Lunch and Learn
Faculty Development: On Campus or Virtual
Schedule a Complimentary Lunch and Learn For Your Campus
These Faculty Curriculum Development topics have been adapted to best help engineering faculty create space for open discussion of ideas, entrepreneurially minded learning (EML) efforts, and network opportunities. Your Lunch and Learn can be virtual or on campus - it's up to you!
Access the Lunch and Learn catalog, or browse offerings below.
- Ready to schedule? Contact Ranen McLanahan today.
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?
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 to your students.
Breaking Free from the Classroom Mindset
What is the classroom mindset? Does your classroom feel stuck? Learn methods to help you and your students break free!
The Curious Question
Can a simple, curious question change your entire class? Explore a simple technique that can drastically increase a student's engagement, interest, and motivation to learn.
The Student Perception of Value
If different students care about different things, what does that mean for creating value in the classroom? Dive into the student perception of value, and learn how we can use perception to create teaching advantages for ourselves.
The Less-Stress Grading Structure
This more advanced topic is recommended as a second or third Lunch and Learn experience.
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?
Over the last three years, one such method has been successfully pioneered and tested. Learn about this novel method, the theory behind it, and the lessons learned from its implementation.
Supercharging Student Engagement with 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? And how can we use it in our face-to-face and virtual classrooms?
A Novel Approach to Academic Integrity and Character
What happens when you combine moral foundation theory (Jonathan Haidt) with moral reminders (Dan Ariely)? A surprising increase in academic integrity! Learn how this combination was used to virtually eliminate academic dishonesty in a self-paced, no-proctor course (and see how academic honesty was secretly being measured.)
Currently in Development
- A Student-Friendly Approach to the Ill-Defined Problem of Good Communication
- The Vital Importance of Having Fun when Teaching
- Innovative Innovations: Practical (and Outside-the-Box) Teaching Ideas and Structures
About the Speaker
Dr. A. L. Ranen McLanahan is a program director at the Kern Family Foundation. He started in industry working on a floating factory ship in Alaska in 1999. From there, he’s done computational modeling work, micro-electrical mechanical system design, and R&D work through a device prototyping and innovation center that he co-found in 2013. He has served as a faculty member of general and mechanical engineering for 12 years with the UW-Platteville Engineering Partnership and worked as an industrial consultant and research affiliate through his company Critical Flux LLC for the last six.
In 2016, Ranen was invited to the Wisconsin State Capitol to give a workshop on Solidarity to the Wisconsin Legislators at the state capitol. Ranen has earned multiple educational awards and nominations for his teaching, outreach, and innovations.