles and approaches that make active learning in large classes a reality. It describes classroom organization, the roles of faculty and their support team, and how to effectively integrate student-centered facilitation, critical thinking, assessment, and constructive intervention effectively in larger classes.  The role of student preparation through outside of class activities will also be examined.  Participants will have an opportunity to observe, reflect on, and ask questions about tools and strategies that have been successfully applied in large biology classes at Stony Brook University.

3

Measuring Student Learning (Don Elger)

This workshop is for faculty who want to improve the quality of student learning through effective measurement practices. You will  learn the concepts of measurement, how to decide what to measure, and how to engage students in measurement. You will see a variety of tools for measurement, you will explore ideas for overcoming the practical challenges of real world classrooms, and you will receive orientation on references for future study.

Writing Critical Thinking Questions (Dave Hanson)

Research documents that learners must actively restructure the information they absorb in order to achieve real understanding and acquire knowledge that persists over time. Guided-inquiry activities help students with this restructuring by employing a learning cycle of exploration, concept invention or formation, and application. Critical-thinking questions are the heart of these activities and work to guide students in the exploration. This workshop will identify guidelines for writing and sequencing critical-thinking questions, and participants will design a guided-inquiry activity that they can use in their classrooms, write critical-thinking questions for it, and provide each other with assessment feedback.

Designing a Foundations Course (Ken Newgren)

The purpose of this workshop is to improve your understanding of the design process for a foundations course. This includes: (1) how a foundations course differs from other courses, (2) an awareness of leveraging stakeholder expectations, (3) achieving consensus on long-term student behaviors, (4) creation of appropriate learning activities, and (5) securing broad support from faculty and administration. Participants will have an opportunity to explore unique aspects of a foundations course in their discipline while engaging in active discussions about foundations courses in general.

4

Initiation of the International Journal of Process Education (i-jpe) (Jacqueline El-Sayed)

This session will introduce an exciting new journal that is intended to be a catalyst for the scholarship of teaching and learning associated with Process Education. Unlike many other journals which are managed with an evaluation mindset, this journal is committed to using assessment principles to improve article integrity, researcher skills, and the editorial process. This session will use the SII method to provide feedback on three items: (1) I-JPE website with the working vision, mission, and guiding principles developed by an editorial advisory group over the last six months, (2) expectations for authors and reviewers, and (3) theme for the inaugural issue that will appear in 2008 as well as ideas for articles that align with the scope and mission of the journal. Feedback obtained from participants will be used to update the request for submissions on the I-JPE website.

Writing a Self-Study to Foster Student Success (Marie Racine)

One of the most important strategic goals for almost all institutions is to increase student access, student success, and strengthen program learning outcomes for all graduates. During a self-study, programs and institutions must assess and analyze their effectiveness in producing quality graduates, their processes for producing these graduates, and their means of recruiting students that will be successful within the institution's mission. This workshop will highlight principles for writing a self-study, with special emphasis on those components related to student success. These components include strategic planning, program assessment, professional development, and quality action teams for enhancing student empowerment for academic and personal achievement.