I spent the first part of this week at the USG Teaching and Learning Conference with over 400 other faculty and staff from across the state and beyond. The breadth and depth of the sessions was truly amazing, as was the quality of conversation. Listening to the conversations at the conference – both the formal ones and the more serendipitous encounters in the hallway, I was struck by a few big themes to share.

Community Counts

A huge theme at the Conference, and an item of discussion among the speakers and participants alike, was how important community was – for students, for faculty, for everyone. A number of sessions focused on the collaborations that were possible through the work of faculty learning communities and communities of practice (including some inter-institutional communities).

In addition to these formal and membership-based communities was a broader discussion among the participants of how important it was to feel like they were a part of a group that could, and did, supportively discuss issues around teaching. The Conference is an extensive community of this sort, but finding or creating a similar space in a department, school, unit, or campus was clearly vital to making room for faculty experimentation and reflection.

Creating community was also important to connecting with students, and ways of doing this was a focus of many sessions on the program as well. Strategies like a fast friends activity, syllabus revisions to support student well being, practicing lessons from Peter Felton’s Relationship-Rich Education (here’s a few to try), and daily emotional check-ins as a teaching practice. Each of these (and many other approaches) carry with them the advantage that students who feel more connected to you and their peers are more able to manage their stress, overcome setbacks, and succeed in college.

AI is Everywhere

It is perhaps not a surprise that generative artificial intelligence was heavily represented on the program and in conversations at the Conference. It has been fascinating to see how the conversation has shifted to how to use these tools in the classroom and as a means of amplifying our reach. Make no mistake, the discussions still acknowledged the disruptive nature of the technology, but in amongst that disruption were clear signs of how to harness AI to improve our practices. These included discussions about teaching students how to use AI in an ethical and responsible manner (especially in early writing courses), using AI to support assessment and alignment, and even how to train an AI model to create responses to student survey input at scale.

Threading through these discussions was a larger sense that this new technology will play a huge role in the lives and careers of our students (and us) in the very near future. Getting ready for this, and being willing to wrestle along with our students about the pitfalls and challenges (as well as the benefits) was a constant undercurrent throughout the conference. If you’ve not already taken the plunge, a great place to start is a brand new Coursera course, AI for Everyday Life, from Jeanne Beatrix Law at Kennesaw State.

Making Meaning Matters

Finally, the Conference continued to focus on making our teaching meaningful to our students as a way to engage, connect, and support students in developing their skills. This is of course familiar territory to anyone who has used Transparency in Teaching and Learning   or engaged in Experiential Learning. The Conference highlighted inventive ways to connect coursework to students in ways that directly align with their professional goals and personal histories, engaging creatively in service learning, interdisciplinary approaches to big issues and connecting coursework to larger global challenges to help students engage in solutions.

Bringing it home

Throughout the Conference, participants were encouraged to think about what inspires them, what their aspirations were, and what they saw as transformational. At the end of the Conference we were all challenged to make a plan to share what we learned (and look at me! I just did that) and at least one thing we would put into action.

A big message across all of the sessions this year was that it was often good to start small. This time of the year is great for making notes to shape your plans for the future, and whether you’re teaching or supporting students in some other way, I would challenge you to set aside a small wedge of time and identify one practice you want to change, implement, or maybe stop doing in your work. And once you’ve done that, share it with us, and with your colleagues.

Thanks for all you do,

Jonathan