Leadership and Personal Development
Laughter: Motivation and Medicine
Can humor motivate your employees, students, social group and loved ones to succeed? Yes. Can it cure illness? Well… it doesn’t hurt. Research shows us that laughter can be used to enhance people’s health and memory by stimulating the immune system and both sides of the brain. A sense of humor has also been found to be an excellent antidote to apprehension and panic. It has been demonstrated that when used in a classroom or training session, laughter builds trust, relieves test anxiety, makes learning more fun and helps students remember information longer. Using personal anecdotes from his long teaching career and from his experience with three life-threatening illnesses, Robert Keiper will show you how laughter can be both motivational and medicinal.
Visuals, Vocals & Verbals: The 3Vs for More Effective Communication
Teachers are constantly in the sales business. Every day, they enter classrooms and sell products ranging from algebraic equations to causes of the Civil War. Robert Keiper shows how passionate and persuasive teachers use nonverbal communications (visuals), engage their audience with the power of their voice (vocals), and carefully consider the words (verbals) they use. These skills and techniques are easily transferable to most activities and professions.
Dr. Robert Keiper is associate professor of secondary education at Woodring College of Education. He supervises student teachers and is the instructor for “The Dynamics of Teaching,” a required course at Woodring College of Education. Dr. Keiper has more than 20 years’ public school teaching experience and has been at Western since 1990. He has presented his “Teacher As Actor” workshops nationwide. His presentations utilize a computer and a data projection system to involve the audience.
Mind Mapping: Getting the Most from Your Brain
Our minds think in pictures, but we speak in words. This pattern immediately creates a conflict in communicating ideas. Join Arunas Oslapas in an exercise with “mind mapping,” a brainstorming process originated by Tony Buzan of the Learning Methods Group in England. Mind mapping was designed to overcome some of the obstacles to creativity and developing new ways of thinking that we experience. You will see how mind mapping can be used to solve problems, generate quantities of ideas, and organize presentations. Mind mapping can help anyone faced with making business presentations, developing creative solutions or sorting through difficult personal decisions.
Arunas Oslapas, an associate professor of industrial design in the engineering technology department, leads his students in creating innovative solutions to everyday problems. Demonstrating their ability to blend art with technology, his students have regularly provided creative directions to industry and have collaborated with several business clients, including Microsoft, Boeing, Trek Bicycles and Cascade Designs. Oslapas received the Mayor’s Art Award this year for art education and leadership. His M.F.A. is from the University of Illinois.
Principles of Personal Excellence
The mental skills developed and utilized by elite athletes to help them succeed can also be applied to the workplace and in your personal life. Ralph Vernacchia, one of the nation’s leading experts in applied sport psychology, discusses how everyone can draw on their mental skills and inner strengths to achieve peak experiences, effective performances and a satisfying quality of life. His perspective on excellence is drawn from the life experiences of community members as well as his work with Olympic, college and weekend athletes, psychology professionals, coaches, performers and community leaders.
Dr. Vernacchia is a professor of physical education and director of the Center for Performance Excellence. He directs undergraduate and graduate courses in sport psychology and has traveled internationally with USA track and field teams to several world championships. His book, “Inner Strength: The Mental Dynamics of Athletic Performance,” was published by Warde Publishers in July 2003.
Get a Grip! Standing Up to Platform Panic
Speaking in public is noted as one of our society’s greatest fears. However, according to communication expert Rosemary Vohs, if we recognize that our nervousness is normal and desirable, we can begin to overcome our communication apprehension. Building self-confidence and enthusiasm makes your business presentation, classroom teaching or stage performance much more fun for you and for your audience. Find out how you can get your butterflies to “fly in formation” in this entertaining presentation.
Rosemary Vohs was classically trained in performance arts in her native England. She is a professional storyteller and speaker who works with teachers, authors and others on improving performance skills. She has been teaching public speaking for Western’s department of communication since 1985. She also teaches storytelling and children’s literature for Woodring College of Education.
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