This workshop will focus on strategies for engaging students in hands on learning activities that do not involve the use of technology in the classroom. We will explore how writing by hand, drawing, and interactive student discussions can promote critical thinking and develop writing skills more effectively than methods that rely on A.I. and other technological tools. These tactile approaches will also describe how “hard” texts can be used in the classroom, both in terms of difficult texts and hard copies of assigned books. What happens when we take away our students’ gadgets and turn off the instructors’ screens? Come join us to find out!
Facilitator Bio: Brandon Dean Lamson the author of the memoir Caged: A Teacher's Journey Through Rikers, or How I Beheaded the Minotaur (Fordham University Press, 2023) as well as two poetry books: Starship Tahiti (University of Massachusetts Press, 2013), winner of the Juniper Prize for Poetry, and Houston Gothic (LaMunde Press, 2009). His recent poems have appeared in Bear Review, Poetry Northwest, and Prairie Schooner, and he has written articles on socially engaged Buddhism for Buddhadharma Quarterly, Tricycle, and Speculative Non-buddhism. Currently, he teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Texas at Austin and is an ordained priest in the Soto Zen lineage.