[FUN_Mail] Teaching neuroscience to non-scientists

[Richard Olivo via FUN_Mail]

Do you teach a neuroscience course intended for non-science majors, or have
a colleague who does this? The course could be a neuroscience survey
intended to fulfill a science requirement, or an interdisciplinary course
like "neuroscience of art" or "music." The important point is that it be
specifically intended for students who are apprehensive about studying
science.

If you (or your colleague) teach such a course and plan to attend the 2015
annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago (October 17-21),
I would like to hear from you. I am again organizing SfN's professional
development workshop on teaching neuroscience, and the topic this year will
be "Teaching Neuroscience to Non-scientists." If you think you have some
ideas that would be interesting to other faculty about how to organize such
a course, please reply and tell me about your course. A paragraph outlining
what you would stress in your presentation would be enough as a first step.
My purpose would be to assemble a panel that reflects diverse and
thoughtful ideas about how to reach the students for whom these courses are
intended.

There is no honorarium for serving on these panels, and you have to attend
the SfN meeting on your own funding, but in previous years panelists have
received free VIP registration and early access to the hotel list. You can
see the details of previous workshops going back to the first one in 2005
at tinyurl.com/sfn-pdw.

I hope to hear from you even if you are only tentatively interested, and
with your help, to produce a workshop from which we can all learn something
useful about teaching.

With best wishes,
Richard Olivo

--------
Richard F Olivo, PhD
Professor of Biological Sciences and Neuroscience, Smith College
Founding Editor, Educational Resources (ERIN), Society for Neuroscience
    44 College Lane, Smith College, Northampton MA 01063
    413 585-3822  •   http://tinyurl.com/bio300  •   http://erin.sfn.org