Welcome

Minot State University's new Center for the Applied Study of Cognition and Learning Sciences (CASCLS) was officially accepted by the State Board of Higher Education as a ND University System stage two Center of Excellence in September 2007. The formal approval of the CASCLS was the culmination of work by over twenty faculty members from across departments at the University. The CASCLS initiative has brought together faculty and P-12 educators with expertise on many aspects of learning in the mind/brain.

A multi-disciplinary group of eighteen MSU faculty attended the Learning and the Brain Conferences, sponsered by the Harvard Graduate School of Education and other major research entities, held in Boston and San Francisco in 2006-2007, as a first step toward refocusing MSU's existing strengths in the learning sciences toward this initiative. Since that time, multiple seminars and presentations have been provided to educators and the broader community.

Faculty, undergraduate and graduate students involved in the MSU initiative will have continuing opportunity to learn, apply and test research regarding what we know about:

• biophysical structures, functions and mechanisms (brain),
• observed individual and social behaviors, mental representations and thinking processes (mind), and
• how human beings change over time as they develop in all quadrants: cognitive, social, emotional and physical growth (education).

Contact: Dr. Deb Jensen, deb.jensen@minotstateu.edu; 1-800-777-0750