February, 2015 Living Well in Later Life Workshop
Tue, February 24 2015, 1:30pm
Campus Club ABC
Stepping toward more agile and creative minds
Following the UMRA luncheon program in February, the UMRA Program and Cares Committees are pleased to present a workshop to challenge our minds and examine new paths to creatively and adaptively meet new opportunities.
Associate Professor Wilma Koutstaal, U of M Department of Psychology, will be our guide.
No matter what our age, our brains are constantly and dynamically adapting to our environments. Latest findings in a number of scientific disciplines underscore the fact that we can all be more creative, and we can all be more mentally agile throughout our lives. But sustaining mental agility requires us to challenge ourselves in new ways, integrating our minds, bodies, and emotions.
In this workshop with Professor Koutstaal, we will look at recent research that points to practical ways we can all work toward more agile and adaptively flexible minds. Drawing on cognitive and brain sciences research from her lab and from her two recent books, The Agile Mind and InnovatingMinds, she will help us understand how a new framework can make us all more creative and agile thinkers and doers.
We will explore, for example, such questions as
• How can we shape our environments and guide our activities to keep our brains adaptively flexible and alert?
• Do we allow ample opportunities for making deliberate efforts at creativity as well as being receptive to what our efforts at change reveal?
• How can we use "detail-stepping" effectively, relying not only on more familiar ways of thinking but also paying close attention to details and unique instances?
• Are we setting specific creativity goals, and are we rewarding ourselves and others for "learning to vary?"
The workshop aims to provide each of us with short-term and long-term routes to agile and change-receptive minds.
Plan to attend this workshop from 1:30 to 2:30 p.m. on February 24 in the Campus Club ABC room. All members, guests, and visitors are welcome.
Upcoming Events
Our July 15 "hike" is going to be a kayaking adventure on Bde Maka Ska (formerly Lake Calhoun) and Lake of the Isles! If you don't have a kayak (or paddleboard), Wheel Fun Rentals, located next to the new concession stand rents single kayaks at $15 an hour and double kayaks at $25. The second hour is free if we rent before noon. Life jackets are provided with the rental.
Laura Ericksen will lead the discussion of How Stella Learned to Talk by Christina Hunger, a true story by a speech-language pathologist who taught her dog, Stella, to communicate using buttons associated with different words.
Our August 5 hike will be a reprise of our hike last summer at William O'Brien State Park. This is a beautiful park with a winding trail and a great view of the countryside. The hike is about 5.5 to 6 miles and we'll go at a moderate pace with frequent water breaks. After the hike, we will eat lunch at Rustic Roots Winery, a half mile north of the park.
Kathy Cramer will lead the discussion of The Bookbinder by Pip Williams, a book set in 1914 Oxford chronicling the life of Peggy who works in the University bindery, but craves a life beyond binding books but to being a scholar herself.
Enjoy a two-hour cruise on the Jonathan Padelford, leaving from the Harriet Island dock in St. Paul, boarding time at 5:30 p.m. We will have a brief program on board by Patrick Nunnally from the River Life Program of the Institute on the Environment.
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