Scholars Engagement Seminars

Building Students’ Reading Skill and Engagement Using Critical Lenses 12/12/23

In this seminar, participants will explore the ways in which secondary students’ reading of fiction and non-fiction texts can be enhanced through the use of critical lenses that frame their encounters with texts. Participants will be introduced to a variety of lenses, apply critical lenses in a reading of a middle grade novel, and explore ways to enrich their own curriculum using a critical lens approach.

Environmental Children’s Literature – 2/6/23

In 2020, New Jersey became the first state in the country to adopt K-12 climate change standards. The adoption of these standards has created opportunities for curricular change in English Language Arts as well as the development of innovative and interdisciplinary units of study that integrate children’s, middle grade, and young adult literature, both fiction and non-fiction. This workshop will provide a critical introduction to this literature as well as a variety of teaching tools to engage student readers and writers.

Reading and Writing the Contemporary Essay – 12/5/23

While secondary English classrooms are often spaces in which students engage in literary analysis by writing argumentative, thesis-driven essays, there are other ways in which they might write to learn about literature and other topics of personal relevance. One traditionally under-used, but valuable genre is the contemporary essay. This workshop will provide a rationale for teaching the contemporary essay, introduce participants to its form(s), offer multi-modal example essays for consideration, and develop teachers’ comfort writing in this genre.* John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed is the book for this seminar.

Seminar Leader for all ELA seminars: Emily Meixner, Professor of English, Coordinator of English Secondary Education Program

Emily received her Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory & Multicultural Teacher Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the coordinator of the Secondary English Education Program and regularly teaches courses on secondary reading and writing pedagogy as well as courses on children’s and young adult literature. Her research interests include secondary literacy best practices, LGBTQIA young adult literature, and teacher professional development. Dr. Meixner also works regularly in local school districts providing professional development on such topics as reading/writing workshop, reading strategies and close reading, reading in the content areas, and young adult literature.

Developing Great Thinking Minds of Students – 12/5/23

“Learning without thinking is labor lost; thinking without learning is perilous” —Confucius.

The acts of thinking directly affect our life, especially when we process information, make assumptions or interpretations, seek solutions, solve problems, make decisions, or come to conclusions. Good thinkers employ relevant information and adequate thinking skills to solve challenges or problems. Thus it is important to help students to develop a sharp thinking mind – to be able to think critically and creatively to meet the upcoming challenges in the ever-changing world. Critical thinkers can think rationally, precisely and systematically, as they can apply the rules of logic and follow practical scientific reasoning. Creative thinkers can intuitively create new and unconventional ideas which lead to many possibilities to make an impact on our lives.

Good thinking skills are essential to meaningful learning. Without engaging thinking, learning outcomes may mostly be confined to basic knowledge and skill levels. In the current school practice, students lack opportunities to exercise desirable cognitive potentials and tap into their brainpower for profound thinking and learning. In order to help students to develop adequate thinking skills, teachers need to facilitate students’ thinking development as they delve more deeply into academic learning. Powerful thinking minds are the most valuable assets in the world.

In this workshop, participating teachers will experience various teaching strategies to help improve students’ focus, observation, concentration, free association, and enhance students’ critical and creative thinking powers that can boost their confidence and joy in learning. The participants will be exposed to cases and fun challenges to gain practical experiences for their students to develop thinking minds. In addition, participating teachers will explore diverse approaches on student thinking development, discuss related issues and scenarios, and share personal experiences. Being exposed to various fun activities and hands-on experiences, participants will take away workable ideas and strategies to implement thinking development in their own teaching. A compiled list of useful activities, challenges, and resources will be shared during the seminar.

Seminar Leader: Alex C. Pan, Ph.D.
Dr. Alex C. Pan is an associate professor of Education. He teaches a broad spectrum of courses, ranging from teacher preparation courses, teacher’s action research, thinking and problem-solving, technology-enhanced instruction, to the impact of globalization. Dr. Pan has published dozens of articles, made many conference presentations, and conducted several workshops. He currently teaches in the department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education.

Life Sentences: Teaching the Literature of the Prison – 2/16/24

America has become known as the “Incarceration Nation,” imprisoning more people than any other country in the world. Interdisciplinary in nature, this seminar will explore literature by and about prisoners, and address such themes as confinement, slavery and oppression, and most importantly, the power of the written word. We will consider many disciplines as we approach these materials: gender, criminology, psychology, sociology, and, most notably, literary analysis. Together, we will turn to this groundbreaking, provocative material written by one of the most neglected, silenced, but all-too-critical sectors of our population– the incarcerated. For Middle School or High School Teachers History, English/Language Arts, Creative Writing, Psychology, etc.

The Witches of Salem 1692 – 2/29/24

This seminar will focus on the most notorious witch hunt of America: Salem 1692. Looking at a plethora of archival and literary sources—ranging from pamphlets of “Wonders” and “Strange Occurrences,” sermons and court trial records, accusations and confessions, and many perplexing, fascinating manuscript diaries and letters—we will explore the multiple meanings of witchcraft in this early American village. Our class will delve into the primary texts preserved from this cultural phenomenon, and then review the ever-growing interdisciplinary scholarship that theorizes and illuminates this colonial community’s hysteria, rooted in its own beliefs about gender, sexuality, race and class. For Middle School or High School Teachers History, English/Language Arts, Creative Writing, Psychology, etc.

Seminar Leader for both seminars is Michele Lise Tarter
Michele Lise Tarter is Chair and Professor of English at The College of New Jersey. She is also an Affiliate faculty member in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Religious Studies, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies programs. Dr. Tarter has published and presented extensively on early American women’s writing, as well as on 17th – and 18th -century Quaker literature. She has also co-edited three book collections: A Centre of Wonders: The Body in Early America (Cornell University Press, 2001); Buried Lives: Incarcerated in Early America (University of Georgia Press, 2012); and New Critical Studies on Early Quaker Women, 1650-1800 (Oxford University Press, 2018). Her most recent book project is about the memoir-writing program she established in 2001 at the maximum-security wing of the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in New Jersey.

Exploring Economic Justice through Games, Film, and Fiction! – 1/25/24

The post-2008 bailouts of Big Banking and Big Business, the recent moves to impose a $15 minimum wage, the criticisms of the elite “1%”, and the moves by the Trump administration to “protect” American jobs and American workers by imposing tariffs on foreign goods and restricting immigration, and the perception that while the rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer have all led to increasing interest in the question of what a just society should look like. This question is not just of theoretical interest for it encompasses issues whose outcomes can be affected by engaged citizens. Does justice require that businesses be required to pay their workers a minimum wage? Should a just society provide should its citizens with access to healthcare? Does justice require that off-shoring be limited—or does it require open immigration? Can serious economic inequality ever be just—and, if so, under what conditions?

In this seminar we will first explore the underlying question of what a just society should look like, drawing on the opposing views of the welfare liberal philosopher John Rawls, and the free market philosopher Robert Nozick. We will then explore the implications of both of these views for contemporary debates over practical matters, including (but not limited to) the issue of the justice of the minimum wage, the justice of universal healthcare, and the justice of laws prohibiting price-gouging in the wake of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. But we will not limit ourselves to exploring these issues through philosophical theory. We will also explore them through simple (but extremely enjoyable and engaging!) economics experiments (i.e., games!) that will shed insight as to how different ways of approaching these issues will actually play out in the real world, and we’ll also draw on works of both film and fiction that address these issues. These will include Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the science fiction of Robert A. Heinlein, and the films Other Peoples’ Money, Wall Street, and It’s a Wonderful Life. We will engage with them, identifying both the explicit and implicit messages that they convey…. And seeing whether on reflection (and in the light of the results of the games we played) we agree with them.

Teaching for Critical Thinking Through Activities and Games – 4/15/2024

We live in an era of “fake news” and increasing ideological division. It is now common for people to rush to judge the actions of actions of strangers based on posts on social media, to see political discussion in terms of “us” and “them”, and to reduce complex social and political issues to one-sentence memes. Since the majority of people in America now get their news from social media—sources that are poorly designed for conveying information or presenting issues fairly—it is thus more critical than ever for people to know how to critically assess claims that are presented to them.

Unfortunately, the structure of news delivery today provides people with little incentive for critically engaging with the information that is presented to them, with the increasingly short news cycles pressing forward to the next outrage almost as soon as the most recent one has been introduced. In this seminar we will explore some practical techniques that could be used to assess both empirical claims (e.g., “The American middle class is shrinking”) and prescriptive claims (e.g., “We should raise tariffs on imported goods to protect the middle class”). These techniques will range from outlining and identifying informal fallacies that are often used to persuade people, to learning how to verify empirical claims by working back to the sources from which they are claimed to have originated.

Engaging in such critical thinking takes time and effort—and so as well as exploring how to engage in this we’ll also explore ways to motivate students (and others!) to use critical thinking techniques when they are faced with either empirical or prescriptive claims. To this end we’ll explore some methods that have proved successful in the past in motivating students to engage critically with material presented to them on social media. These will include activities and games, including “The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” “The Fishing Game,” “The Myth Busting Scavenger Hunt”, “Would This Be True If Your Mother Wrote It?”, and “Why Believe THAT?” The book for this seminar is: Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion 2.0 (Jossey-Bass, 2014).

Seminar Leader for the two seminars above: James Stacey Taylor
James Stacey Taylor is a Professor of philosophy. An Anglo-Scot, he holds an MA and and M.Litt degrees from St Andrews University, Scotland, and an MA and a Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University, OH. He is the author of five books: Stakes and Kidneys, Practical Autonomy and Bioethics, Death, Posthumous Harm and Bioethics, Bloody Bioethics, and Markets with Limits. His award-winning Op-Eds on issues of ethics, justice, and economics have appeared in many publications ranging from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times, as well as Forbes.com. He has also been quoted in The New York Times and is a contributor to NPR.

The Representation of Women in Ancient Greek Art – 1/29/24

Women have been greatly underrepresented in the literary and historical studies of ancient Greece, but there is an abundance of evidence about their lives available in the art historical and archaeological record. This course will help to illuminate the lives of Greek women by using a comparative and interdisciplinary approach that includes the evidence from art and architecture as well as literature. We will examine not only what women actually did and did not do in ancient Greece, but also how they were perceived by their male contemporaries and what value to society they were believed to have. By studying how women were represented in vase-painting, sculpture, and other arts and examining the arrangement of the houses where they lived, we will explore the complexities and ambiguities of women’s lives in ancient Greece and help to create a fuller, more rounded, and more accurate picture of women’s lives in ancient Greece than we get when we only study the literature. Key issues/questions to be explored:

How were women represented in the visual and material cultures of ancient Greece?
What messages about women were the images meant to express?
How does the way a woman is represented change with age, status, identity, geography?
What is the point of studying women in ancient Greece? Why does their history matter to us today?
For Middle and High School teachers in the areas of history, art, art history, English, or other humanities

Seminar Leader: Lee Ann Riccardi, PhD
Lee Ann Riccardi is a Professor of Art History and Classical Studies. Her main area of research focuses on portraiture, with a special emphasis on sculptural and coin portraits produced in the Greek world under the Romans, and she has written several articles on various aspects of these topics. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a year as a Fulbright scholar in Greece, and regularly leads study abroad trips to Greece and Rome.

Beyond Question and Answer for teachers in grades 3- 12. Date: 2/9/24

This workshop will model activities and techniques to better support all students to engage in classroom discussion that moves beyond comprehension checks and toward more authentic dialogue. Attendees will be asked to participate in silent discussion circles, question sorts, small group structured discussions and other activities based on brief readings completed during the workshop. We will also explore several low-stakes, writing response activities such as poetry re-mix, and consider how to build discussion from students’ textual responses.

Reading as Sentence Study for teachers in grades 3-12. Date: 1/26/24

This workshop will explore how close reading of mentor texts at the sentence level can support students’ growing syntactic knowledge. I will model practical strategies to help students learn to see the architecture of powerful sentences in ways that are fun, simple and accessible. Participants will be engaged in several micro-writing activities that they can implement in their own classrooms.

Supporting Literacy Engagement with Older Students Who Have Reading Difficulties for teachers in middle and high school English and Social Studies classrooms – 3/8/24

The workshop will model the use of reading apprenticeship techniques that help students with reading difficulties to gain greater confidence as readers and writers. The presenter will share specific approaches for helping students to make meaning from challenging text and build academic arguments grounded in textual evidence. The activities are designed to feel accessible for all students while maintaining a high level of cognitive rigor.

Seminar Leader for all Literacy Seminars: Anne Peel Ed.D.
Anne is an assistant professor of Special Education, Language and Literacy. She taught high school English for 14 years in public schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey and continues to maintain collaborations with multiple districts across New Jersey, providing professional development support in literacy instruction. Her scholarship has been published in English Journal, Journal of Language and Literacy Education, and Literacy among others, and she has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences. She was awarded the Edward Fry Graduate Fellowship in Literacy from Rutgers University.

Teaching Science Through Issues to Increase Engagement, Meet the NGSS, and Prepare Citizens – 2/26/24

Science plays a critical role in society, providing us with the knowledge we need to understand the universe and to better our lives. All persons, not just practicing scientists, need a great science education, and this education must provide students with the ability to use science in their everyday lives, a necessity made crystal-clear by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the importance of science to all, many students are less than enthusiastic about their science courses. Participants will explore how teaching science through personal and current societal issues increases student interest in science, while simultaneously meeting the NGSS and creating citizens capable of applying high-quality scientific information to address these issues. Participants will develop an issue and a module based on that issue that they can implement in their courses.

Seminar Leader: Christopher Murphy, PhD.
Christopher Murphy is the Associate Provost for Curriculum and Liberal Learning and a Professor of Biology at TCNJ. He taught his first class of non-majors biology 30 years ago as a post-doctoral associate, and since then, over 95% of his teaching has been with this population. For much of this time, he has used an issues-based approach to help non-majors become interested in science and develop as educated citizens capable of using reliable scientific information to make reasoned decisions. He conducts research in both biology and college education.

Game On: Harnessing the Power of Games for Teaching Mathematics – K-5 teachers. Two dates available! 4/8/24 or 4/11/24

You may think that playing games in a math class is a loss of precious time that should be devoted to “coverage.” However, in my experience, the time devoted to games pays a great dividend by making students focus and think harder, by fostering community, and by creating intrinsic motivation and buy-in. In the great words of Sir Ken Robinson, “Education is not a mechanical system, it is a human system. People either do want to learn or do not want to learn.’’ Creating classes that are interactive and fun is a great way to foster students’ interest and motivation in learning mathematics at any age. In this workshop, we will learn, play and discuss 12 different games that are proven to develop basic mathematical skills in K-5 Mathematics Education. I will share lots of interesting research and a wealth of resources on using games in teaching Mathematics. We will also discuss how to balance the use of puzzles and games with coverage, and how to respond to parents’ and administrators’ questions about teaching Mathematics in a playful way.

Seminar Leaders: Csilla Farkasházi and Judit Kardos
Csilla Farkasházi is a Master teacher in Hungary’s premier Magnet School, Fazekas. In 2023, the János Bolyai Mathematical Society awarded Csilla Farkasházi, the Beke Manó prize, the highest Teaching Award in the country. Csilla is a committed supporter of experience-based teaching and a conscious, experiential user of games in Mathematics classes. She inspires her students to invent and creatively implement games and game variants. Csilla loves challenges, and she constantly invents and implements new games in her teaching. She plays with her students in every class! She has been sharing her expertise with fellow teachers in both Hungary and Finland in 32 papers and book chapters on using games. She is frequently invited to lecture on experiential learning and the use of games in Mathematics teaching. Her students’ regularly win top prizes in Math Competitions, but she feels that her real success as a teacher is that all children learn to love Mathematics in her classes.

Judit Kardos is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at TCNJ. She grew up in Hungary, a country that has a long tradition of superb Mathematics Education. She learned a simple recipe from her own teachers for teaching Mathematics: the more students enjoy doing Mathematics, the more likely that they will stay engaged and ultimately succeed. The recipe worked for Judit, she never stopped learning and received a Ph.D. in Mathematics with a focus on Real Analysis. As a teacher, she strives to deeply engage her students, fostering their own passion for mathematics through collaboration and the use of games and puzzles. Judit recently published an article about her interest in using games in teaching on the MAA’s Math Values Blog.https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/game-on-harnessing-the-power-of-games-for-math-learning-in-the-classroom

Inquiry Based Learning in the Mathematics Classroom – 6th – 12th grade teachers. Two dates available! 5/5/24 or 5/12/24

Inquiry Based Learning, or IBL for short, is a broad range of empirically validated teaching methods which emphasize (a) deeply engaging students and (b)providing students with opportunities to authentically learn by collaborating with their peers. Students in an IBL mathematics classes engage with a sequence of problems that are rich and support inquiry to the heart of big mathematical ideas. The solutions are discussed in class, with the students leading both the presentations and the questioning. The process is also deeply engaging for the teacher as she or he has a chance to learn about how students actually learn mathematics. According to the NCTM Equity principle: Excellence in mathematics education requires equity—high expectations and strong support for all students. Students can do more than memorize, mimic, perform algorithms and apply computational skills, if we ask them to. In this workshop you will get a taste of the IBL experience both as a student and as a teacher as we share IBL resources, problem sets, stories and evidence for the method’s effectiveness.

Seminar Leader: Judit Kardos
Judit Kardos is an Associate Professor of Mathematics at TCNJ. She grew up in Hungary, a country that has a long tradition of superb Mathematics Education. She learned a simple recipe from her own teachers for teaching Mathematics: the more students enjoy doing Mathematics, the more likely that they will stay engaged and ultimately succeed. The recipe worked for Judit, she never stopped learning and received a Ph.D. in Mathematics with a focus on Real Analysis. As a teacher, she strives to deeply engage her students, fostering their own passion for mathematics through collaboration and the use of games and puzzles. Judit recently published an article about her interest in using games in teaching on the MAA’s Math Values Blog.https://www.mathvalues.org/masterblog/game-on-harnessing-the-power-of-games-for-math-learning-in-the-classroom

Facilitating mathematical discussions: putting the 5 practices into practice – Two dates available! 1/26/24 or 05/20/24

Smith & Stein’s 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions (2011) include anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and connecting. This workshop will begin with setting goals and selecting tasks and then delve into the five practices in order to learn how to successfully orchestrate mathematical discussions at the middle and high school levels.

Seminar Leader: Dr. Cathy S. Liebars
Dr. Cathy S. Liebars is an Associate professor of Mathematics Education and the Mathematics Education Coordinator at TCNJ. She teaches courses for pre-service teachers at all levels in the content area of mathematics, including methods and content courses. Dr. Liebars has presented workshops in several school districts in New Jersey on a variety of topics for teachers at all levels K-12. She has worked with middle grades and elementary teachers, assisting in their implementation of reform-based mathematics programs like the Connected Math Program (CMP) and TERC Investigations in Number, Data, and Space. Most recently, she has offered workshops on student-centered learning in mathematics and on algebra tiles and other manipulatives for teaching algebra for middle school and high school teachers from all over the state. Dr. Liebars is a Past-President of the New Jersey Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators (NJAMTE), currently serves on their Executive Board, and is former chair of the New Jersey section of the Mathematical Association of America.

Developing Great Thinking Minds of Students

“Learning without thinking is labor lost; thinking without learning is perilous” —Confucius.

The acts of thinking directly affect our life, especially when we process information, make assumptions or interpretations, seek solutions, solve problems, make decisions, or come to conclusions. Good thinkers employ relevant information and adequate thinking skills to solve challenges or problems. Thus it is important to help students to develop a sharp thinking mind – to be able to think critically and creatively to meet the upcoming challenges in the ever-changing world. Critical thinkers can think rationally, precisely and systematically, as they can apply the rules of logic and follow practical scientific reasoning. Creative thinkers can intuitively create new and unconventional ideas which lead to many possibilities to make an impact on our lives.

Good thinking skills are essential to meaningful learning. Without engaging thinking, learning outcomes may mostly be confined to basic knowledge and skill levels. In the current school practice, students lack opportunities to exercise desirable cognitive potentials and tap into their brainpower for profound thinking and learning. In order to help students to develop adequate thinking skills, teachers need to facilitate students’ thinking development as they delve more deeply into academic learning. Powerful thinking minds are the most valuable assets in the world.

In this workshop, participating teachers will experience various teaching strategies to help improve students’ focus, observation, concentration, free association, and enhance students’ critical and creative thinking powers that can boost their confidence and joy in learning. The participants will be exposed to cases and fun challenges to gain practical experiences for their students to develop thinking minds. In addition, participating teachers will explore diverse approaches on student thinking development, discuss related issues and scenarios, and share personal experiences. Being exposed to various fun activities and hands-on experiences, participants will take away workable ideas and strategies to implement thinking development in their own teaching. A compiled list of useful activities, challenges, and resources will be shared during the seminar.

Seminar Leader: Alex C. Pan, Ph.D.

Dr. Alex C. Pan is an associate professor of Education. He teaches a broad spectrum of courses, ranging from teacher preparation courses, teacher’s action research, thinking and problem-solving, technology-enhanced instruction, to the impact of globalization. Dr. Pan has published dozens of articles, made many conference presentations, and conducted several workshops. He currently teaches in the department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education.[/solidbox]

Exploring and Writing the Contemporary Essay

While secondary English classrooms are often spaces in which students engage in literary analysis by writing argumentative, thesis-driven essays, there are other ways in which they might write to learn about literature and other topics of personal relevance. One traditionally under-used, but valuable genre is the contemporary essay. This workshop will provide a rationale for teaching the contemporary essay, introduce participants to its form(s), offer multi-modal example essays for consideration, and develop teachers’ comfort writing in this genre. John Green’s The Anthropocene Reviewed is the book for this seminar.

Seminar Leader: Emily Meixner, Professor of English, Coordinator of English Secondary Education Program
Emily received her Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory & Multicultural Teacher Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the coordinator of the Secondary English Education Program and regularly teaches courses on secondary reading and writing pedagogy as well as courses on children’s and young adult literature. Her research interests include secondary literacy best practices, LGBTQIA young adult literature, and teacher professional development. Dr. Meixner also works regularly in local school districts providing professional development on such topics as reading/writing workshop, reading strategies and close reading, reading in the content areas, and young adult literature.

Poetry Mentor Texts in the Secondary ELA Classroom

Poetry, argues author Jason Reynolds, “is created to love young adults, and for them to love.” But to love poetry, students must have increased access to it. They must spend more time with it. They must stop being polite, and as poet Eve Mirriam instructs, “Bite in.” This interactive workshop seeks to help secondary ELA teachers and students do just this. Together we will explore three different strategies for incorporating poetry into secondary English classrooms. Participants will have the opportunity to read, discuss, write, and workshop poems that they can then incorporate into their instruction.

Seminar Leader: Emily Meixner, Professor of English, Coordinator of English Secondary Education Program
Emily received her Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory & Multicultural Teacher Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the coordinator of the Secondary English Education Program and regularly teaches courses on secondary reading and writing pedagogy as well as courses on children’s and young adult literature. Her research interests include secondary literacy best practices, LGBTQIA young adult literature, and teacher professional development. Dr. Meixner also works regularly in local school districts providing professional development on such topics as reading/writing workshop, reading strategies and close reading, reading in the content areas, and young adult literature.

Building Students’ Reading Skill and Engagement Using Critical Lenses

In this seminar, participants will explore the ways in which secondary students’ reading of fiction and non-fiction texts can be enhanced through the use of critical lenses that frame their encounters with texts. Participants will be introduced to a variety of lenses, apply critical lenses in a reading of a middle grade novel, and explore ways to enrich their own curriculum using a critical lens approach. Kacen Callender’s King and the Dragonflies is the book for this seminar.

Seminar Leader: Emily Meixner, Professor of English, Coordinator of English Secondary Education Program
Emily received her Ph.D. in Curriculum Theory & Multicultural Teacher Education from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the coordinator of the Secondary English Education Program and regularly teaches courses on secondary reading and writing pedagogy as well as courses on children’s and young adult literature. Her research interests include secondary literacy best practices, LGBTQIA young adult literature, and teacher professional development. Dr. Meixner also works regularly in local school districts providing professional development on such topics as reading/writing workshop, reading strategies and close reading, reading in the content areas, and young adult literature.

Beyond Question & Answer: Supporting Engaged Literature Discussions: grades 4-8

Asking students open-ended questions about what they read can be a wonderful way to initiate a literature discussion; but often, students may perceive teacher-initiated reading questions to be just another test in disguise. The I-R-E approach (teacher Initiates, student Responds, teacher Evaluates) may unintentionally create a high-stakes environment in which students hesitate to speak up, afraid to give the wrong answer.

This workshop will model activities and techniques to better support all students to engage in classroom discussion that moves beyond comprehension checks and toward more authentic dialogue. Attendees will be asked to participate in silent discussion circles, question sorts, small group structured discussions and other activities based on brief readings completed during the workshop. We will also explore several low-stakes, writing response activities such as poetry re-mix, and consider how to build discussion from students’ textual responses.

Sharing our response to literature is a huge part of the joy of reading and an essential component in encouraging life-long reading habits. The goal of this workshop is to offer some practical ideas to implement more joyful, accessible, and inviting classroom discussions for even the most reluctant students. Books to be used in this seminar are:

• • Marshmallow Clouds: Two Poets at Play Among Figure of Speech by Ted Kooser & Connie Wanek
  • Firefly July: A Year of Very Short Poems by Janeczko
  • Sweet Out of Wonder by Kwame Alexander

Anne is an assistant professor of Special Education, Language and Literacy. She taught high school English for 14 years in public schools in Philadelphia and New Jersey and continues to maintain collaborations with multiple districts across New Jersey, providing professional development support in literacy instruction. Her scholarship has been published in English Journal, Journal of Language and Literacy Education, and Literacy among others, and she has presented her research at numerous national and international conferences. She was awarded the Edward Fry Graduate Fellowship in Literacy from Rutgers University.

Exploring Economic Justice through Games, Film, and Fiction!

The post-2008 bailouts of Big Banking and Big Business, the recent moves to impose a $15 minimum wage, the criticisms of the elite “1%”, and the moves by the Trump administration to “protect” American jobs and American workers by imposing tariffs on foreign goods and restricting immigration, and the perception that while the rich are getting richer the poor are getting poorer have all led to increasing interest in the question of what a just society should look like. This question is not just of theoretical interest for it encompasses issues whose outcomes can be affected by engaged citizens. Does justice require that businesses be required to pay their
workers a minimum wage? Should a just society provide should its citizens with access to healthcare? Does justice require that off-shoring be limited—or does it require open immigration? Can serious economic inequality ever be just—and, if so, under what conditions?

In this seminar we will first explore the underlying question of what a just society should look like, drawing on the opposing views of the welfare liberal philosopher John Rawls, and the free market philosopher Robert Nozick. We will then explore the implications of both of these views for contemporary debates over practical matters, including (but not limited to) the issue of the justice of the minimum wage, the justice of universal healthcare, and the justice of laws prohibiting price-gouging in the wake of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. But we will not limit ourselves to exploring these issues through philosophical theory. We will also explore them through simple (but extremely enjoyable and engaging!) economics experiments (i.e., games!) that will shed insight as to how different ways of approaching these issues will actually play out in the real world, and we’ll also draw on works of both film and fiction that address these issues. These will include Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, the science fiction of Robert A.Heinlein, and the films Other Peoples’ Money, Wall Street, and It’s a Wonderful Life. We will engage with them, identifying both the explicit and implicit messages that they convey…. And seeing whether on reflection (and in the light of the results of the games we played) we agree with them.

Seminar Leader: James Stacey Taylor

James Stacey Taylor is a Professor of philosophy. An Anglo-Scot, he holds an MA and and M.Litt degrees from St Andrews University, Scotland, and an MA and a Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University, OH. He is the author of five books: Stakes and Kidneys, Practical Autonomy and Bioethics, Death, Posthumous Harm and Bioethics, Bloody Bioethics, and Markets with Limits. His award-winning Op-Eds on issues of ethics, justice, and economics have appeared in many publications ranging from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times, as well as Forbes.com. He has also been quoted in The New York Times and is a contributor to NPR.

Teaching for Critical Thinking Through Activities and Games

We live in an era of “fake news” and increasing ideological division. It is now common for people to rush to judge the actions of actions of strangers based on posts on social media, to see political discussion in terms of “us” and “them”, and to reduce complex social and political issues to one-sentence memes. Since the majority of people in America now get their news from social media—sources that are poorly designed for conveying information or presenting issues fairly—it is thus more critical than ever for people to know how to critically assess claims that are presented to them.

Unfortunately, the structure of news delivery today provides people with little incentive for critically engaging with the information that is presented to them, with the increasingly short news cycles pressing forward to the next outrage almost as soon as the most recent one has been introduced. In this seminar we will explore some practical techniques that could be used to assess both empirical claims (e.g., “The American middle class is shrinking”) and prescriptive claims (e.g., “We should raise tariffs on imported goods to protect the middle class”). These techniques will range from outlining and identifying informal fallacies that are often used to persuade people, to learning how to verify empirical claims by working back to the sources from which they are claimed to have originated.

Engaging in such critical thinking takes time and effort—and so as well as exploring how to engage in this we’ll also explore ways to motivate students (and others!) to use critical thinking techniques when they are faced with either empirical or prescriptive claims. To this end we’ll explore some methods that have proved successful in the past in motivating students to engage critically with material presented to them on social media. These will include activities and games, including “The Prisoner’s Dilemma,” “The Fishing Game,” “The Myth Busting Scavenger Hunt”, “Would This Be True If Your Mother Wrote It?”, and “Why Believe THAT?” The book for this seminar is: Doug Lemov, Teach Like a Champion 2.0 (Jossey-Bass, 2014)

Seminar Leader: James Stacey Taylor

James Stacey Taylor is a Professor of philosophy. An Anglo-Scot, he holds an MA and and M.Litt degrees from St Andrews University, Scotland, and an MA and a Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University, OH. He is the author of five books: Stakes and Kidneys, Practical Autonomy and Bioethics, Death, Posthumous Harm and Bioethics, Bloody Bioethics, and Markets with Limits. His award-winning Op-Eds on issues of ethics, justice, and economics have appeared in many publications ranging from USA Today to the Los Angeles Times, as well as Forbes.com. He has also been quoted in The New York Times and is a contributor to NPR.

Teaching Science Through Issues to Increase Engagement, Meet the NGSS, and Prepare Citizens

Science plays a critical role in society, providing us with the knowledge we need to understand the universe and to better our lives. All persons, not just practicing scientists, need a great science education, and this education must provide students with the ability to use science in their everyday lives, a necessity made crystal-clear by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Despite the importance of science to all, many students are less than enthusiastic about their science courses. Participants will explore how teaching science through personal and current societal issues increases student interest in science, while simultaneously meeting the NGSS and creating citizens capable of applying high-quality scientific information to address these issues. Participants will develop an issue and a module based on that issue that they can implement in their courses.

Seminar Leader: Christopher Murphy, PhD.

Christopher Murphy is the Associate Provost for Curriculum and Liberal Learning and a Professor of Biology at TCNJ. He taught his first class of non-majors biology 30 years ago as a post-doctoral associate, and since then, over 95% of his teaching has been with this population. For much of this time, he has used an issues-based approach to help non-majors become interested in science and develop as educated citizens capable of using reliable scientific information to make reasoned decisions. He conducts research in both biology and college education.

Fostering a Passion for Mathematics

I am fortunate to have grown up in Hungary that has a long tradition of superb Mathematics Education. My Mathematics teachers fostered my interest and enjoyment of the subject by making me see Mathematics as something people do instead of a set of skills that people possess. My teachers’ recipe was simple: the more I enjoy doing Mathematics, the more I will succeed. My main goal is to share strategies, best practices and resources that will help you increase your students’ intrinsic motivation to engage with Mathematics. I will also present some recent research on the importance of fostering students’ interest and enjoyment of doing Mathematics.

Seminar Leader: Judit Karlos, PhD

Judit is an assistant professor of mathematics. She received her BA in mathematics and MS in philosophy from Eötvös University in Budapest, followed by a PhD in mathematics with a focus on Real Analysis. Her research interests as a teacher are related to teaching and learning mathematics using the Inquiry Based Learning method. Most recently, she was a panelist on IBL at Mathfest in 2019 and she presented a paper on using IBL in the Real Analysis classroom at the National IBL Conference in Denver.

Incorporating Virtual Reality (VR) in the Classroom

It is imperative to upskill students for 21st century high demand careers in a diverse world and increase their culturally competent compassion as teachers prepare them to be global citizens. To this end, this seminar will introduce how immersive technology such as Virtual Reality (VR) can be used in teaching and learning and showcase recent student engagement with VR and projects designed to have social/cultural/health impact. Built in this seminar are guided hands-on VR sessions where participants will have the opportunity to interact with and critique a range of impactful programs. Participants will learn how VR is revolutionizing teaching and learning, and explore ideas on leveraging it to innovate within their own field. Book used for this seminar is: Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do Hardcover by Jeremy Bailenson

Seminar Leader: Yifeng Hu, PhD

Hu is an associate professor of Communication Studies at TCNJ. Her research and teaching are transdisciplinary, which include emerging communication technology, health communication, and intercultural/racial communication. She has led her students to research and design virtual reality-based projects that have the potential to make social changes. Hu is eager to share her expertise and passion in emerging communication technology and its social impact, and hopes to excite her peers with a vision of teaching and learning for the 21st century.