2022 T&L SYMPOSIUM KEYNOTE

Keynote Workshop: Friday, November 4 from 2:30-4pm

Embodied Learning Strategies to Create Human Connection and Engagement

Recent headlines suggest we are currently experiencing a "stunning" level of student disconnection and disengagement. What can we do to motivate students and ourselves to re-engage in learning? Learning demands physical energy that the body supplies for optimal brain function. We are wired for social connection and to think while moving. In this interactive session, participants will experience embodied learning strategies first-hand; from the research in my book, Minding Bodies: How physical space, sensation, and movement affect learning, I will share what science is discovering about the effect of the built environment and movement on cognitive performance.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Susan Hrach

Dr. Susan Hrach is the author of the 2022 Silver Nautilus Award-winning book Minding Bodies: how physical space, sensation, and movement affect learning (WVU Press, 2021). As an undergraduate, she spent a year studying at the Universität Innsbruck, Austria, which shaped her lifelong interests in world literature, translation studies, and global education. Her experiences teaching internationally inform her on-going research and practice. In 2022-23 she is serving as Fulbright Canada Distinguished Research Chair in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Carleton University in Ottawa.