CLT Team The CLT Symposium brought AUC faculty together to share their innovative pedagogical experiences and ideas, and offered opportunities to learn from international speakers on themes related to imagination in education, academic integrity in the age of AI and reimagining emerging technologies. Sub-themes this year included human-centered teaching in the age of AI, academic integrity in the post-plagiarism era, and experiential learning.
This year the hybrid symposium included a variety of workshops, roundtables and virtual/hybrid keynotes and ran on February 16- 19 and 25, 2025.
What follows is a snapshot of the various sessions. More detailed New Chalk Talks highlighting particular sessions will follow over the coming few weeks.
Teaching Challenges
In 2016, CLT surveyed AUC faculty to explore the challenges they encountered in their day-to-day classroom teaching. The survey used was adapted from one conducted by Faculty Focus in which they surveyed instructors across the world (Bart, 2016). The questions on the survey were modified to fit the AUC context, and help CLT better tailor its services to the various needs of AUC faculty. CLT ran the survey again in 2024 and identified the top three challenges indicated by faculty who responded to the survey (n=158).
During this year’s symposium, CLT shared the top three challenges from the latest survey, which were “unprepared students”, “plagiarism and academic integrity” and “active learning & student engagement”.
Participants were divided into groups to examine those challenges in depth, identify stakeholders, explore possible causes and come up with ideas to tackle the challenges. By the end of the session, each group presented one of the ideas they discussed to all participants.
Two tables focused on the issue of unprepared students, identifying causes such as faculty leniency, lack of student accountability, limited intrinsic motivation, and the perception of “education as a product rather than a process”. To address this, participants suggested implementing a structured student journey framework to help learners visualize their progress and development. Moreover, another table working on this topic suggested understanding more about how GenZ learns, and what approaches faculty could use to motivate this generation. Another table examined the challenge of active learning, highlighting obstacles like outdated or irrelevant materials and unfriendly textbooks. Proposed solutions included integrating real-life applications, scaffolding learning, adopting student-centered instructional designs, and leveraging technology where appropriate. Additionally, the discussion on plagiarism and academic integrity emphasized academic pressure to perform and the impact of assignment design as key contributors. Participants recommended redesigning assignments to minimize artificial intelligence (AI) misuse, requiring students to orally defend their work, promoting proper AI citation and literacy, educating stakeholders on AI’s influence on academic integrity, emphasizing higher-order thinking skills in assessments, and providing hands-on faculty workshops to support assessment redesign and AI integration.
AI in Practice Roundtables
The AI in Practice roundtables included facilitated discussions, where a group of 2-3 faculty members from similar disciplines were invited to share their general approach to AI in their courses, what they have learned and what their challenges are. Participants were able to move between tables, discuss, share and ask questions to the speakers.
Thirty-one faculty members from 16 departments across all five academic schools (ALA, BUS, HUSS, SSE, GAPP) contributed, sharing practices ranging from “trying to reduce the usage of AI in parts where it should not [be used]”, “help[ing] students develop a real purpose in the assignments they do so they are intrinsically motivated”, “using AI responsibly” and “total AI integration”. Contributors shared the experiments and challenges they have experienced over the past few years and how their thinking has evolved over time. Faculty presenters collaborated on a resource listing the particular AI tools they have been using: https://bit.ly/AIroundtables and CLT will publish a New Chalk Talk soon to share a summary of their teaching practices. Stay tuned!
The Next Horizon: Innovating Teaching for the Next Generation
This session invited faculty members to reflect on and assess their current teaching approaches following the best practices and evidence-based approaches advocated by the Teaching Effectiveness Framework (TEF) developed by Colorado State University’s Institute for Learning and Teaching.
34 faculty members took part in this interactive session to explore ideas for implementation in the classroom based on the TEF. For each of the two rounds of the activity, participants worked in groups around one of four domains of their choice, and each faculty participant rated their teaching practices according to the domain-specific rubric outlined by the TEF on Instructional Strategies, Feedback for Learning, Student Motivation, or Inclusive Pedagogy & Classroom Climate. Faculty noted their areas of strength, aspects where they would like to improve, their goals, and the types of resources and support they would need to achieve these goals. During the discussion, participants shared examples from their own teaching experience and gave each other feedback and suggestions to tackle challenges.
Keynote Session: The Future of Learning Must Invite Us to Imagine: Freedom Dreaming for Liberatory Education
This keynote was presented by invited speaker Mia Zamora, a professor of English and director of the Masters of Arts in Writing Studies Program at Kean University in NJ, USA. The session was run in hybrid-mode and included AUC and non-AUC participants. Zamora’s session focused on asking: What is the significance of imagination in our work as educators? In a world shaped more and more by algorithmic logic, what does it mean to dream? What role might the imagination play in how we collectively address our shared future? This interactive workshop opened up a dynamic conversation about liberatory education design. How can we cultivate the growth of the imagination for ourselves and for our students? We explored everyday practices and imagined strategies that can lead us to become self-actualized shapers of a more just and sustainable world. The slides are available here: https://bit.ly/MiaAUC and the recording is embedded below
During the session, participants were invited to share their thoughts with colleagues on their tables or in breakout rooms, to close their eyes and imagine, and reflect using a spiral journal exercise. One participant wrote at the end of the session: “Thank you … this was a loving and a kind lecture that I have thoroughly enjoyed.” – Aya Musmar, ARCH
Making it Real: Course Strategies for Applied and Experiential Learning (Roundtable)
This roundtable discussion was led by CLT facilitators, AUC faculty members from four different departments, the director of the Academic Community Engagement (ACE) office and the director of Employer Engagement in the Career Center (CC). The roundtable also included 12 other participants.
Faculty speakers shared different strategies they use to engage students in real life applications within and beyond the classroom. They introduced use cases from different courses implementing a variety of experiential learning approaches, including community-based learning (CBL), design thinking/challenge based learning, and use of internships. Each speaker discussed their initial motivation to integrate experiential learning into their teaching, introduced the project/activity they did in their course, highlighted the impact of implementing it in their classes, and shared some of the challenges they faced during implementation and how they overcame them.
The CC and ACE members spoke about their previous collaborations with faculty to integrate experiential learning into their courses and the support they can provide to facilitate the process. The ACE director emphasized the importance of integrating experiential learning, stating, “there is a big gap between theory and practice; experiential learning allows us to stay more connected”. The CC member discussed how “experiential learning, when designed & structured, [can be] transformative”.
Finally, all participants engaged in a discussion reflecting on the speakers’ input; some of the highlights of the discussion included the concept of “activist pedagogy” as an approach to teaching innovation, scaffolding being an essential part of any experiential learning experience, and the need to raise awareness on community exit etiquette while implementing community-based learning.
Keynote Session: Go Somewhere: Reimagining Emerging Technologies in Higher Education
This virtual keynote was presented by Bonni Stachowiak, dean of teaching and learning and professor of business and management at Vanguard University of Southern California, who is better known as the host of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast. The session examined the role of technology in higher education with a critical perspective, emphasizing the idea that there is no ‘right’ way to think about emerging technologies, and that ambiguity is part of the process and is to be embraced. The session challenged the digital natives vs immigrants metaphor for AI and introduced the visitor vs resident metaphor, alongside many others that aim to explore more constructive ways to conceptualize digital fluencies. Participants explored the ethical implications related to technology use in education, including topics, such as artificial intelligence, surveillance and algorithmic bias. Participants engaged with strategies and activities for integrating technology into teaching and learning, informed by a critical lens and inspired by innovative practices from educators around the world. Resources from the session were shared here: https://teachinginhighered.com/auc25
Keynote Session: From Plagiarism to Post Plagiarism: Shifting from Punitive to Proactive Approaches to Academic Integrity in the Age of AI
This virtual keynote was led by Sarah Elaine Eaton, a professor at the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, Canada, who is an award-winning educator, researcher and leader. The session was about how institutional and ethical leadership could facilitate the shift from a punitive mindset, to a more restorative mindset when it comes to academic integrity to set up students for success in and beyond the classroom. During the session, the term ‘academic integrity’ itself was questioned, for ‘integrity’ is something to be celebrated. Rather, it was proposed that academic ‘misconduct’ is what should be investigated. There is no question that teaching, learning and assessment have changed since generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT and similar apps have become ubiquitous over the past few years. We can be ethical or unethical about how these tools are used in our classrooms and beyond. In this session, Eaton talked about students, faculty and leaders’ responsibilities for upholding and modeling academic ‘integrity’ in ways that set up students for success today, tomorrow and beyond, bearing in mind the shifting landscapes and complexities that are arising. Hence the ‘Postplagiarism’ term. This session was not about how to use specific tools. Instead, we delved into the broad ethical and practical implications of AI for education and business. A key takeaway from this talk was how despite the need for funding, time, and training for the integration of new more restorative models of academic ‘integrity’, such models would help in providing a foundation for ethical decision-making beyond the classroom, in the workplace and everyday life. Slides for this session are available here.
