Keynote Speakers:
Dr Todd Zakrajsek
| Todd Zakrajsek, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence at UNC at Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA. He was previously the inaugural Director of the Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching at Central Michigan University and the founding Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Southern Oregon University, where he also taught as a tenured Associate Professor of Psychology. Dr. Zakrajsek received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology and publishes and presents widely on the topic of student learning. |
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Keynote/Workshop: Overcoming Apathy and Creating Excitement in the Bioscience Classroom
Being delivered as part of Todd's keynote address, this workshop will investigate what instructors can do to facilitate learning when they encounter students who seem uninterested and even apathetic toward course content and assignments. Part of the responsibility for learning certainly belongs to students, but as faculty we can find new ways to motivate, inspire, and maybe even cajole students to learn. This workshop will demonstrate and explain how instructors can make classroom learning, perhaps one of the most artificial learning settings, a more meaningful experience for students. The presenter uses theories of learning and motivation as a basis for creating strategies to increase student engagement in course content and class sessions. Participants will have an opportunity to try out and experience some of these techniques, and also learn how these same techniques may be used in bioscience classes. |
Professor Annette Cashmore
| Annette Cashmore is a National Teaching Fellow, Professor of Genetics Education, and Director of GENIE (Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Genetics) at the University of Leicester. She is a keen advocate of the synergy between subject-based research, pedagogic research and teaching and learning practice. Her research into medically important pathogenic fungi and a wide variety of educational topics reflects this. Current projects range from exploring the use of virtual worlds to enhance practical teaching, to a collaboration between the HE Academy and GENIE, investigating promotion in relation to teaching and learning. |
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Keynote/Plenary II: Incentivising excellent teaching in a research led environment
Excellence and innovation in teaching and learning are key to enhancing the student experience. There are many approaches to making this happen in a biosciences research environment. Ideally there should be a synergy between research and teaching, but are the range of academic endeavours rewarded?
Our collaborative studies with the Higher Education Academy included a survey of 104 institutions and provided data that demonstrated that teaching and learning activities are often not recognised or rewarded in contrast to subject-specific research, and that institutional policies and practice varied widely. We have now collected case studies from academics in a variety of types of institutions, disciplines and at different stages of their careers. The aim has been to identify how teaching and learning activities have contributed to career progression. A range of issues have been highlighted including, the relative importance between teaching compared to subject-specific research, how pedagogic research is recognised and how excellence in teaching and learning is defined.
Following on from this we have defined a range of generic criteria by which excellence in teaching and learning can be assessed. This can act as a starting point for the definition of implementable institution-specific criteria. Effective recognition will also require a change in the culture of institutions, and this will include mentoring of academic staff, management (including heads of departments etc.) and promotion panels. I will present work on the development and implementation of a mentorship scheme aimed at making this work! |
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