The CSU Symposium on Teaching and Learning is being hosted at Fresno State for the first time, and I am honored to be presenting during two sessions.

Session 1

Having volunteered as a research assistant for Mary Paul’s dissertation, Using Technology as a Catalyst for Formative Assessment in First-Year Freshman Writing Courses, I will share my experiences and insights on using certain technologies in the classroom in order to foster discussion and meaning-making among my students.

Time and Location

This session begins at 9:30am and is located in Family Food and Science, room 211.

Session 2

Abstract

“‘Fixing’ Fixed Mindsets with Mindfulness”

Students, particularly first-generation, often come to a college context with and reservations as to their worthiness of being there. As educators, we need to continue to find ways to ease that anxiety because anxiety inhibits learning (Hanson & Mendius, 2009). There are a variety of key premises which this collaborative session builds upon–not least among them is that our minds are indeed malleable, and leveraging that malleability through contexts that foster mindfulness and a growth mindset is desirable because they have positive effects on meaning-making (Schroder, et al, 2017). Although I come from English, my view is that these contexts can be created in classrooms across the disciplines. Hands-on pedagogical and curricular examples from my classes in composition and rhetoric will provide the groundwork for a collaborative discussion on how these growth mindset contexts might manifest in other classrooms across the disciplines as well.

Outcomes

  1. Participants will try, discuss, and evaluate two example mindfulness and growth mindset classroom activities
  2. Participants will reflect on their own pedagogical practices in relation to the conference themes of diversity, growth mindsets, and mindfulness.
  3. Participants will imagine how mindfulness practices and growth mindsets might manifest in classrooms in their disciplines.

Time and Location

This session begins at 10:30am and is located in Family Food and Science, room 317.