Kaneb Center Newsletter: Student perspectives on mental health statements in syllabi and more

[ND Learning Kaneb Center]

Home      About      Blog This week's email includes information about the Notre Dame Learning Spring Speaker Series, new blog posts, and our spring workshops. To view our full spring workshop schedule, visit our Events page.  Speaker Series: Dr. Sarah Rose Cavanagh Wondering how to energize, motivate, and connect your students in a challenging time? Join us for our Notre Dame Learning Speaker Series event featuring Sarah Rose Cavanagh, on January 14, 2022 in McKenna Hall 205/206/207 (Register below). Dr. Cavanagh is the author of The Spark of Learning and the Senior Associate Director of Teaching and Learning at Simmons University.  10:30am Book Talk  THE SPARK OF LEARNING: ENERGIZING LEARNING WITH THE SCIENCE OF EMOTION Traditional views of education assume that reason should reign over emotion, and that the classroom should be a quiet, dispassionate space where students and instructors impartially engage with facts, figures, and theories. However, emotions possess the power to arrest attention, enhance memory, and mobilize efforts. Cavanagh brings to bear a wide range of evidence from the study of education, psychology, and neuroscience to suggest that targeting emotions in your presentation style, course design, and assignments is a highly potent teaching strategy.  11:45am Lunch 1:00pm Workshop  LESSONS FOR BUILDING COMMUNITY FROM SOCIAL NEUROSCIENCE A sense of community in the classroom contributes to effective learning, likely through benefits to student motivation. While traditional pedagogical literature speaks to methods of building community within the classroom, we can also look outside our intellectual silos to other academic disciplines researching how human beings form and maintain effective collaborative groups. In this interactive session, we’ll consider powerful research investigating team dynamics in simulated space missions, the social neuroscience of how the brain embeds our social others in our very sense of self, and even how honeybees make collective decisions together. We will work together to understand and apply these lessons to the work of the higher education classroom. Register for either or both of these events. New Blog Posts End of Semester Teaching Reflection, by Haley Dutmer "The semester is almost over. It’ll be tempting to submit final grades, take a well-earned break, and never look back. But before winter break begins, let’s take these last couple weeks to briefly reflect on our teaching this fall." A Student's Perspective: Mental Health Statements in Syllabi, by Juliette Kelley "One important way to help students feel supported is to include mental health statements in course syllabi. In classroom settings where my professors set an inclusive, understanding tone from day one in the classroom, it encourages me to prioritize my own mental health alongside my academics, a practice I will carry far beyond my four years at Notre Dame." Upcoming Workshops We invite you to sign up for any of the following pedagogy workshops this spring. All workshops will take place via Zoom unless otherwise noted. For more information and to register, click here.   Foundations of Teaching Tuesdays, January 11, January 18, January 25, & February 1; 2:00pm - 3:15pm Inclusive Teaching Mini-Workshop Series Thursdays throughout the semester, 11:00am - 11:45am Improve Your Teaching & Student Learning With Classroom Research Friday, January 28; 1:00pm - 2:15pm Gathering Early Semester Student Feedback Tuesday, February 1; 3:30pm - 4:45pm Writing Effective Multiple Choice Questions Thursday, February 3; 2:00pm - 3:15pm   Supporting Student Wellbeing in the Classroom (Undergraduate Panel) Friday, February 11; 2:00pm - 3:15pm Teaching First-Year Students Wednesday, February 16; 11:00am - 12:15pm Supporting Student Wellbeing in the Classroom (Workshop) Wednesday, February 23; 2:00pm - 3:15pm Cultivating Attention in the Classroom Friday, February 25; 12:30pm - 1:45pm Facilitating Effective Discussion in the Humanities and Social Sciences Wednesday, March 2; 11:00am - 12:15pm Improving Your CIFs Wednesday, March 16; 3:30pm - 4:45pm Creative Assignments and Assessments in Language and Culture Education Tuesday, March 22; 9:30am - 10:45am Hard Conversations in STEM Tuesday, April 5; 11:00am - 12:15pm Integrative & Engaged Learning with ePortfolios Wednesday, April 20; 2:00pm - 3:15pm Teaching for Social Justice Friday, April 22; 11:00am - 12:15pm Useful resources Teaching Certificates Events Teaching Resources Services for Graduate Students and Postdocs Services for All Instructors Contact Information 353 DeBartolo Classroom Building, Notre Dame, IN 46556  Phone (574) 631-9146  ka...@nd.edu  To unsubscribe from this list, please send a blank email to kctl-announce-l...@nd.edu.