Sign up for On Teaching seminar Oct. 28 We hope you can join us for the next On Teaching seminar, “Creative Thinking Across the Curriculum,” sponsored by OID and WAC from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 28, in the Red River Valley Room, Memorial Union. In interviews conducted for the Bush Longitudinal Study, faculty at UND found that our students rarely understood creative thinking in the way that their teachers did. Typically when asked which courses required them to think creatively, students replied that they didn’t have courses that did (often reasoning this was because they were only in large lecture courses “where you don’t need to think creatively” or they hadn’t taken an art class). On the other hand, when faculty from across disciplines at UND came together to explore what we mean when we use the term “creative thinking” and to figure out how to assess this ability, they listed activities such as exploring alternate and potentially divergent perspectives on an idea, process, experience, or object; discovering ways to confront complex or ambiguous problems, make new connections, and see how things could be otherwise; and engaging in creative practice as a means to develop aesthetic understanding. Most of us would argue that creative thinking is an essential skill for college graduates (it has been a goal of UND’s general education program since its inception) and should probably be part of many –- if not all -- courses our students take across the entire campus. In this On Teaching Seminar, Wendy Hume and Tami Carmichael (both recipients of ES Model Project Grants to work on enhancing creative thinking in their courses) will share some of their insights as we discuss creative thinking across our curriculum, how to define it, how to help your students do it (in both large and small classes) and how to assess student learning in this essential skill. To register and reserve your lunch, call Jana Hollands at 777-4998 or e-mail jana_hollands@und.edu by noon Friday, Oct. 24. -- Anne Kelsch, Director, Office of Instructional Development, anne_kelsch@und.nodak.edu, 777-3325