Crescendo

Get Started

• Contact Ranen McLanahan to schedule an in-person workshop day on your campus, complimentary of The Kern Family Foundation.
• Mix and match 3-5 topics from our modular 50-minute topical collection below.
• Schedule topics around instructor teaching schedules.
• Invite instructors to participate according to their availability and interests.
• Watch instructors be surprised and delighted by a selection of sessions that are 100% unique, engaging, and impactful.

Crescendo Catalog

The Value Proposition of EML

A quick start guide for why EML is so transformative for students, student engagement, and learning outcomes. Learn about innovations by bisociation, hear the Kern Family Foundation story, see the engineering gulf, and discover the power and external resources in the acronyms KFF, KEEN, EU, and EUFD. This session contains novel ideas and perspectives on EML. It is appropriate for those at all EML experience levels.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

The Curious Power of Curiosity

How often do we realize the transformative power of a single curious question? This premier session offers actionable classroom techniques to nurture student curiosity. During the session, you’ll engage in hands-on “experiential learning” to better explore your own brain’s mechanisms of curiosity, and elevate your teaching by fully tapping into this essential human drive.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

The EML Innovation Creation Workshop

What makes something EML? How do you change the way students think while also still teaching technical skills? This highly interactive session will present some rules of thumb, ideas, and methods for creating your very own EM learning intervention for your own course. Note: although this session can be completed in 50 minutes, an extended 75-minute session will give instructors more time to co-create together.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

The Student Perception of Value

If different students care about different things, what does that mean for creating value in the classroom? In this DEI-friendly offering, come learn about the student perception of value, and how we can use perception to create teaching leverage for ourselves and our topics.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

The Surprising Consequences of Self-Awareness

Did you know there are two distinct types of self-awareness and that these can be understood entirely independently of each other? Also, does an increase in expertise and power make someone more self-aware or less self-aware? Come learn about the four categories of self-awareness, how it can change the trajectory of a career, the surprising consequences of expertise and power, and the data-driven recommendations about what it can mean for you, personally, as well as what it means for your students.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

The Less-Stress Grading Structure

This more advanced topic is recommended as a later topic, or even scheduled as a virtual lunch-and-learn in the months following a face-to-face workshop day.

Does it matter what grading structure you choose? For example, can the choice of a grading structure:

• Put the emphasis on learning rather than on merely passing tests, quizzes, and exams?
• Improve general assessment accuracy?
• Increase the percentage of on-time student submissions?
• Substantially reduce the instructor's grading workload?
• Easily provide students with useful, instant feedback?
• Get the lower quartile to actually look at where they made a mistake on homework?
• Reduce student stress throughout your entire course? 

Come learn about this novel method, the theory behind it, and the lessons learned from its implementation.  

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

The Science of Human Attention

Student attention can be slippery to pin down. It flows and ebbs throughout the day, week, and semester. Sometimes, when we need to capture it most, it also becomes the most vaporous and difficult. So, what are the mechanics behind human attention? Are there ways we can capture it consistently through EML? And how can we use EML in our face-to-face and virtual classrooms? This highly experiential session explores the science of human attention in a variety of ways.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

Escaping the Classroom Mindset

Every setting, from the dentist's chair to an airport lounge, evokes distinct feelings and behaviors. Similarly, university classrooms often summon a predefined "classroom mindset" in students. But what is this mindset, and does it hinder dynamic learning? This workshop delves deep into understanding these ingrained patterns and equips you with innovative techniques to liberate your students from conventional classroom confines.

Contact Ranen McLanahan.

Sample Agenda

Meeting Location: [insert campus here]

Meeting Room: [insert meeting room here]

Sample Day I Schedule

• 4:00 p.m. The Value Proposition of EML
• a highly interactive session with EML stories, unique perspectives on what EML is, and how EML is so transformative for students, classrooms, and universities. 

Sample Day II Schedule

• 9:00 a.m. The Curious Power of Curiosity
• the exploration of the two unique types of curiosity through interactive “experiential learning” activities along with actional classroom techniques. 
• 10:00 a.m. The Science of Student Attention
• a visual exploration of the neuroscience of human attention with experiential activities (through art, music) with EML intervention ideas that are applicable to any classroom.
• 11:00 a.m. The Student Perception of Value
• a curious exploration on how student perception impacts engagement and learning with DEI-infused teaching strategies.