College Teaching and the Development of Reasoning
You are invited and encouraged to participate in an upcoming workshop on College Teaching and the Development of Reasoning. It will be held on 3/28 and 3/29 in the Copper Lounge in the SUB. If you have been wondering why some students--especially freshmen and sophomores—seem to have difficulty with the material in your courses, this workshop might help explain why and also provide you with some strategies you can use to help the students with the root cause of the difficulties.
We are very pleased that Dr. Dewey Dykstra, Professor of Physics at Boise State University and one of the co-authors of a recent book, titled "College Teaching and the Development of Reasoning," will visit Montana Tech to lead this workshop. Attached is the invitation from Dewey, a preliminary schedule, and a "Montana Tech Fish Puzzle." Note that the workshop is intended to be applicable to all disciplines, from liberal studies to writing to engineering and science, and all levels, from developmental to upper division. While attendance for the entire workshop would be ideal, that may not be possible, if you have teaching obligations on Friday afternoon. Please do attend as much as you can, missing the portion that conflicts with your class(s).
Dewey’s invitation letter asks for participants to do some things in advance, and these activities are very important, if you want to get the most out of the workshop. They include administering a puzzle to some of your students, and choosing/bringing a few of your favorite homework/test problems and textbook excerpts.
The puzzle is the last page of the invitation package. Please take a few minutes of one of your classes to administer this puzzle to the students. Ask the students to complete the puzzle, and most importantly to explain their answers and reasoning. The information from the student’s completion of the puzzle will be used to help you teach the course in a way that maximizes each student’s learning and understanding. Try to make sure students to take it seriously, but not to be afraid their grades will be hurt. Note that some students may have the puzzle given to them in more than one class. If this applies to any of your students, ask those students simply put their name on the page, along with the name of the faculty member and class where they did the puzzle, so that you can share their response with the other faculty member. Please don’t help the students interpret the puzzle or assist them in any way with answers or explanations. The students should just do the best job they can with the puzzle as written on the page.
Click HERE for more information.
