“This workshop was very helpful
in too many ways to put into words,
but be assured that I will implement
as many ideas as I can!”
~Rupert Lucas, Instructor
Bladen Community College

Faculty Development Workshop Purpose and Focus

1. To provide professional training and tools to create, develop, and implement effective teaching-learning principles and strategies in any academic undergraduate or graduate class, course, or program.
2. To provide a handy, user-friendly guide to Bloom’s Taxonomy of Thinking, Learning, and Knowing.
3. To provide a sequential process in which to foster, teach, learn, and use critical thinking skills in one’s personal, academic, and professional life.
4. To strengthen one’s enthusiasm and efficacy (“I can do it!”) level for teaching and learning critical thinking skills.
5. To enhance one’s mindset, course syllabi, lesson plans, and teaching strategies so that critical thinking transcends the classroom into daily life.
6. To help instructors intellectually challenge students rather than  aim for information recall.
7. To help instructors think of students as users of information rather than receivers of information.
8. To place the focus of teaching, on the learning process, rather than focus predominantly on the content.
9. To explore ways to actively engage students in their learning process, thus enhance student learning and retention.
10. To strengthen educator’s accountability for teaching and assessing critical thinking skills, by providing assessment tools that indicate students are engaging in critical thinking.

Faculty at LIM College, NYC say this workshop:
“Extremely useful!  I honestly learned a lot.” ~ Amanda Hallay
“Love the workshop, team effort, learning from my colleagues.” ~Marc Benhamou
“Reassuring to hear we are all faced with the same challenges.”
~Sally J. Shapiro
“It was good to learn the details of Bloom’s Taxonomy and use them to critiqued my own teaching.” ~Tim Foran

Faculty at Bladen Community College, NC say this workshop:
“. . . really opened my eyes to levels of learning beyond levels
one and two.” ~William D. Resseguie, PhD
“. . .was helpful to me because it reaffirmed some things I am already doing.  It also gave me ideas on how to expand on somethings or go a completely different route. Great job!” ~Samantha F. Pope,

Overview

Through the lens of a critical thinker, participants will discuss and assess teaching and learning strategies applicable to syllabi, syllabi addenda, lesson plans, assignments, and assessment tools.
Topics include, but are not limited to:

• Six Levels of Thinking/Knowing as per Bloom’s Taxonomy
• The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
• The Pygmalion Principle
• The Golem Principle
• The Galatea Effect
• Wait-Time

The manual, 143 Teaching and Learning Strategies with a Focus on Critical Thinking, by Victoria Nesnick,  will serve as the basis for this workshop and as a handy, reader-friendly resource afterwards.  Portions of the manual may be viewed at Workshop Manuals.

Top 15 Learning Objectives

By successfully completing this workshop, participants should be able to demonstrate their ability to formulate plans, guiding principles, strategies, and attitudes that enhance the teaching-learning process and foster critical thinking. This will be evident as participants:

1. Articulate definitions, sequential steps, and importance of critical thinking.
2. Develop strategies  and opportunities for modeling critical thinking.
3. Provide specific examples for each of the six levels of learning and knowing  as itemized in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognition.
4. Formulate strategies for implementing Bloom’s Taxonomy in syllabi, syllabi addenda, lesson plans, and assessment tools.
5. Formulate opportunities that encourage students’ use of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
6. Articulate the importance of using an eclectic approach to teaching and learning.
7. Share, compare, contrast, and assess teaching-learning strategies and one’s personal philosophy of the teaching-learning process.
8. Formulate syllabi, syllabi addenda, lesson plans, assignments, and assessment tools that foster learning and critical thinking habits.
9. Develop a mindset of frequently implementing formative assessments.
10. Compare and contrast different types of questions.
11. Discuss the concepts that:  A) asking questions can be a  sign of intelligence, and B) not having questions does not automatically imply students understand the material.
12. Explore various types of graphic organizers to help analyze and display information.
13. Articulate the importance of “wait time” after asking a question.
14. Articulate the usefulness of distributing scoring rubrics with assignments rather than afterwards
15. Articulate the value of using  and encouraging students to use: metaphors, similes, analogies, anecdotes, synonyms, antonyms, and games to enhance and retain learning.

Faculty Development Workshop Manual Includes

1. Strategies to Enhance Thinking Skills
2. Examples of Syllabus Addendums
3. Applications of Bloom’s Taxonomy
4. Tips for Critical Thinking
5. Supporting Quotations
6. Nomenclature/Glossary:  Definitions Related to Critical Thinking
7. Critical Thinking References and Resources
8. Webliography:  Internet Resources

“Victoria’s handouts were excellent
and will be a great guide for future use.”
~Chad B. McKenzie, Bladen Community College

Faculty at LIM College, NYC say this manual:
“. . . is absolutely excellent! It will be a source of reference for me for the rest of my teaching career. . . I have always struggled a little with using the words in Bloom’s Taxonomy ‘naturally’ but this manual has totally changed my understanding of Bloom.”
~Amanda Hallay
“Extremely detailed and fact-filled.  I will refer to it constantly.”
~Patrick Tormey

Manuals may be purchased independent of this workshop.

This faculty development workshop is available to serve as
Professional Development Hours.

Each participant, who successfully completes this
faculty development workshop,
will be awarded a “Certificate of Completion”.

Click to Contact Dr. Nesnick
or
E-mail:  Victoria@VictoriaNesnick.com
or
Phone:  (631) 889-2178