Todd Zakrajsek

Center for Faculty Excellence
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Enhancing Student Learning: Emerging Research and Innovative Strategies

This interactive plenary session is designed to give you evidence about how students learn, show you methods to get students involved, and demonstrate relevant applications from pedagogical research. Research from cognitive, social, and physiological psychology is rich with ideas to augment student learning through effective teaching. You will also have the opportunity to try out some classroom activities designed to increase student engagement.

Biography

Todd Zakrajsek serves as the Executive Director of the Center for Faculty Excellence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Previously, Dr. Zakrajsek was the founding director of The Faculty Center for Innovative Teaching (FaCIT) at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant. FaCIT constitutes a centralized faculty development office, providing resources in the areas of teaching, learning, and technology. Dr. Zakrajsek also previously served as the Director of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Southern Oregon University, where he also taught in the psychology department as a tenured associate professor. Dr. Zakrajsek has written two introductory psychology instructor's manuals for McGraw-Hill and a student study guide for Addison-Wesley. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Ohio University. Dr. Zakrajsek has provided workshop sessions and keynote conference presentations in 26 states and 3 countries in the past several years. He is the recipient of a 2004 national innovation in faculty development award for the development of his concept of “The 5-minute Workshop.”