MMSTLC NEWS & EVENTS

Are you looking for a chance to broaden your horizons this summer and learn something new to support your teaching? Here are a number of professional learning opportunities posted by our colleagues around the state:

Are you looking for a chance to broaden your horizons this summer and learn something new to support your teaching?  Here are a number of professional learning opportunities posted by our colleagues around the state:

“Education is a Civil Right”

Marygrove College and Teachscape, in partnership with NABSE invite you to attend a FREE luncheon. Featuring Deborah Hunter-Harvill, NABSE President, Superintendent of Westwood Heights, MI, and a Marygrove College distinguished Alumna.  Learn about our Online Master’s in the Art of Teaching Degree programs for K-12 teachers and enjoy a delicious lunch.

Program: Dr. Hunter-Harvill will be presenting “Education is a Civil Right”
When: Friday, August 14, 2009
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Where: Hotel St. Regis, 3071 West Grand Blvd. Detroit, MI 48202

Lunch will be served to all attendees. Attendees will receive a $25 Exxon gas card.

Space is limited; please RSVP by July 31, 2009.  Register online at www.marygrovemat.com/events.php or call 1-877-984-7277.

Great Education-for-Educators in the Great Outdoors!

Eastern Michigan University, Kresge Environmental Center at Fish Lake, Lapeer, MI

Learn with fellow educators and biologists in one of EMU’s most unique educational environments!

BIOL 278/591 - Michigan Insects for Teachers

2 credits
7/20-23, 2009
9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

BIOL 278/591 - Birds for Teachers

2 credits
7/27-30, 2009
9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

July 17th, 2009: Learning Biology through Guided Inquiry

(This workshop will be held from 8:30am-12:30 pm with lunch to follow)

Presented by: Stephen Burton

Research points to the fact that students need to be actively engaged with concepts in order for deep learning to occur.  Engaging students can be easier when the lecture or lab includes inquiry components that allow students to use the nature of science to learn science concepts.

In this workshop, we will explore examples of guided inquiry for a biology lab and lecture that moves students from the recipients of knowledge to the authors of their own knowledge.  Further, we will review examples and resources that can be used in lecture or lab classes that can actively engage the students with concepts.

Stephen Burton, Ph. D., is an Associate Professor of Biology at Grand Valley State University.  If you visit Dr. Burton’s classes, you’ll see that he is a strong proponent of active learning in general and inquiry learning in particular.  As a biologist and science educator, he has conducted numerous workshops to help pre-service and in-service K-12 science teachers as well as instructors and professors of higher education better develop their skills at developing and implementing active learning classrooms.  His workshops teach by example, using the same active engagement strategies that he uses in his classroom.

August 5th, 2009:  Making a geology course more engaging for students: Incorporating more interactive assignments and activities to promote critical thinking and reflection

(This workshop will be held from 1pm-5pm, with lunch served at 12:30pm)

Presented by: Linda Lee Davis

If you can capture and hold the attention of your students, they are much more likely to learn and retain information you are attempting to share.  Sheer force of personality helps, but so does a proven set of exercises that have been tested and discussed by like-minded faculty. The intent of this workshop is to introduce faculty to a most engaging way of presenting material and teaching concepts and to share ideas and successful practices.  The workshop will illustrate the benefits of engaged, interactive sessions and compare its strengths with those of lecturing.

Linda Lee Davis, Ph. D., is an Assistant Professor of Geology at Grand Valley State University.   She earned her Ph. D. at the University of Texas at Austin and held Visiting Assistant Professorships at Colorado State University (CSU) and Idaho State University (ISU), and others. She held research positions at the Idaho State University/INEEL and the Idaho Geological Survey.  She teaches Physical Geology (with various titles for majors and non-majors, with and without labs), Petrology, Mineralogy, Optical Mineralogy, Crystallography, Mineral Equilibrium, Introductory Field Methods, Field Camp, Seminars, Marine Geology, Low Temp Geochemistry, The Geology of National Parks, Regional Geology of the Southwest US, Volcanoes, Shake and Bake, and the Petrology and Tectonics of Big Bend Ranch State Park.  Her primary research focuses on the petrology of Cenozoic, potassic igneous rocks in the western US.

Each workshop will be presented in a single session format. The presenter will meet with no more than 24 participants for 4 hours, plus 1 hour of lunch/discussion. All workshops will be held in the Learn Lab at GVSU’s Meijer Honor’s College. There is no fee for the workshop. Breakfast and/or lunch will be served at no charge. The two-day program will earn 1.0 CEU credits, on request, from Grand Valley State University.

Reservations/Information: CESME@gvsu.edu