View Thursday morning's schedule in its entirety (pdf). All sessions will be held at UW–Madison Pyle Center, 702 Langdon Street.

7:30–8:15 a.m.

Registration

Main floor entrance

8:15–8:30 a.m.

Welcome and Logistics

Coffee and continental breakfast available throughout the morning outside the Plenary Room.

8:30–9:30 p.m.

Breakout Sessions

Helping Students See the Picture in the Data

The availability of simulations, models, and publicly accessible databases gives us endless opportunities for using data in courses but how do we empower students to construct meaning from the data? Presenters from a breadth of disciplines will describe class assignments, computer games, and knowledge environments that guide students through data mining, visualization, and analysis. Participants will view online environments, simulations, and games for data-based inquiry and discuss what issues are critical for helping students build data literacy skills.

Jan Cheetham, Academic Technology, DoIT
John Pfotenhauer, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Tom Purnell, Department of Linguistics
Ken West, Department of Economics

Culture and Beyond: The Literary Text in Intermediate Language Courses

Literary text is known to be a powerful tool in teaching language with a cultural studies approach. Literature allows students to enter the reality of another society and engage in active discussions and meaningful writing. Can literature offer us another path equally fascinating for communication? In this session, participants will explore ways of teaching language using the literary text as a means of exploring feelings and sensations, drawing on emotions and personal memories.

Tania Convertini and Mattia Begali, Department of French and Italian

Changing Classroom Boundaries

In this session, participants will engage with faculty who are changing their learning spaces by bringing the outside into the classroom to create active, collaborative learning environments. Examples include bringing remote, real-time nature experience into lecture, creating “out the door” immersion experiences, and providing virtual spaces for student peer review. Participants will see illustrations of several effective learning environments and discuss the pedagogical implications of student-designed learning as well as how these approaches address the Wisconsin Experience and the essential student learning outcomes of LEAP.

Nick Balster, Department of Soil Science and Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies
Ritt Deitz, Professional French Masters Program
Michael Connors, Department of Art
Carole Turner, Academic Technology, DoIT

Peer Mentoring to Enhance Student Learning

Using Peer Mentors (PMs), upper-class students who primarily help lead discussions and direct activities in large classes, is a win-win for the campus: they benefit the students taking the class and they provide a terrific academic leadership experience for the PMs themselves. This panel of four faculty/instructors from different disciplines will talk about how they make peer mentoring work for them. Discussion will focus on what works and what challenges exist in using PMs. Participants will have an opportunity to get feedback about how to include PMs in their own courses.

Susan Brantly, Department of Scandinavian Studies
Jenny Saffran, Department of Psychology
Kevin Strang and Drew Lokuta, Department of Physiology
Kelsey Keech, Bradley Learning Community

Learning Circle: Effectively Using Class Projects That Involve Student-Created Content

Facilitator
Timmo Dugdale, Academic Technology, DoIT

9:30–9:45 a.m.

Break

9:45–10:45 a.m.

Breakout Sessions

Story-based Teaching and Learning: Practices and Technologies

In this session, participants will be challenged to reconsider their assumptions on the role of stories in the process of learning and evaluate how stories could enhance their own course curriculum designs and instruction methods. Presenters will provide an overview of emerging story-based teaching and learning practices in higher education and how these practices are changing with evolving technologies. Participants will learn about the types of learning that story-based teaching methods support and corresponding assessment strategies. Distinct examples of UW–Madison courses that have used stories, multimedia and web 2.0 technologies to meet learning objectives will also be described.

Cheryl Diermyer, Academic Technology, DoIT
Caton Roberts, Chadbourn Residential College and Department of Psychology
Ruth Olson, Interdisciplinary Programs of Humanities and Ethnic Studies
Chris Blakesley, Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Engaging First-Year Students in Large Lectures: What Works, Doesn't Work and Why

During the 2008–09 academic year, forty instructors of large courses enrolling first-year students at UW–Madison were interviewed and asked to share their goals, techniques, challenges, and successes. In this session, participants will hear about the themes and lessons learned from these interviews. Participant will also find out about some of the effective practices being used to engaging first-year students in large lecture courses.

Wren Singer, Center for the First-Year Experience
Cathy Middlecamp, Department of Chemistry and Integrated Liberal Studies Program
Jeff Henriques, Department of Psychology

Methods to Encourage Environmental Awareness and Mitigate the Extinction Crisis

Global resource consumption by developed countries contributes significantly to ecological crises including accelerating rates of species extinctions. In this session, participants will learn about action-oriented activities that encourage students to communicate environmental issues with peers and decrease their energy consumption and waste production. One project lead to yearly decreases of 13,000 gallons gasoline, 325,000 miles driven, and 1,250 pounds of solid waste for a class of 300 students. These methods empower students to become self-directed lifelong learners, leaders and activists.

Lucas Moyer-Horner, Department of Zoology
Chris Vaughan, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology
Mirna Santana, Department of Soil Science

The Information Element of Inquiry-Based Education: Skills that Enable Students to Manage Their Own Learning

Academic programs across the university increasingly emphasize development of transferable skills through authentic learning experiences. In engineering, there is growing interest in Inquiry-Based Learning, in which students solve problems through discovery-based activities that help them develop integrative learning skills. In this session, participants will discuss how information metacognition is a critical tool for inquiry-based learning, and how librarians can help create more effective inquiry-based learning experiences. Participants will also discuss how these approaches can be applied to enrich integrative learning experiences across the university.

Diana Wheeler and Lia Vellardita, Wendt Library
Sarah McDaniel, Memorial Library

Learning Circle: LessonShare: A Community-Building Resource for Faculty and Teaching Staff

Facilitators
Catherine Stephens, School of Education
Doug Worsham, Letters & Science Learning Support Services
Katy Swalwell and Anita Wager, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Timmo Dugdale, Academic Technology, DoIT

10:45–11 a.m.

Break

11 a.m.–Noon

Plenary

Here Be Dragons: Building Bridges and Lowering Barriers to Learning in the College Classroom

Teri Balser, Director, Institute for Biology Education Professor, Department of Soil Science