Wednesday’s CATL show seeks to banish bad thinking

The Center for Advancement of Teaching and Learning will be holding a workshop from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Wednesday (Feb. 10) in Mary Ann Cofrin Hall 223, focused on how teachers can make their students better thinkers. The official title of the presentation is “What Research on Cognition and Learning Can Tell Us About Teaching.” Leading the presentation will be Assistant Prof. Jennifer Zapf, Human Development, who will make the case the human brain is actually designed to keep us from thinking too much. “Take, for example, stereotypes – we have these because they are correct some of the time. So, when correct we have just freed up some of our brain power to be used for other things. After all, thinking, although run by the brain, is not like seeing – something that is fast, easy and done without effort. Instead, it is a slow process that takes effort – an activity the brain may not have been designed for. This workshop will focus on the properties of the brain that make it difficult for students to think and what we can do in the classroom to work with the brain rather than against it.

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 Please note the room change, to MAC Hall 223. ***