The fourth in a series of free Vision 2020 workshops on education methodology for Iowa State and community college faculty and graduate students will take place Thursday and Friday in the Scheman Building.

A two-hour session reviewing previous workshops will be held from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. on Thursday to bring people who missed the first three sessions up to speed.

The review session will cover topics such as multiple intelligences, problem-based learning, assessing alternative learning methods and competencies and integration with business and industry.

The workshop will cover three main topics — learner-centered education: systems approach, teaching and learning strategies and defining a personal and professional mission.

“In order to get the best from a student we have to use the learning style that challenges the students to do their best,” said Ann Schultz, program coordinator.

“Research has proven that lecture and listen is not the best methodology for learning. This workshop will provide methods and hands-on application that will challenge the students to do their best.”

The bottom line, she said, is that “we want to do the best for our students and this workshop will help a faculty member to do that.”

People attending the workshop will participate in small group discussions and will develop a mission statement for their own course.

Also, the workshop will conclude with “gift time.” Gift stands for great ideas for teachers. It is a time to learn what others are doing at ISU and in community colleges.

Schultz said gift time will be like small group discussions with a facilitator in each group to share what group members are doing and make hand outs.

Gift time, she said, will provide participants with “tried and true methods to take home.”

The methods to be discussed at the workshop are application, not just theory, Schultz said.

She said the workshop will provide participants with “opportunities to learn from other faculty people how they’re incorporating active learning into their classroom.”

Schultz said students often wonder how they are ever going to use things they learn, and the methodology that will be discussed at the conference will help answer that for students.

She said even in big lecture classes, there are a number of teaching methods that help do this.

For example, there is the two-plus-two method, in which the instructor has students partner up and discuss class material.

Instructors also can give a one- minute test at the end of each class period, something as simple as listing one thing learned that day and one thing that is still unclear.

Schultz said only 10 percent of people can learn by just reading and writing. Other people need to talk to learn or do some sort of case study.

She said these other methods of teaching may be harder for teachers but they help students learn more.

Schultz said she wants to encourage graduate students to participate in the conference because they are the teachers of the future and haven’t yet had an opportunity to learn about methodology.

The conference runs from 4 to 9:30 p.m. Thursday and from 7:30-1 p.m. Friday in Room 167 of the Scheman Building.

To register for the workshop, call Karen Lind, Vision 2020 administrative assistant, at 294-2092.