Lunch will be provided.

10:30 Resource Fair and Poster Display

11:15 Welcome from G. P. "Bud" Peterson, President

11:45 Luncheon and Honors for Faculty & STEP/SLIDER Fellows

12:15 Welcome from Provost Raphael Bras

12:30 "Teaching as if Learning Mattered"

Guest Speaker: Dr. Teri C. Balser
Associate Professor, Dept. of Soil Science
Director, Institute for Biology Education
Carnegie Foundation's 2010 U.S. Professor of the Year
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Increasingly, there are calls in higher education to improve the quality of teaching that happens in our classrooms. We are given lists of "best practices," and we are exhorted to 'teach scientifically." We read articles and organize book groups on "what the best teachers do," and "how people learn." But still, the overwhelming evidence appears to be that true learning is rare among our undergraduates. Why is that? In this presentation we will have the opportunity to consider the various factors at play in the classroom that impact learning, and discuss how our teaching might be different if learning was our primary goal.

Teri Balser is an associate professor of soil and ecosystem science, and Director of the Institute for Biology Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She received a dual A.B. in Biology and Earth Sciences from Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D. in Soil Science from the University of California-Berkeley. She was recently named the 2010 Doctoral U.S. Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Institute for the Advancement of Teaching, and was also the American Association of Public and Land Grant Institutions 2009 National Excellence in College and University Teaching award winner. She is a co-founder of the newly formed Society for the Advancement of Biology Education Research (SABER). Teri's research interests range from the impact of human disturbance on soil carbon sequestration and nutrient cycles, to the development of interdisciplinary and pro-environmental identities, to the impact of various educational practices (games, groups, non-traditional pedagogies) on student attitude and motivation to learn science. She is also particularly interested in the effect of classroom psychological climate on student learning. She was a 2008 American Society for Microbiology Biology Scholar, a 2007 University of Wisconsin System Teaching Fellow, and a 2006 U.S. National Science Foundation Early Career award winner.

To register, go to: http://www.cetl.gatech.edu/eventmgmt/viewForm.php?f=341