GT Courtesy Listing

Title:

Get Students Actively Involved--Even If You Have 200 Of Them!

Speaker:

Dr. Richard Felder

Affiliation:

North Carolina State University

When:

Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 11:00:00 AM   

Where:

Alumni House, Ballroom Building

Host:

Felicia Turner
felicia.turner@cetl.gatech.edu

Abstract

If educational researchers agree about nothing else, they agree that people learn best by doing things and reflecting on what they have done, not by watching and listening to someone else telling them what to do. While a good lecture has the power to instruct and even motivate students, if lecturing is the only thing that happens in a class, the chances are that much less learning is happening than would happen if other more active methods were mixed in. The question is, what can instructors do to get students active in class without losing control of the class or of the syllabus, even if the class is large? This interactive presentation describes and illustrates several proven techniques for achieving this goal, points to the research supporting active learning, and offers suggestions for countering resistance to the method that might be expressed by students and faculty colleagues.


Biography

Dr. Richard M. Felder and Dr. Rebecca Brent

Dr. Richard M. Felder is Hoechst Celanese Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina. He is coauthor of Elementary Principles of Chemical Processes, which has been used as the introductory course text by roughly 90% of American chemical engineering departments and many international departments for nearly three decades, and has authored or coauthored over 200 papers on chemical process engineering and engineering education. His honors include the R.J. Reynolds Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Extension, the ASEE Chester F. Carlson Award for innovation in engineering education, the AIChE Warren K. Lewis Award for contributions to Chemical Engineering Education, the ASEE Chemical Engineering Division Lifetime Achievement Award for Pedagogical Scholarship, and a number of national and regional awards for his publications on engineering education. More biographical information and many of his publications can be viewed at . Dr. Rebecca Brent is President of Education Designs, Inc., a consulting firm in Cary, North Carolina. Her interests include faculty development in the sciences and engineering, support programs for new faculty members, and applications of technology in precollege and college classes. Until December 1996 Dr. Brent was a tenured associate professor at East Carolina University, where she taught undergraduate and graduate courses in language arts, course and curriculum planning, and classroom organization and management. She received the 1990 Research Article Award from the Organization of Teacher Educators in Reading and the 1993-94 East Carolina Alumni Association Teaching Excellence Award. Separately and together, Drs. Felder and Brent have presented well over 300 workshops and seminars on effective teaching, course design, mentoring and supporting new faculty members, and faculty development in science and technology on campuses throughout the United States and in Europe, Asia, South America, and Africa. They co-direct and facilitate the annual National Effective Teaching Institute under the auspices of the American Society for Engineering Education.