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Beyond Memorization: Teaching and Assessing for Understanding

Facilitator: Dr. Mikey Nusbaum, Neuroscience
Convener: Lilly Ryll, CETLI Graduate Fellow, Neuroscience

How can we teach students complex material while assessing whether they truly understand it rather than simply memorizing it? In this workshop, Dr. Mikey Nusbaum will share his approach to graduate-level teaching, using board-based lectures to develop and explain course material while emphasizing the connections and concepts students need to understand. We will then interactively explore how open-note, problem-solving assessments can ask students to apply that knowledge and demonstrate their understanding. Participants will consider how lecture and assessment design can work together to prioritize conceptual understanding and reasoning, and will leave with strategies for developing assessments that challenge students to think beyond memorization.

All graduate students are welcome. This event grows out of concerns in the Neuroscience department, and so may be most useful to students in related fields.

Counts toward the CETLI Teaching Certificate.

Part of the CETLI Teaching Certificate Series

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Date:
Monday, September 28, 2026

Time:
3:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Location:
Barchi Library, Room 140
John Morgan Building
3620 Hamilton Walk
Philadelphia, 19104 United States
Event Participants:

School(s):
All

For More Information:
CETLI-info@upenn.edu