Concurrent Sessions

Our presenters from across the university and beyond will present breakout sessions focused on sharing best practices to promote student learning through the effective use of learning science research. Concurrent session presenters are from the University of Louisville unless otherwise noted. Sessions will begin at 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.

Morning Concurrent Sessions: 11 a.m.–12 p.m.

1) Scaffolded Explicit Revision as a Practical Framework to Promote Effective Student Effort (Room 211)

Presenter: Hunter Moseley, Assistant Professor, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences

While student effort is considered a necessary component for classroom performance, not all student effort is effective in improving performance. This disconnect between student effort and performance is made more troubling by trends in declining student effort over the last few decades. This session will cover the instructor's researched-based methods for promoting effective student effort based upon the incorporation of scaffolded explicit revision into class assessments and their integration with other modern teaching and learning methods.

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2) Exploratory Activities in the Classroom: A Cognitive Science Perspective (Room 136A)

Presenter: Marci DeCaro, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

Although activities that help students actively explore new concepts generally support conceptual understanding, the success of exploratory learning may depend on many factors. Drawing on research from cognitive science, this session will discuss how exploration benefits learning, important elements to include in exploratory learning activities, and who is most likely to benefit from these experiences. Examples of exploratory experiences used in courses will be provided.

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3) Who's Doing the Thinking in Your Classroom? Using Formative Assessment to Promote Student Learning (Room 136B)

Presenter: Melissa L. Shirley, Assistant Professor, Department of Middle and Secondary Education, College of Education and Human Development

Formative assessment encompasses a wide range of instructional processes aimed at giving instructors and students more information about student learning. In this session, we will discuss how formative assessment supports student learning during the learning process. We will identify several specific strategies and explore how you can use them in your teaching right away.

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4) Critical Thinking: The Biological Basis of How We Do It, Learn It, and Teach It (Room 14)

Presenter: Pete Walton, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, School of Public Health and Health Information Sciences

Can we really think critically, let alone teach for it? In this session we will explore evidence underlying critical thinking, culled from literature on natural and sexual selection, genetics and epigenetics, and neuroscience. Using a scorecard demonstrating how teachers and students fare in light of this evidence, we will explore suggestions and thoughts on how to proceed in teaching for critical thinking.

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5) Pedagogical Strategies to Strengthen Learning in Introductory STEM Courses (Room 15)

Presenters: Thomas Tretter, Associate Professor of Science Education, College of Education and Human Development/Director, Gheens Science Hall and Rauch Planetarium; Christine Rich, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry, College of Arts and Sciences

Because many students solidify their degree plans during their initial semesters at University of Louisville, enhancing their learning and success in introductory science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) courses has the potential to retain STEM majors through successful completion of the degree. We are in the second year of an initiative with this goal; this effort involves the collaboration of faculty in nine different Arts and Sciences and Speed School departments. Grounding our pedagogical strategies in the existing research base, this session will feature a variety of pedagogical implementation strategies and share how content-specific and context-specific parameters have been used to modify and shape implementation efforts. In addition to learning about these strategies, select strategies will be experienced by the attendees as part of the delivery of this session. Many of the pedagogical strategies are content-agnostic and can be adapted to fit many other domains of study.

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6) Special Session for Chairs (Room 201)

This session is invitation only.

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Afternoon Concurrent Sessions: 1:30–2:30 p.m.

1) Learner-Centered Teaching and the Post-Graduate Learning Environment: Using Simulation to Keep Knowledge Alive (Room 15)

Presenter: Aaron Calhoun, Assistant Professor, Department of Pediatrics, School of Medicine

For post-graduate practitioners in high-stakes fields such as medicine and aviation, ongoing active learning is a vital part of maintaining competency. While competency is relatively easy to achieve for commonly encountered situations, practitioners' abilities to manage uncommon scenarios often decay over time due to lack of repeated exposure. One way to address this issue is through high-fidelity simulation, which can be used to create engaging, learner-centered educational environments allowing longitudinal exposure to uncommon but critical situations. In this session we will explore the connections between simulation-based education and learner-centered teaching, discussing the construction, implementation, and debriefing of simulated experiences designed to capitalize on these advances in educational theory.

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2) Opportunities to Engage Students in Meaningful, Relevant, and Useful Learning (Room 136A)

Presenter: Daniela Terson de Paleville, Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Sport Sciences, College of Education and Human Development

Physiology, rehabilitation, and exercise physiology are dynamic fields of research, and information presented in textbooks is regularly challenged by new research findings. Dr. Terson de Paleville takes her students directly to the research labs so they have access to cutting-edge discoveries even before the findings are published. She also brings researchers to the classroom to share their work. She has observed high student satisfaction and success when incorporating evidence-based concepts into her teaching. Her goal for this session will be to transmit her experience to other faculty so that they can organize enriched learning experiences for their students.

3) Computer-Based Learning of Neuroanatomy: An Example of Cognitive Science Applied to Anatomy Education (136B)

Presenter: Julia Chariker, Postdoctoral Scholar, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and the Bioinformatics Core, College of Arts and Sciences

Anatomical knowledge serves as a vital foundation for high-level skill in medicine and biology. Students generally consider anatomy challenging to learn, often because large amounts of spatially complex material must be mastered within short periods of time. This session will describe the design and evaluation of new computer-based programs for learning sectional neuroanatomy. The programs provide tools that allow students to interact with a realistic model of neuroanatomy developed specifically for this project. The programs are designed using principles of effective learning derived from research in cognitive science. Several hypotheses with regard to effective learning have been evaluated and will be discussed in terms of learning efficiency, knowledge transfer, and knowledge retention.

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4) Want Your Students To Remember Everything? There's an App for That (Room 201)

Presenter: Keith B. Lyle, Assistant Professor, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences

Research shows that many learners do not know how to study in a way that leads to the long-term retention of information. Consequently, they often spend large amounts of time studying material they will soon forget. Fortunately, there is a program freely available on the Internet that can help learners study more effectively and efficiently. In this session, I will present the learning science behind the program Anki and demonstrate how it can be used by learners and teachers alike. And, yes, it has a mobile app.

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5) Learning Science Meets the Socratic Method: Transforming Teaching Strategies in the Law School Classroom (Room 211)

Presenter: Steven I. Friedland, Professor of Law, Elon University School of Law

This session explores how outcome-based, threshold, and other learning approaches have offered fresh perspectives on more than a century of deep-rooted Socratic instruction. Moving from a linear educational approach to various methods that embrace mobility in learning, this session illustrates how the classroom experience can be enhanced across the disciplines. Collaborative exercises and discussions will be used to create connections and engagement.

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