Join us for an engaging "Lunch and Learn" event hosted by the Eileen Lappin Weiser Center for the Learning Sciences. As part of our inaugural series celebrating the theme of curiosity, we invite you to a thought-provoking conversation featuring Kishonna L. Gray, Professor of Information and Matthew Solomon, Professor of Film, Television, and Media, facilitated by Professors Natalie Davis and Jon Wargo.

In this session, each of our panelists will delve into how curiosity intersects with learning in their fields, from curiosity-driven research to innovative teaching practices. Panelists will briefly share multimedia examples to complement the storytelling and discussion.
Then we’ll open up the conversation, asking how fostering curiosity can lead to deeper knowledge and broader perspectives? How can these insights be applied to create more equitable and dynamic learning environments?

Bring your lunch, your questions, and your curiosity! Please register due to limited space.

Presentations:

Kishonna L. Gray - “We got next!” Getting Curious with Others in Gaming

This interactive experience centers on what we’ve learned from youth cultures in gaming. Youth are full of curiosity and imagination and engage gaming in truly innovative ways. So by exploring how they play, make, and create, we can develop better tools for gaming.


Matthew Solomon - Getting Curious and Collaborative with the Canon: From Archival Research to New Media

Sometimes, there can be a sense that there’s “nothing more to be said or done” with certain works that have prominent places in the canon of the arts and humanities. The film Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) is one such canonical work, but my feeling has been that there is always more work to be done, although inevitably new approaches are needed. In my presentation, I will discuss the collaborative and pedagogical work I’ve done since 2017 at the University of Michigan examining Citizen Kane through the Welles papers in the Mavericks & Makers collections in the UM Special Collections Research Center; co-creating the “VR Citizen Kane” teaching and learning tool with Dr. Vincent Longo (Western Michigan University) in collaboration with the Emerging Technologies Group at the UM Duderstadt Center with generous grant support from LSA Technology Services; and teaching a course exclusively devoted to Citizen Kane, FTVM 307 (Film Analysis for Filmmakers), in which students have examined archival sources while rethinking the film from the inside out through virtual reality, virtual production, and reenactment.