Council for Advancement and Support of Education’s 2011 U.S. Professor of the Year national winner Stephen Chew taught nearly 160 Belmont faculty how to improve student learning through metacognition, depth of processing, the effective use of examples and cognitive load. Chew, professor of psychology at Samford University led the workshop entitled “Improving Student Performance by Addressing Student and Teacher Misconceptions about Learning” through Belmont’s Teaching Center in August.
Chew reviewed common misconceptions among both students and teachers that undermine learning. Workshop participants explored principles derived from cognitive research on learning that can help both teachers and students improve student learning. A discussion about how a teacher must balance a variety of interacting factors to help students achieve the desired level of learning provided a general take-away message.
“As we proceed through 2013-14, the workshop will serve as a platform for some other Teaching Center activities and will provide a common point of conversation for many faculty,” said Dr. Michael Pinter, director of Belmont Teaching Center. “For example, in October we will invite workshop participants to come together again to describe for each other some ways they have implemented Dr. Chew’s concepts on learning in courses they are currently teaching.”
The August 2014 Teaching Center Workshop will host Ken Bain, author of “What the Best College Teachers Do” and “What the Best College Students Do,” to lead the faculty in a discussion reflecting the idea from the 2013 workshop.
The Teaching Center is available to provide Belmont’s faculty with practical ways to support their efforts to learn more about teaching and learning as an important component of their over all professional development. From events offered through the center to individual teaching consultations, faculty can come to the Teaching Center to find the resources they need to further their exploration.
