6 hours (full day or two half-days)

The goal of this workshop is to provide participants with educational techniques that can be used to help their students develop problem-solving skills. Participants analyze differences between novice and expert thinking and discuss how these differences influence communication between instructors and learners. Participants then review the brain pathways and regions involved in the creation of “dial-up” memory (rote memory of the 4 Fs: faces, facts, figures, and formulas) and “pop-up” memory (spontaneous reactions and associations required for the 3 Ps: problem solving, planning, and predicting). Workshop participants will complete a battery of cognitive function assessments designed to stimulate self-assessment of how their brain processes stimuli from the environment and to recognize that there can be substantial differences among individuals in how their brains “make sense” of the environment and function under unusual circumstances. Learning strategies associated with the development of problem-solving capacity and critical thinking are reviewed, and participants analyze how they can use these strategies in their teaching responsibilities.

Objectives