Photo of female staff member and male students looking at a 3D printer. The student is gesturing toward the 3D printer as he explains something.

16th Annual Teaching & Learning Conference at Ƶ

Ƶ welcomes area university and college educators to the 16th Annual Teaching & Learning Conference on Thursday, August 15, 2019. The conference is jointly sponsored by Ƶ’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL)Ի, and attendance costs are covered by these sponsors.

Conference Theme

This year’s conference theme is Cultivating Curiosity. In interactive sessions and presentations, attendees will share strategies that motivate student learning, foster student resiliency, and empower students by connecting their learning to evidence-based practices in inclusive teaching, non-conventional pedagogies, and work-integrated learning. We will also reflect on how we might effectively make sense of and implement the growing wealth of insights about teaching and learning afforded by studies in the cognitive sciences.

Plenary Speaker – Dr. Peter Felten

Can we teach curiosity? 

Curiosity might be bad for cats, but it is essential for human learning. As Eleanor Duckworth notes, “What you do about what you don’t know is, in the final analysis, what determines what you will know.” Scholars often describe curiosity as an internally motivated trait, but in this session we will explore what happens when we consider curiosity to be a set of practices that can be cultivated. How can our teaching help our students to become increasingly curious about our disciplines – and about their world? How can we determine whether these efforts are effective? We will consider concrete strategies for cultivating student curiosity, and we will ask questions about how we can know whether we are actually helping students to cultivate their curiosity in ways that will enhance their learning and enrich their lives.

Peter Felten is executive director of the Center for Engaged Learning, assistant provost for teaching and learning, and professor of history at Ƶ. He works with colleagues on institution-wide teaching and learning initiatives, and on the scholarship of teaching and learning. As a teacher and mentor, he regularly writes and presents with Ƶ undergraduates, and he works with Ƶ College and Honors Fellows on their research. As a scholar, he is particularly interested in learning and teaching, individual and institutional change, and student experiences and agency in higher education. His books include the co-authored volumes: The Undergraduate Experience: Focusing Institutions on What Matters Most (Jossey-Bass, 2016); (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014); (Jossey-Bass, 2014); (Jossey-Bass, 2013); and the co-edited book (Stylus, 2016). He has served as president of the (2016-17) and also of the (2010-2011), the U.S. professional society for educational developers. He is co-editor of the and a fellow of the .