Conversations with Colleagues is a community of Minot State faculty and staff who come together to share their expertise, experiences, and enthusiasm for teaching, scholarship, a new or revised program, or something else about which they are passionate. It’s an opportunity to nerd out with colleagues, to learn from your peers, and to share, collaborate, and converse with others across campus. All are welcome!2024-2025 Meeting Information:
Meetings are from 4-5 p.m. in the Collaboration Space in Hartnett Hall (2nd floor)
September 25, 2024: AI in Education: Exploring Opportunities and Challenges
Join your colleagues for a panel discussion on AI in higher education. Panelists will share their experiences, including successes, challenges, and lessons learned from using AI in various educational contexts. Attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions and share their insights on this evolving topic. Whether you are AI-curious or AI-cautious, this panel will offer valuable insights to help you make informed decisions about AI integration in your classroom.
Panelists: Leisa Harmon of Communication Sciences and Disorders, Ashley DeMakis of Nursing, Kyle Bittle and Serena Pontenila of Math, Data, and Technology
October 23, 2024: Herding CATs - The Use and Importance of Classroom Assessment Techniques (CATs)
CATs (Cross and Angelo, 1993) are tools to drive learner engagement whilst acting as powerful (and easy-to-manage) formative assessments. Join your colleagues to learn more about these techniques and web resources you could use to design and conduct your own assessments.
Presenter: David Paterno of Fine and Performing Arts (Professional Communication)
December 3, 2024 at 3:30 p.m.: Renaissance Sonnets and the Literary Logical Beauty of Form
After transformations brought on by the Crusades and the Bubonic plague, an awakened 16th-century Europe rose on new hopes and dreams, further fueled by Spanish gold. Prosperity and mobility, linked to innovations in mathematics, navigation, industry, literature, and art, gave us the Renaissance. Enter the Sonnet poetic form. It traveled through diplomatic and educated circles from Italy to England in the 16th century, where its 14-line limit subordinated artistic and logical expression to its rigid form. Form and function were forced to work together in ways a little strange to us today. In its difference, the sonnet offers a purposeful comparison of the world that produced it to our world now. Let’s take a look at some of these poetic beauties to see how they work and what they say—as a segue to considering why, once over their fear, students love them.
Presenters: Robert Kibler of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Interdisciplinary Studies (English and Humanities)
December 3, 2024 at 3:30 p.m.: Renaissance Italy's Saints, Artists, and Brawls: Pietro Torrigiano's Forgotten Sculptures and Remembered Feud
That guy who busted Michelangelo's nose, Pietro Torrigiano. Was he destined to be remembered as one of the great Renaissance artists if it weren't for that fateful day in Florence? We will explore Torrigiano's works in context with Renaissance Florence as well as consider how art and artist cannot always be separated in life nor history.
Presenter: Amanda Watts of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Interdisciplinary Studies (Humanities and Art)
WINTER BREAK
January 29, 2025: Toward Making Concepts Impossible (Difficult?) to Forget - Using Food in Teaching (Or... How to Make Sushi).
Pairing often difficult to remember concepts with things that we like to eat is one of the ways that I have approached teaching in both courses for majors and non-majors alike over the past decade. Food bridges cultures; we use it to encourage socialization in our most difficult moments and our happiest. Its usefulness can be adapted to help cement concepts into students' long-term memory as well.
This presentation will present some of the ways that I have used food with several courses over the past 10 years here at MSU, and a lab activity that I plan to do with my climate change class this year - a lesson in sushi making. You may ask, "What does sushi have to do with climate change?" But that is a question for the seminar! Come prepared to ask questions and sample sushi. Hope to see you there!
Presenter: Joe Collette of Science (Geosciences)
Time and Location: 4:00 p.m. in room 16 Cyril Moore Hall
February 26, 2025: Building the Dam: Leveraging Self-Determination Theory to Foster Well-Being on College Campuses
Join your colleagues to learn how Self-Determination Theory and its research can serve as a framework for how we help students find purpose and meaning in what they do. This talk will highlight the importance of supporting three psychological needs in the classroom—competence, relatedness, and autonomy—and will identify unique struggles faced by college students. We will also consider how supporting students in their autonomy and “self-authorship” can help them feel like they are leaving their own unique and lasting mark to be remembered by others.
Presenters: Elyzia Powers and Dylan Horner of Behavioral Sciences and Criminal Justice (Psychology)
Time and Location: 4:00 p.m. in the Collaboration Space in Hartnett Hall (2nd floor)
April 30, 2025: Eat, Play, Think - Chocolate with Colleagues
After working with AI systems these past two years, we've discovered some new ways of thinking about our own teaching and student agency. We'd like to share what we've learned, but more importantly, have you experience these possibilities first-hand in a lab environment filled with chocolate and colleagues.
Note: This is not a one-sided discussion. Pro-AI, anti-AI, and everyone in-between is welcome.
Presenters: Nigel George, Daren Erisman, Dan Ringrose, and Serena Pontenila
Time and Location: 3:30 p.m. in 207 Model Hall
