Conference schedule and sessions

Keynote Extended Question & Answer Session 

Room: TI 100
Presenters:  Dwayne Donald & Anahi Palomec McKenna 

Description: This session will bring focus to the colonial logics of relationship denial as it relates to possibilities for meaningful educational transformation. We will frame knowledge experiments as sustained opportunities for people to experience knowledge and knowing in unique ways and find meaning through attending to the wisdom of relational renewal.

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Culturally relevant teaching and student learning in the age of Artificial Intelligence

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Dania El Chaar (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) 

Abstract: As artificial intelligence (AI) tools become increasingly embedded in educational contexts, questions of equity, culture, and power demand urgent attention. AI systems are often positioned as neutral, efficient supports for teaching and learning; however, these technologies are trained on dominant cultural, linguistic, and epistemic norms that can marginalize students from historically underserved communities. Grounded in culturally relevant and culturally sustaining pedagogy, this presentation examines how AI both challenges and reshapes efforts to support academic success, cultural competence, and critical consciousness.

The interactive presentation explores key tensions between culturally relevant teaching and AI, including standardization versus cultural specificity. Participants will be invited to consider how uncritical uses of AI may reproduce bias, flatten diverse perspectives, or silence student voice particularly for multilingual learners and students of colour.

Finally, we will explore together opportunities to leverage AI as a tool for culturally relevant learning. Examples include using AI to scaffold student thinking without replacing voice, supporting multilingual and multi-modal expression, and fostering critical AI literacy through the analysis and revision of AI-generated outputs.

The session concludes with practical implications for educators, emphasizing the need to position students as critical users, ethical thinkers, ethical agents, and co-constructors of knowledge in AI-mediated classrooms.

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Beyond AI Disruption: Multiliteracies as a Framework for Connection 

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Ali Mikaeili (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: Postsecondary AI policies across Canada overwhelmingly emphasize academic integrity and risk management, yet few address the multiliteracies such as digital, AI, critical, multi-modal, and cultural aspects that learners require to navigate AI-mediated environments. This session investigates the research question: How can multiliteracies pedagogy address the gaps in Canadian AI policies to better support equitable, connected, and human-centered learning? 

Drawing on contemporary multiliteracies and AI scholarship (Kalantzis & Cope, 2025; Yelland, 2025; Janfada et al., 2025) and national policy analyses of AI and academic integrity (Ally & Mishra, 2024; Vogt et al., 2025), the session argues that a large portion of Canadian higher education institutional guidelines remain narrowly procedural, overlooking the pedagogical designs needed for students to critically interpret, redesign, and create knowledge with AI.

The session aligns with the conference theme by reframing digital transformation not as disruption, but as an opportunity to strengthen relationships through inclusive, multimodal, and culturally responsive learning. Participants will explore how multiliteracies pedagogies such as situated practice, overt instruction, critical framing, and transformed practice, offer scalable strategies for fostering belonging, creativity, and agency in GenAI-rich classrooms.

This interactive session will include small-group dialogue, collective annotation of sample policies, and co-design of multiliteracies-informed assessment practices. Participants will collaboratively surface tensions, share lived experience, and identify relational, ethical, and equity-oriented approaches to digital transformation. Through reciprocal engagement, we will connect policy analysis with practical pedagogy, co-creating pathways for institutions to integrate multiliteracies into the next generation of AI policies and teaching practices.

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Entrepreneurial Universities in Action: Four Calgary Case Studies

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Guy Levesque (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Advanced economies face a productivity crisis: Since the mid-2000s, output per hour worked has decelerated alarmingly (OECD, 2023). It is well established that entrepreneurship drives national productivity growth and economic development (Baumol, 2010). Universities are uniquely positioned to address the global productivity challenge by developing students’ entrepreneurial capabilities (Audretsch, 2014), including creativity, agility, growth mindset, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and systems innovation thinking.

Yet, entrepreneurship in postsecondary education remains narrowly defined, often limited to startup creation rather than embracing intrapreneurship, social innovation, and institutional changemaking. Furthermore, introducing entrepreneurial thinking across university disciplines remains a challenge in practice.

This interactive session examines how four postsecondary institutions in Alberta (a research-intensive university, a comprehensive undergraduate university, a polytechnic institute, and a college) are translating entrepreneurial thinking into educational practice. Each institution faces unique opportunities and constraints shaped by mandate, student demographics, resources, and organizational culture (Goddard et al., 2016).

Session structure: Four presenters will share brief case studies (5 minutes each) highlighting their institution's approach to inspiring entrepreneurial thinking, including pedagogical strategies, program design, lessons learned, and ongoing challenges. Following these presentations, participants will engage in facilitated small-group discussions to synthesize findings across institutional contexts, identify common tensions and transferable strategies, and collaboratively develop frameworks for advancing entrepreneurial education at their own institutions.

Session goals: Participants will (1) examine practical strategies for teaching entrepreneurial thinking across diverse institutional types and disciplines, (2) analyze tensions between traditional academic values and entrepreneurial approaches, (3) identify context-specific adaptations and transferable lessons, and (4) co-create actionable pathways forward.

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A Decolonizing Approach to Navigating Intersections Between Generative AI and Academic Integrity

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Robin Mueller (Royal Roads University)

Abstract: Generative artificial intelligence and academic integrity are concepts and processes that emerge from the global colonial project and that are produced by way of decidedly colonial mindsets.  Research has demonstrated how generative AI not only reproduces colonial stereotypes (Hellman, 2026), but also serves “as a technology of Indigenous erasure” (Rosser & Spennemann, 2025, p.1).  Contemporary issues with artificial intelligence in higher education are intertwined with those related to academic integrity; a predominant response to generative AI in postsecondary systems assumes that students use AI to cheat rather than to responsibly augment their work (University of Alberta, 2026).  Academic integrity is also a colonial construct that encourages adoptions of a paternalistic and transactional view of education (Eaton, 2024); consequently this leads to the expression of a complex and intersecting problem of practice that is characterized, at its root, by coloniality. 

The overarching goal of our interactive session is to create space for participants to identify practical approaches for decolonizing the intersection between AI and academic integrity.  Our presentation will include: a summary of the ways in which generative AI and academic integrity are typically navigated within higher education; a description of the presenters’ approach to decolonizing practices and processes in the context of graduate education; and an opportunity for participants to collectively explore the ways in which they might decolonize their approaches to generative AI and academic integrity within their institutional programs.  At least half of the session will be spend in dialogue and collaborative exploration.      

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Small Digital Transformations for Big Learning

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Janet Leahy (University of Calgary)

Abstract: In his book Small Teaching [1], James Lang popularized the idea of introducing small, brief activities to encourage evidence-based methods for active learning. 

In this session, three experienced teaching-stream faculty members will introduce a range of small, technology-based activities with a big impact on helping students to better engage with their learning. The activities utilize spreadsheets [2], presentation software, heatmaps [3], and simulations. Keeping with the spirit of James Lang’s work, these activities are designed to be easy to integrate into existing courses, with minimal instructor overhead and without requiring any coding. You will see inspiration from Small Teaching, but also from Universal Design for Learning [4], evidence-based practices in computer science education, and our own experiences, curiosity and joy with technology.  

During the session, the audience can expect to try out the different tools and techniques we discuss. Participants are encouraged to bring a laptop or digital device to fully take part in the session activities. 

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Red-Teaming Assignments: Strengthen Tasks for the AI Era

Room: TI 250
Presenters:  Drew Williams (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: If a basic AI assistant can generate a passing response with minimal prompting, students will use it, making the assignment a weak measure of what they actually know. Many instructors respond by adding detection tools or banning AI in policy, rather than stress testing the tasks themselves. This workshop introduces "red-teaming assignments" - intentionally using AI to "attack" your own assignment so you can spot and fix weaknesses - as a simple method that works across disciplines to strengthen assessments for the AI era. Participants bring one current assignment and rubric. Using a fast Attack - Defend - Strengthen cycle, they first see how an AI tool would handle the task. They then identify "blind spots" where the prompt and rubric reward surface level outputs over reasoning, transfer (applying knowledge in new contexts), or process evidence. Finally, they prototype targeted revisions - for example, shifting from "summarize this case" to "critique an AI summary of this case, then defend your position with primary evidence and process notes." The approach builds on authentic assessment, Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles, and academic integrity work, and treats design, not detection, as the main lever. The session is vendor neutral and uses only synthetic or instructor authored examples (no student work). We emphasize low or no cost tools and small pilots that fit within teaching loads. Participants leave with a one page red-teaming checklist, an AI aware assignment template, and a plan to try these methods in one course. 

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Integrating Interdisciplinary Education in Engineering Curricula

Room: TI 100
Presenters: Muhammad Shehryar Khan (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Grand challenges like climate change disrupt traditional academic boundaries, requiring solutions that transcend single disciplines. This session presents a framework for integrating interdisciplinary education into Materials Science and Engineering (MSE) curricula to better prepare the "whole engineer". We analyze a case study from a Canadian university where a course on the "wicked problem" of climate change was co-developed and co-taught by instructors from six distinct faculties. Data from a survey of engineering undergraduates will be presented, revealing that a significant majority desire curriculum that integrates socially relevant topics and opportunities to collaborate with non-engineering peers. We will discuss the barriers to this type of "Connection" such as technical jargon and differing methodologies, and offer practical strategies for overcoming them, including co-teaching models and interdisciplinary assessment design. The goal is to provide attendees with actionable methods to break down disciplinary silos in their own institutions. The session will conclude with a guided discussion on navigating the administrative and pedagogical challenges of implementing cross-faculty learning spaces.

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Sustained or shifted? Faculty implementation of UDL after the pandemic teaching years

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Alissa Overend (MacEwan University) 

Abstract: This follow-up study examines changes that have occurred over the past 7 years in the same institutional context. UDL subverts the dominant notion of disability—the student themself is not inherently disabled, rather the learning environment is inadequate and/or inaccessible (Waitoller & King, 2016). This paper will present findings from a follow-up study from a local Alberta university on faculty attitudes, awareness, and implementation of universal design for learning (UDL) practices and principles. The initial interview and survey data, which was collected just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, revealed inconsistent understanding and implementation of UDL, misconceptions of UDL, and time/workload/resource constraints as common barriers to adoption. UDL seeks to proactively design learning experiences that allow a greater diversity of students to achieve learning outcomes (CAST, 2024). Our study contributes to the significant interest in and scholarly inquiry into the impact of the pandemic on higher education (Crawford & Cifuentes-Faura, 2022; Kennette, Flynn & Chapman, 2023) and to the growing role of UDL in creating and maintaining accessible learning environments (Kumar & Wideman, 2014). Given that the number of students seeking accommodations continues to surge in Canadian universities (Alhasany, 2025; Friesen, 2025), this study will contribute timely institutional, provincial, and national awareness and dialogue about awareness and implementation of UDL. Space will be given to allow audience members to reflect on the data presented and link it to their own experiences of UDL adoption.  Space will also be given for Q and A and follow-up based on audience interest.

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Undergraduate Research Experiences as Untapped Sites for GenAI Learning

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Catherine Dobler (University of Alberta) 

Abstract: The benefits of undergraduate research experiences (UREs) are increasingly recognized, establishing them as valued components of higher education. UREs enable students to apply theoretical knowledge, develop academic and professional skills, and explore research-oriented careers and graduate studies. We systematically reviewed recent literature to examine how diverse undergraduate research experiences (UREs) cultivate knowledge, skills, and attributes (KSAs) and outcomes, with particular attention to workforce-relevant competencies, including National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) alignment and technology-related skill development. Systematic searches of MEDLINE, SCOPUS, ERIC, and Web of Science identified English-language studies from Canada and the United States, published between 2019 and 2023. 38 studies met inclusion criteria and were analyzed using inductive thematic analysis with subgroup analyses examining differences by URE format, discipline, duration, and year of URE. Five overarching outcome themes emerged, with eleven corresponding subthemes. Six KSA themes were identified with twenty-five related subthemes. Only two studies leveraged UREs to develop technology-related skills, highlighting a missed opportunity to use UREs as a structured pathway for fostering competent and ethical engagement with emerging technologies, including genAI. Although interest in using generative AI in standard undergraduate laboratory courses is emerging, the literature gives limited attention to its use in UREs. Given genAI’s growing role in research, UREs offer an important opportunity to support students in developing ethical and effective practices for research and must be intentionally incorporated to support student learning outcomes. Post-presentation discussion will invite audience perspectives on how UREs are or should be redefined to address genAI learning needs.

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Assessment to Enable Diverse Learners in postsecondary classrooms

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Amna Yousaf (University of Management and Technology)

Abstract: Universities are rethinking assessment in response to rapid digital transformation and growing commitments to equity, diversity, inclusion, and accessibility (EDIA).(Taylor Institute, 2026) This session explores the question: How can a feedforward-oriented assessment design enhance inclusion, diversity, and democratic participation in digitally mediated postsecondary classrooms? Drawing on learning-oriented assessment and dialogic feedback literature (Carless, 2014; Hill, 2020; Sadler, 2010), as well as recent systematic work on feedforward practices in higher education (Sadler, 2022; Saeed & Mohamedali, 2022), we conceptualize feedforward as a future-focused, iterative, and participatory assessment process rather than a one-way delivery of comments. We connect this with the emerging field of “assessment for inclusion,” which positions assessment as a lever for social justice and the meaningful participation of historically marginalized students (Ajjawi et al., 2022; Nieminen, 2024). The session will share a practice-based framework and illustrative classroom examples where feedforward processes (e.g., scaffolded tasks, peer calibration, and digital dialogic feedback) were intentionally designed to support diverse learners’ agency, voice, and sense of belonging.

We will highlight how digital tools (LMS-embedded rubrics, audio/video feedforward, and collaborative annotation platforms) can widen access, personalize guidance, and support democratic learning relationships while remaining attentive to structural inequities identified in international EDIA and inclusion reports. The session is designed to speak across disciplines and institutional roles by focusing on assessment principles and design patterns that can be adapted in STEM, social sciences, humanities, and professional programs.

The goals of the session are to enable participants to: (1) critically interrogate existing assessment practices through an inclusion, diversity, and democracy lens; (2) understand key concepts and evidence related to feedforward assessment; and (3) draft assessment task using a feedforward-for-inclusion design template. Shared learning and reciprocal engagement will be supported through short provocations, anonymized digital polling, small-group case analysis, and a collaborative “assessment redesign sprint” where participants co-create inclusive feedforward strategies, with explicit attention to accessible participation (e.g., multiple modes of contribution, low-bandwidth options, and intentional facilitation of quieter voices). Participants will leave with a concrete takeaway plan and an invitation to join an ongoing community of practice around inclusive, democratic assessment in digitally transformed postsecondary contexts.

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Keeping Our Cool: Learning Verbal De-escalation Skills in Simulation

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Michelle Cullen (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Human interaction is central to healthcare and education, shaping the quality of practice and relationships. Verbal aggression presents significant challenges, undermining student learning and contributing to professional burnout ("Author”, 2021). Educators face the ongoing difficulty of providing safe, effective opportunities for students to master verbal de-escalation techniques. 

This session explores how digital technology was used to create a virtual simulation to teach verbal de-escalation skills to undergraduate nursing students. The simulation was designed to be flexible, accessible for students, and prioritized human connection. The platform leverages current research in educational technology and inclusive pedagogy ("Author2”, 2024), integrating real-time feedback, formative assessment, and structured debriefs. These features prioritize the development of empathy, respectful communication, and reflective practice.  

Early outcomes reveal notable improvements in students’ self-efficacy and preparedness to manage aggressive interactions, aligning with recent literature on the effectiveness of virtual simulation in building confidence for de-escalation scenarios ("Author1”, 2024). Qualitative feedback highlights that interactive scenarios help students “find the right words” and maintain composure under pressure. 

Our interactive virtual simulations may offer a flexible framework for transforming disruptive encounters into opportunities for connection between teachers and students across postsecondary teaching and learning disciplines. Tangible benefits for students include a deeper understanding of theory in practice and increased emotional awareness, contributing to improved confidence and de-escalation skills when managing difficult conversations. During this session, participants will have the opportunity to engage in a brief de-escalation simulation and share their experiences, fostering reflection and collaborative learning. 

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Leveraging Sports Performance AI to Transform Teaching Practice

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Toyosi Adedara (Baylor University)

Abstract: Artificial intelligence systems used in elite sports, including time stamped video analytics, player movement tracking, and automated performance indicators, offer conceptual and technological insights for postsecondary teaching and learning. This session explores how performance analytics models developed for athletics can inform AI supported feedback, reflection, and skill development for preservice and in service educators. In sport contexts, AI systems gather fine grained behavioral and contextual performance data to guide ongoing improvement. Similar processes can document classroom interactions, instructional moves, and patterns of inclusion or disengagement that are often difficult to capture through traditional observation.

Drawing from emerging scholarship on AI mediated learning, coaching feedback cycles, and data informed pedagogy, this presentation examines how these tools can enhance formative assessment practices, professional learning, and reflective teaching routines in higher education. It also acknowledges tensions around surveillance, data privacy, accountability structures, and ethical risk. Participants will consider what safeguards and institutional policies are needed to support responsible implementation that respects teacher agency, learning context, and relational pedagogy.

The session aims to create space for shared analysis of potential benefits and limitations of applying sports performance AI to classroom teaching and teacher preparation. Through facilitated discussion, attendees will reflect on how digital transformation might strengthen relationships, professional learning, and inclusive instructional design while navigating rapid technological change in higher education.

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Embodied Pedagogy in an AI Mediated Academy: Performativity, Liminality, and the Future of Learning

Room: TI 160
Presenters: Brenda McDermott (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This presentation examines how embodiment, liminality, and performativity function as critical pedagogical counterweights in postsecondary education at a moment when generative AI and digital dislocation increasingly separate “knowing” from “learning.” As algorithmic systems accelerate access to information and automate cognitive tasks, educators face a shifting landscape in which traditional markers of expertise, authorship, and intellectual presence are destabilized. Guided by the question How can embodied and performative practices re‑ground learning in an era of technological acceleration? this presentation draws on interdisciplinary scholarship in performance studies and embodied cognition to argue that embodied, relational modes of engagement offer essential ways of reconnecting learning to lived experience, presence, and meaning‑making.

The session illustrates how practices such as embodied inquiry (Macrine & Fugate, 2022), rehearsal (Okello & Quaye 2018) foreground process over product and support deeper epistemic agency. It further proposes that embracing liminality (Land, Rattray, & Vivian, 2014)—rather than attempting to resolve it—can help educators design learning environments that value uncertainty, cultivate critical reflexivity, and sustain human creativity. Because embodiment and performativity cut across disciplinary boundaries, this work offers relevance for instructors seeking pedagogical approaches that preserve human presence and intellectual vitality amid rapidly evolving technological conditions .

By highlighting the pedagogical potential of embodied and performative practices (Pineau, 1994), this presentation invites educators to reconsider how learning is grounded, experienced, and shared. Participants will gain conceptual and practical insights into how embodied approaches can support more connected, adaptive, and imaginative learning environments across diverse postsecondary contexts.

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Creating Community: Centering Indigenous Perspectives in Art Education

Room: TI 250
Presenters: Razieh Alba (University of Calgary)

Abstract: In either presentation or poster format, the proposed session will focus on recent graduate research related to bringing Indigenous and Western knowledges alongside one another in an arts-based, land-based learning environment. The participants in the research project included Indigenous knowledge holders, a non-Indigenous researcher, and post-secondary art learners. Through relationship building, a four-part workshop series was developed and led by Indigenous knowledge holder participants, with complimentary Western art theory brought alongside the Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing. The research aimed to explore the lived experiences of each participant group throughout the duration of the workshop design and the workshop sessions.

This session links directly to Indigenous Perspectives and Interdisciplinary/Transdisciplinary Approaches, as the research was focused on bringing Indigenous ways of knowing and Indigenous Education and Art Education to create an Indigenous-led workshop series for post-secondary art learners. The intent of the session is to show the shared reciprocal benefits received by Indigenous knowledge holders, non-Indigenous educators, and art learners when Indigenous ways of knowing, being, and doing are brought alongside Western ways of knowing in learning environments. During the session, I aim to create a space that allows for shared learning, meaningful inclusion and reciprocal engagement by highlighting the benefits and challenges for bringing Indigenous perspectives into classroom environments alongside Western knowledges and fostering a space where attendees can ask questions and consider how Indigenous perspectives can be ethically and authentically brought into university classrooms through relationship building and collaborative approaches that centre Indigenous voices and experiences.

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When Good Design Makes Accommodation Optional

Room: TI 230
Presenters: Shelly-Lyn Diachuk (University of Calgary)

Abstract: There is growing recognition in higher education that student populations are increasingly diverse and often have unique needs, particularly in demonstrating learning (Horlin, 2024). At our university, long-term team-based learning (L2TL) is a core pedagogical approach in two large introductory natural science courses, each enrolling 200-300 students (Author, 2024).  L2TL integrates team-based learning and universal design for learning to promote collaboration, communication, and active learning. Students work in teams of 5-6, which creates a small-class feel, complete group-graded assignments together, and engage in discussions that support critical thinking (Author, 2024). Since adopting L2TL in 2016, no students eligible for test accommodation have requested its use, suggesting this model may reduce the barriers embedded in traditional course structures.

This session addresses the research question: What aspects of the L2TL course structure contribute to students’ decision to forgo their usual accommodation? Drawing on findings from a qualitative project conducted between May 2025 and April 2026, the session explores students' lived experiences of L2TL. Attention is given to the role of educational technologies, including team contracts, peer feedback surveys, and online collaboration tools. Prior research suggests technology increases accessibility for neurodivergent students (Grunke et al., 2023; Lierman, 2019). The session will help identify what students found beneficial in their learning that led them to forgo accommodation. Session goals include sharing evidence-informed practices, fostering inclusive dialogue, and engaging participants in reflective discussion on how L2TL and technology pedagogies can advance equitable learning environments.

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Designing Explainable GenAI for Formative Feedback in Higher Ed

Room: TI 100
Presenters: Reyhaneh Bastani (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Timely, transparent, and credible formative feedback on text-heavy assessments remains a persistent challenge in higher education, particularly in the social sciences where argumentation and critical analysis are central. This session reports on an ongoing SSHRC-funded design-based study that asks: How can a GenAI-augmented, multi-agent feedback system enhance the transparency, credibility, and accessibility of formative feedback on text-heavy student work? Drawing on learning complexity theories (Walton, 2014) and dialogic feedback models (Steen-Utheim & Wittek, 2017), our secure, locally deployed system includes specialized AI “agents” focused on distinct dimensions of student writing (e.g., argument clarity, evidence quality, writing mechanics), while an evaluator agent synthesizes their input and instructors provide human oversight. Explainable AI techniques make the rationale behind feedback visible, supporting student trust, metacognition, and equitable access to guidance across diverse linguistic and educational backgrounds. Recent research demonstrates both the potential and limits of large language models for formative feedback (Dai et al., 2024) and highlights the importance of attending to learner experience and possible overreliance on GenAI tools (Kohnke et al., 2025).Aligned with the conference focus, this session will: (1) share emerging findings from classroom pilots; (2) critically examine how human–AI collaboration could impact feedback processes and instructional effectiveness; and (3) surface design principles for responsible GenAI use. To foster shared learning and inclusion, we will provide opportunities for participants to explore the system and discuss initial feedback from instructors and students. Together, we will identify opportunities and concerns for responsible GenAI use in participants’ own teaching contexts.

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Through International Students’ Eyes: Photovoice Insights for Teaching and Learning 

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Claudia Sasse (Ambrose University) 

Abstract: This session presents a photovoice-based research study exploring international students’ perceptions of their practicum settings and workplaces in Canada. Guided by the research question: How can our faculty and staff enhance their cultural awareness to better support international students? 

The study engages students in capturing photographs and narratives that highlight contrasts between their professional experiences at home and in Canada. Twelve international students across programs participated in focus groups, and brought photographs of their practicum and work environments, and provided narratives reflecting their observations and adaptations.

Aligned with the conference theme, From Disruption to Connection, this study demonstrates how disruptions in cross-cultural learning and digital integration can be transformed into opportunities for meaningful connection, belonging, and inclusive teaching. Faculty and staff can leverage students’ insights to enhance culturally responsive practices, integrate digital tools effectively, and prepare students for professional settings that increasingly rely on technology.

During the 20-minute presentation, attendees will explore key findings, methodological approaches, and examples of student-generated images illustrating both cultural contrasts and digital engagement. The 10-minute Q&A will provide an interactive space for participants to reflect on their own teaching contexts, discuss ways to incorporate student storytelling and digital observation into pedagogy, and co-create strategies for inclusive learning environments.

This session contributes to theory and practice in postsecondary education by modeling participatory methods that center student perspectives, advance faculty cultural competence, and highlight the role of digital transformation in shaping learning and professional experiences (Bennett et al., 2019; Komaie et al., 2018) and (Wang & Redwood-Jones, 2001; McIntyre, 2003).

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Echoes of the Machine: Diffractive Encounters with AI and Re-Humanization

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Noor Rizvi (Kansas State University)

Abstract: This session explores how engagement with artificial intelligence (AI) in postsecondary contexts can paradoxically foster re-humanization rather than dehumanization. Drawing on posthuman particularly the diffractive methodology of Braidotti (2013)Barad (2007), and Haraway (1992), the research investigates how humans, technologies, and natural environments intra-act in processes of learning, meaning-making, and becoming.

The research is guided by a creative–theoretical inquiry titled Echoes of the Machine, which combines embodied nature walks, photography, short video fragments, and AI-generated visual interpretations. Rather than treating AI as a tool external to learning, this study positions technology as a co-agent that shapes perception, attention, and relational awareness. Using diffraction as a methodological orientation, the project moves beyond reflection toward attending to how differences emerge through entangled human–machine–environment relations (Sidebottom & Carlyle, 2023).

Situated within the conference theme From Disruption to Connection: Digital Transformation in Postsecondary Education, this session argues that AI’s simulation of perception and cognition often redirects educators and learners toward deeply embodied practices such as walking, observing, sensing, and attending to place. In this sense, AI becomes a catalyst for renewed attention to presence, relationality, and decentered understandings of the self.

The session will share visual excerpts from the creative component and invite participants into a brief guided diffractive dialogue, encouraging shared reflection on how AI might support connection, care, and ethical relationality in teaching and learning. The goal is to open space for educators across disciplines to reimagine AI as a partner in cultivating human awareness, rather than as a force of displacement.

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Impact of a peer assessment exercise on student learning in a large enrolment online course

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Tara Holland (Baylor University) 

Abstract: 
Background/Context: A key pedagogical challenge in large-enrolment online courses is the development of effective and engaging assessments that achieve the educational goals while decreasing the grading workload for Instructors or TAs. We modified an existing assignment that is integral to the course goals and implemented a peer assessment tool. Students use the tool to evaluate each other’s work, thereby freeing up TA time. While we recognize that peer assessment is a potential solution to reduction in TA workload, we will only continue to use it if there are demonstrated benefits to student learning.

Overview: The aim of this research was to investigate the impact of participating in the peer assessment exercise on student learning. The research involved the development and administration of a student survey based on a literature review and our experience as course Instructors, quantitative and qualitative analysis of the survey, and a thematic analysis of student comments in the peer assessment exercise. The results suggest that the peer assessment exercise is beneficial to student learning, with impacts on self-reflection (Feeney, 2016), higher-order thinking (Zhan et al., 2023), critical analysis (Feeney, 2016), and engagement (Hanrahan and Isaacs, 2001; Li et al., 2010). We recommend the use of peer assessment where possible as a learning tool, as well as an effective way to reduce TA or Instructor workload.

Session plan: We aim to present our findings from the research but save much of the session for interactive discussion, as we anticipate that many educators will have experience with or questions about peer assessment benefits and pitfalls. We will use inclusive strategies such as polling and pair-share discussion.

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Analog Pedagogies in the Age of AI

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Samantha Thrift (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This session proposes analog media as a critical lens for rethinking “digital transformation” in postsecondary teaching and learning. In an era when GenAI tools and platformed technologies are cast as frictionless solutions, pre‑digital media - like Super 8 and VHS camcorders, cassette recorders and phonographs, Polaroid and 35mm cameras, feminist zines and other small‑press print artefacts – offer a materially grounded way to question narratives of inevitability, speed, and immateriality. Rather than opposing analog and digital, this talk explores how intentional engagement with analog media can complement AI‑rich environments by foregrounding infrastructures, labour, and histories that contemporary tools often obscure.

Situated at the intersection of object‑based learning (Chatterjee & Hannan 2015; Hardie 2015), “small‑EL” learning activities (Stowe et al., in press), and media archaeology (Bennet & Joyce 2016; Coleman et al. 2019), the session invites participants to consider how “thinking with things” might foster more reflective, relational forms of connection in a sector preoccupied with disruption and scale.

The topic is timely because digital transformation is often framed as a linear move toward immaterial, automated systems. Working with analog media instead foregrounds slowness, tactility, difficulty, and repair as conditions for connection – between students and instructors, learners and histories, past and present imaginaries. Session goals are to: (1) share a rationale for integrating analog media into teaching; (2) explore how such work cultivates creative problem‑solving, resilience, and ethical awareness; and (3) invite participants to identify analog or material resources in their own contexts. A brief conceptual framing and group discussion will support shared learning and critical reflection on how analog and digital practices together can reorient “disruption” toward more grounded, connected forms of pedagogy.

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Flipped Forward: Designing Engaging Pre-Class Tasks

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Tracy Byers Reid (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: This session presents a teaching innovation developed to improve the relevance of flipped classroom (FC) preparation tasks in a prerequisite photography course at a Canadian community college. After observing student disengagement with pre-class content in the level three course, the professor shifted the course’s preparatory focus from testing knowledge acquisition to higher-order thinking tasks. This shift provided students with weekly journal prompts to create a pre-plan for the in-class exercises, aligning the tasks and positively impacting student engagement and motivation. Developed through a collaborative self-study, and guided by iterative instructional design practices, this study was informed by FC research that emphasized purposeful alignment between online and in-person components (Fleischmann, 2021, 2023; Hao et al., 2024). By focusing on higher-order planning and industry-relevant workflows, the redesign aimed to improve accountability, creative readiness, and the overall learning experience. The session shares the instructional problem, design rationale, and key lessons learned from this redesign. It aligns with the conference theme of improving blended and online learning in postsecondary contexts by illustrating how the intentional structuring of flipped learning implementation can strengthen engagement, preparation, and learning in applied disciplines. This session aims to offer instructors practical, transferable strategies for redesigning FC models to support meaningful student preparation. Participants will reflect on common alignment challenges and explore practical pre-planning examples they can adapt to their own flipped classroom contexts.

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Uneven access: Disability accessibility policies across BC and AB Universities 

Room: TI 160
Presenters: Greta Heathcote (University of Calgary)

Abstract: In this research presentation, we share data and preliminary findings on disability accommodations policies from 24 post-secondary education (PSE) institutions across BC (N= 12) and Alberta (N= 12). Using a content analysis, we analyze each policy for i) its use of language (i.e. disability, access, neurodiversity), ii) its overall content and scope, iii) any mention of universal design (UD) or universal design for learning (UDL), iv) student-, faculty-, or institutional-initiated processes v) date or year policy was adopted or revised, and vi) anything out-of-the-ordinary. We will also compare any macro level trends between the two provinces and between types of schools (i.e., universities compared to colleges, for example). As requests for disability accommodation continue to surge across Canadian universities (Alhasany, 2025; Costello-Harris, 2019; Friesen, 2025), an awareness and understanding of these policies and their variations are necessary in building more equitable policies as well as more accessible classrooms. These policies directly affect students with disabilities who continue to report facing attitudinal and structural barriers in higher education (Dolmage, 2017; Lopez Gavira & Moriña, 2015). During the session, participants will be asked to reflect on their own awareness of institutional accommodations policies and how it impacts their teaching and learning practice. 

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Innovative Online Learning: Challenges and Successes in a Global Health CURE

Room: TI 250
Presenters: Fabiola Aparicio-Ting (University of Calgary)

Abstract: With the increasing commitment to experiential learning in postsecondary education, Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) have become increasingly prevalent. CUREs engage undergraduate students in hands-on, inquiry-based research as part of a structured course1, 2. Online offerings can make CUREs more accessible and inclusive.

We designed an online CURE for senior health science undergraduates with a global health content focus. It entails the use of freely available high quality national household survey datasets from around the world (UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys [MICS]3), which allow students to research aspects of an important global health issue within a single semester. (For this course, the content focus are aspects of universal access to safe drinking water, a core Sustainable Developmental Goal indicator). Students identify a country of interest, design a research question and conduct secondary data analysis using MICS data. We took a case study approach to evaluate this course, using a scoping review, semi-structured interviews, and participant observation to assess the course design, student experience, research skill development, and product output4. The findings supported the feasibility of this approach, highlighted areas needing improvement, and reinforced our commitment to delivering online CUREs.

This presentation will share the lessons learned about elements that worked well in our online CURE, challenges to this approach, and how these learnings may be applied across disciplinary settings and course contexts. We will discuss practical recommendations and considerations and participants will reflect on how these elements can be applied in their virtual classrooms.

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Connection by Design: Active Learning Spaces, Technology, and Inclusive Participation 

Room: TI 230
Presenters: Safieh Moghaddam (University of Toronto)

Abstract: Learning spaces shape how students engage, participate, and connect with course material (Beichner et al., 2007). Research shows that Active Learning Classrooms (ALCs) foster higher engagement than traditional lecture halls (Zimmermann et al., 2018) and better support collaboration and peer interaction (Clinton and Wilson, 2019). Inclusive classroom design also plays a critical role in removing physical and psychological barriers to learning. As Holton (2020) notes, “inclusive learning spaces must address the diverse physiological, cognitive, and cultural needs of learners.”

This session explores how the shift from traditional lecture halls to ALCs can strengthen connection and belonging in higher education. Drawing on experiences from the newly opened active learning building on our campus, which features twenty-one active learning spaces, including a five-hundred-seat circular lecture theatre, we analyze student and instructor reflections on how seating arrangements, lighting, and technology influence engagement, participation, and a sense of inclusion.

Aligned with the conference theme From Disruption to Connection, we frame digital transformation not only as technological change but as a relational opportunity, a reimagining of how physical and digital spaces can promote community, equity, and deeper learning. Participants will engage in small-group reflection and discussion activities to share their teaching contexts, co-create design principles for inclusive classrooms, and identify strategies to support active and connected learning environments.

By rethinking learning spaces as catalysts for belonging, we can move from disruption to meaningful connection across disciplines, communities, and learners.

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Social Constructivist Pedagogy and Academic Integrity 

Presenter: Anusha Kassan (University of Calgary)

Description: In this presentation, we will discuss the definitions and key elements of SC and AcI, the impact of collaboration on engagement and integrity, and the challenges and unique issues that may arise when applying SC pedagogy. We will also highlight examples of how SC can reduce academic misconduct and promote ethical learning practices through student agency and practices that support shared knowledge construction. 

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Reading Week and Student Stress: What Changes, What Doesn’t, and Why It Matters

Presenter: Estacio Pereira (University of Calgary)

Description: Mid-semester breaks are often introduced to support student wellbeing, but their effects are not always straightforward. This session presents findings from a two-wave survey study in a required second-year engineering course, comparing students’ stress symptoms and course experiences before and after Reading Week. While overall stress levels remained similar across the two time points, students reported higher frustration and time pressure and lower perceived challenge after the break. We also show that the correlates of stress shift across the term: frustration is consistently associated with stress, whereas time pressure and mental effort become more strongly linked to stress after Reading Week. The session concludes with practical, instructor-relevant implications for course pacing and assessment scheduling in high-demand courses to better support students.

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Digital Connections in a Large Science Class using the D2L Discussion Board

Presenter: Jennifer Cuthbertson (University of Calgary)

Description: This poster will describe the use of digital discussion boards in the course “Geology of the Mountain Regions of Western Canada”, which is a large enrollment undergraduate course offered once per year by a major university in Alberta. Assuming that the students share a common interest in learning about the mountains, and that some have likely visited the local mountains, a series of discussion board topics was created within D2L to facilitate informal student communication and connection. The discussion board posts by students will not be associated with marks. This poster will report on: 1) whether the students used the discussion boards, 2) which topics were more popular than others, and 3) what new topics (if any) were added. The students will be polled about whether they felt that the discussion boards were useful and helped build connections. 

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Centering Autistic Student Voices in Academic Accommodation Design

Presenter: Ketan Mann

Description: Autistic university students experience persistent academic barriers. Although institutions commonly provide accommodations, these supports are often generic and insufficiently informed by student perspectives. While prior research notes these challenges, little student-driven research identifies which accommodations Autistic students consider most effective or how they prioritize them. This poster presents an honours thesis study that uses Q-methodology to examine shared viewpoints on academic accommodation effectiveness among Autistic post-secondary students in Canada. Grounded in a social constructionist epistemology, the neurodiversity paradigm, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL), the study centers lived experience.

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Gamifying virtual building tours using 360-degree photos

Presenter: Peiying Jennifer Tsai (University of Calgary)

Description: Our projects showcase how gamified, 3D-immersive virtual tours—created from real 360-degree photos—can boost student engagement and experiential learning. Three projects used A-Frame and the Godot engine, with one using H5P. The first is an indoor greenhouse tour with an interactive simulator to adjust parameters like temperature, humidity, and light, plus a mini-game for plant identification. The second is a tour of the Engineering Building, highlighting its history and materials, with mini-games to identify sustainable construction materials. The third offers a gamified virtual-reality waste-management experience promoting campus sustainability through spatial decisions. The last is a tour of an energy-efficient building focusing on sustainable HVAC strategies. Through live demos and hands-on exploration, we aim to share design strategies and discuss how to effectively incorporate immersive technologies into postsecondary teaching and learning.

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Supporting and Connecting Faculty AI Innovators: A Mini-Grant Model

Presenter: Ramona Meraz Lewis (Western Michigan University)

Description: This poster presentation provides an overview of a coordinated effort by our university’s Office of Faculty Development to empower and engage faculty in the AI space through developing an AI Teaching Innovation Mini-Grant program. Twelve faculty recipients across eight disciplines and five academic colleges implemented AI teaching innovations. Rather than prescribing specific tools, we required a structured work plan articulating learning objectives, assessment strategies, ethical guidelines, and accessibility considerations before implementation. We included a kick-off meeting, mid-semester check-ins to share challenges and successes, a structured final reflection template, and dissemination pathways, including faculty spotlights and presentations. Our poster shares our development process, insights as co-facilitators, faculty-generated lessons learned, and transferable strategies for supporting faculty-led innovation.

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My Serious Life: Bridging Theory and Experience in Postsecondary Education

Presenter: Saulo Neves de Oliveira (Ambrose University) 

Description: Approaches to theory in postsecondary education often lack a real-world connection. This session shows how documentary film can bridge that gap, using My Serious Life to translate the Serious Leisure Perspective into accessible, narrative-driven episodes. The episodes present key theoretical concepts through people's experiences, inviting viewers to relate to, question, and apply the theory in everyday life. The project draws on knowledge mobilization scholarship and responds to calls for more teaching methods that connect research with students’ lives. We identify six practical themes: narrative scaffolding, real-world application, storytelling for meaning, cultural/social context, reflective leisure education, and humanizing research. Our presentation features documentary clips, a visual teaching framework, and opportunities for participants to discuss how documentary media can enrich theory learning, encourage reflection, and foster inclusive participation.

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Digital Identity Activation for Immigrant EAL Learners

Presenter: Yujian Guo

Description: This session speaks directly to the conference theme, From Disruption to Connection: Digital Transformation in Postsecondary Education. Many immigrant and multilingual students experience disrupted educational and professional identities when entering Canadian higher education. By combining the GTAM identity-activation framework with accessible digital tools, the proposed work uses technology to reconnect learners’ past identities with their present academic goals. Digital platforms become space where students co-design tasks, share multilingual narratives, and receive feedback, turning “support services” into genuine partnerships and fostering more connected, equitable post-secondary learning environment.

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Exploring and Enhancing Professionalism for Students

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Andrew Mardjetko (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Veterinarians are expected to demonstrate high levels of professionalism in clinical practice. However, professionalism can be challenging to define, as it encompasses attitudes and behaviors that are often less tangible and more subjective than other skills (Mossop & Cobb, 2013; Gordon et al., 2023). At our university we have identified a consistent issue with clinical year students struggling to meet the professional expectations of their practicums; raising concerns about readiness for practice.

A challenge for our clinical year is that students are geographically distributed amongst our veterinary learning community. To address this issue, it became important to develop a technological solution that allows remote access with a centralized hub for monitoring and assessment while simultaneously providing student engagement, independent study and ownership. We developed an asynchronous technology-enabled professionalism module that integrates the principles of reflective practice to help students critically examine their behaviors, values, and decision-making processes. Reflective practice has been shown to foster deeper learning and personal growth, particularly in the development of critical understanding (Mohamed, Rashid, & Alqaryouti, 2022).

The learning module is built on a structured framework for teaching and assessing professionalism. It incorporates selected learning materials, activities and resources. The module also includes summaries outlining key professional behaviours and expectations which support active learning and self-assessment.

This session will explore the motivation behind the module’s creation, pedagogical foundations, early findings and its implementation. It will also include reflections from the design team, offering a deeper understanding of the development process, challenges and lessons learned.

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Generative AI Literacy Through Play: An AI Art Battle Game

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Mohammad Keyhani

Abstract: This interactive session introduces AIArtBattleGame [Title renamed for anonymity], a web-based educational game designed to teach generative AI literacy through experiential learning. In this game, AI agents inspired by historical figures autonomously compete to create artwork judged by other AI agents. Players exercise strategic judgment by selecting which muse to deploy, then observe as their chosen agent generates art, crafts persuasive pitches, and defends its creation to the judge. The game makes AI behavior visible: all prompts are transparent, allowing learners to trace connections between prompt design and AI output. By analyzing battle outcomes, students develop understanding of concepts like role prompting, AI hallucinations, multi-agent dynamics, and the "LLM-as-judge" paradigm which are core concepts in Generative AI literacy.

Grounded in experiential learning theory (Kolb, 1984) and inquiry-based learning frameworks (Pedaste et al., 2015), the game provides a chance for students to go through cycles of concrete experience, observation, and reflective analysis of AI systems. This approach responds to calls for critical engagement with generative AI rather than passive consumption (Bozkurt, 2024; Ng et al., 2021)

The session goals are to: (1) demonstrate the game's pedagogical value, (2) discuss its theoretical foundations, and (3) explore classroom applications across disciplines. Participants will have fun playing the game during the session, experiencing firsthand how AI agent competition educates us about AI behaviors. Group discussions will invite participants to share observations and brainstorm disciplinary applications, ensuring all voices contribute to our collective understanding (Bovill, 2020).

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From Stochastic Parrot to AI Slop: The AI Metaphors We Teach By

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Brooklin Schneider (University of Calgary, Norquest College)

Abstract: Digital transformation in postsecondary education is accelerating, and many educators are feeling both concern and optimism as GenAI reshapes assessment and teaching practice. This workshop responds to the conference theme by treating GenAI not only as a disruption to manage, but also as a prompt to renew relationships and re-center learning as connection. Drawing on Lakoff and Johnson’s (1981) insight that “our ordinary conceptual system is fundamentally metaphorical” (p. 3), the session explores how the AI metaphors we teach by, from stochastic parrot to AI slop, shape trust, belonging, and care in our classrooms.

Participants will work with metaphors because the frames we choose shape what we notice, what we fear, and what we design. Furze (2024, July 19) shows how AI metaphors range from the obvious to the subtle, influencing decisions and discourse. Gupta et al. (2024) argue that discussing AI metaphors opens “space for nuance, playfulness, and critique” (p. 37) and supports critical AI literacies. We also attend to misleading frames. Mills and Angell (2025) argue that the hallucination metaphor reinforces the misconception that AI is conscious. Participants will explore the different AI metaphors and their connection to relational teaching decisions such as feedback, transparency, and participation.

The workshop uses two facilitation tools, Analog Inspiration (Moulton, 2025) and the Go Somewhere metaphor game (Stachowiak, 2025, November 20), to support shared learning. In small groups, participants will combine one metaphor and one value, such as belonging, care, reciprocity, or curiosity, to co-design a micro practice that strengthens connection in a GenAI influenced learning environment.

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Beyond Text: Designing Human-Guided Multimodal Assessment Workflows

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Drew Williams (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Generative tools make it easy to produce text, images, audio, video, and interactive content on demand. In many courses these tools are used one at a time - a video here, a visualization there - without clear workflows, human checkpoints, or alignment to learning outcomes. This often results in "zombie media" - polished, high-fidelity products with weak facts and inaccessible layers. This workshop helps participants design human-guided multimodal workflows (using more than one mode, such as text + image or text + video) for assessment.

We walk through a small, pre-recorded example - for example, a climate-data narrative that combines an AI-generated image, a short clip, a simple one-page site, and a basic chart. At each step, we mark where humans must act as editors, verifiers, and ethicists: clarifying purpose, refining prompts, checking licensing and attribution, adding alt text and captions, verifying numbers, and ensuring that all elements tell the same story. The workflow draws on Universal Design for Learning (UDL), accessibility standards (e.g., WCAG), and inclusive design practices, treating captions, alt text, and documentation as core academic work rather than add-ons.

Participants then adapt this pattern to their own lab, studio, clinical, or seminar contexts. Using a structured template, they storyboard a multimodal assessment, identify human checkpoints, and draft rubric criteria that reward cross-modal coherence and process evidence rather than surface polish alone. The session is vendor-neutral, uses low- or no-cost tools, and relies only on synthetic or instructor-owned assets.

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Developing Open Digital Assessments to Support Students’ Learning in Foundational Engineering Courses

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Najmeh Poorjafari (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This project is a digital teaching and assessment initiative focused on improving how foundational engineering concepts are taught and learned in engineering courses. It moves away from textbook based problem solving toward open, interactive, and digitally supported learning experiences that allow students to practice concepts, receive feedback, and build understanding more effectively. At its core, the project develops open digital assessment resources that are flexible, reusable, and easy to adapt, supporting both student learning and instructional efficiency.The primary motivation for this project is to reduce barriers that commonly affect student learning in foundational courses. Many students struggle not because of lack of effort, but because they need repeated practice, immediate feedback, and resources that support different learning styles and paces. By providing an open digital problem bank with automated feedback and opportunities for repeated engagement, the project helps students build confidence, conceptual understanding, and problem-solving skills. Removing reliance on costly commercial textbooks also ensures that all students have equal access to course materials from the first day of class.The project also benefits instructors and teaching assistants by allowing them to focus more on supporting learning rather than managing grading tasks. The resources are designed to be flexible, enabling instructors to use them in ways that align with their own teaching style.Aligned with the university’s vision, this project is designed to be sustainable over the long term. Its open and fully digital resources can be maintained by future instructors, adapted for other courses, and shared across teaching teams.

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Prompt-Centric LLM Feedback Tool for Large Project Courses

Room: TI 160
Presenters: Mohammad Mahdi Zareian (University of Calgary)

Abstract: High-enrolment courses often struggle to provide timely, consistent, and actionable written feedback. When multiple markers are involved, students may receive substantially different feedback styles, and detailed comments are often shortened due to time pressure (Lin & Crosthwaite, 2024). We present a prompt-centric desktop tool that supports instructors and teaching assistants in generating structured feedback across diverse submission types using generative AI (PDF, Word, and plain text), with optional handwritten OCR, optional figure/plot review, and optional shared metadata (e.g., rubrics and required readings). The tool is designed to be user-friendly and readily deployable across courses, and instructors can easily tune the focus and length of the generated feedback.

We evaluated the tool in a graduate, project-based course. Survey results indicate high overall ratings across course segments and a strong association between perceived clarity and helpfulness, consistent with prior feedback research (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Shute, 2008). We situate this work within current discussions of LLMs in education (e.g., Kasneci et al., 2023). The tool is easily adapted to new courses by updating the prompt; because prompt design strongly influences feedback quality and accuracy, prompts should be carefully developed and reviewed by instructors.

In this session, participants will (1) review a practical workflow for human-in-the-loop feedback, (2) examine prompt patterns that improve consistency and usefulness, and (3) discuss privacy, bias, and responsible use. The session includes small-group discussion and a guided prompt-editing activity to help attendees adapt the approach to their own teaching context.

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SuperVisible: Encounters with Great Graduate Supervision

Room: TI 250
Presenters: Michele Jacobsen (University of Calgary)

Abstract: The SuperVisible project makes excellent graduate supervision visible through open-access resources that foreground relational, ethical, and inclusive student–supervisor relationships. Drawing on research on supervisory development, relational trust, and online mentoring, we ask how practice-informed supervision stories can foster connected, humanizing, and equitable graduate education in times of digital transformation. Adapted from the SoTL Teaching Briefs model, SuperVisible Stories capture faculty-led innovations in supervisory pedagogy and make award-winning practices transparent and adaptable across disciplines. Embedded within a campus-wide Supervision Community of Practice, the project advances institutional priorities by supporting practical, sustainable, and inclusive approaches to supervisory learning.

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Opportunity Costs of Digital Environments for Humanities Education

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Quentin Holbert (University of Calgary)

Abstract: As digital spaces become increasingly prominent in postsecondary learning, the fear of missing out on potential gains can result in rash adoption of ill-suited technologies. (Mari et al. 2024, 6) There is an opportunity cost to whenever a new tool is adopted. Sinking limited resources into activities that have only marginal (if any) improvements over analog equivalents will negatively impact other learning outcomes.

Focusing on history learning (but applicable to cognate disciplines), the central question posed in this session is “what opportunities for conceptual depth exist primarily (or exclusively) in digital spaces?” Attendees will discuss the different types of digital spaces that may be used in learning. Broad categories include resource repositories (e.g. digital archives), communication platforms (e.g. H-Net), automated study tools, and simulations. This builds upon the categories established in earlier scholarship (Zorich 2008; . Attendees will then consider various types of analog learning activities, the types of digital resources that may be used (and in what ways), and the potential impact(s) on learning. Finally, there will be discussions around challenges introduced via digital platforms, such as the privileging of certain sources being digitized over others (Milligan 2022, 43) or the removal of cultural context when materials are extracted and reformatted for digitization.

This line of inquiry can directly inform resource allocation for post-secondary instructors and institutions; considering the opportunity costs associated with digitization and digital environments.

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Preparing Students for the Future: A Collaborative Approach to Embedding Transferable Skills

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Gillian Robertson (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Preparing students to lead in an increasingly complex world, transformed by technology, requires more than disciplinary knowledge—it demands future-ready skills such as adaptability, collaboration, and inclusivity (Government of Canada, 2025). This session highlights how the design faculty at our university became the first in Canada to embed 12 FUSION digital learning resources on transferrable skills across an entire undergraduate degree program (FUSION Network, n.d.). The school identified that as our future designers, community planners, and architects, graduates need not only strong technical skills but creativity, collaboration, communication, problem-solving and self-management (Government of Alberta, 2025). Then, through a collaborative effort between faculty, academic leadership, staff, students, and on-campus partners, the school piloted the modules, sought student feedback, and used a collaborative students-as-partners approach to integration.

The goals of this session are to share the process, lessons learned, and practical strategies for embedding skill development resources into courses and programs. Participants will gain insights into what worked, what challenges emerged, and recommendations for scaling similar initiatives.

To foster shared learning and meaningful inclusion, this session will feature a panel of faculty, staff, and student partners who will engage in dialogue with attendees. Interactive Q&A and discussion prompts will invite participants to share their own experiences and ideas, creating a reciprocal exchange of strategies and perspectives. Whether you are an instructor, program leader, or educational developer, this session offers actionable approaches to preparing students for the future using digital tools.

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From Hype to Practice: Building AI-ready Learning Spaces

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Nataliya Kharchenko (Red River College Polytechnic) 

Abstract: Since the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, many post-secondary institutions have cycled through a familiar sequence: detect AI-assisted work (often framed through academic integrity concerns), develop interim guidelines or policies, redesign current assessments to make them “AI-resistant”, emphasize AI literacy and prompting techniques, and then attempt AI curricular integration. However, AI browsers and autonomous agents now make that cycle a moving-target challenge. This interactive participatory session reframes the question from “How do we catch AI use?” to “What evidence of learning do we need (Ellis & Lodge, 2024), and what learning spaces and technologies make that evidence visible and meaningful?” Participants will be encouraged to work in small, cross-disciplinary groups to: (1) map the “hype-to-practice” timeline in their educational contexts; (2) discuss why strategies may not be effective (e.g., misaligned vision; uneven governance, equity and workload constraints; variable attitudes and AI skills); and (3) design a human-centred response across three levels: course (evidence of learning), program (transferable and interdisciplinary competencies), and institution (secure, accessible AI-enabled learning environments and cross-institution collaboration). The presenter will provide templates and a structured approach informed by sector-level work in Australian higher education (Lodge et al., 2025). Using a toolkit grounded in current scholarship and sector guidance, participants will produce a one-page “Co-existence with AI guidebook” and an action plan tailored to their role (instructor, educational developer, academic leader, instructional designer, librarian, student services).

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Developing Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of AI

Room: TI 140
Presenters:  Evguenia Iskra (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Calls for stronger critical thinking skills among business graduates have been consistent across academic, professional, and employer reports. Yet, despite decades of research, there remains little consensus on what critical thinking is and how it can be taught (Calma & Davies, 2021). This session takes up these questions by exploring how instructors across disciplines define critical thinking, what intentionally designing learning activities that cultivate critical thinking in the age of AI means. Drawing on educational research the workshop will introduce participants to a range of definitions of critical thinking and evidence-informed strategies for embedding critical thinking development within content courses. Participants will engage collaboratively in an assignment redesign activity, reflecting on their disciplinary context and teaching goals. Through shared dialogue and reciprocal feedback, the session will provide a space for instructors from diverse fields to exchange approaches, adapt ideas to their contexts, and consider inclusive pedagogical practices for fostering critical thinking in postsecondary classrooms while navigating the additional complexities of AI.

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From Blah to Brilliant: Creating an Engaging Experience for Online Learners!

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Jill Winnington (Goldey-Beacom College)

Abstract: This interactive presentation explores the vital role of adjunct faculty in the success of online academic programs, emphasizing the importance of cultivating a robust and supportive learning community through targeted faculty development initiatives. Recognizing that many institutions rely heavily on adjunct instructors, the authors present a comprehensive model for adjunct faculty engagement, designed to foster increased commitment to the institution while enhancing the quality of the student learning environment. Drawing on established research, the presentation demonstrates that effective training and ongoing support for online instructors directly contribute to improved teaching experiences and transformative learning outcomes for students (Yeager-Okosi, Hall, & Quaicoe, 2024).

Central to this model is the “(College) Way” framework, which integrates strategic components, including an Online Learning Strategic Plan, a Bootcamp, an Orientation, and dedicated resource centers for both students and faculty. These initiatives are designed to reflect best practices in online education, ensuring that faculty are well-prepared, supported, and empowered to deliver high-quality learning experiences (Vaill & Testori, 2012). This engaging presentation highlights the multifaceted benefits of this approach, including heightened faculty commitment, stronger connections to the college, and improved support for both adjuncts and students. Additionally, the model respects the unique needs and schedules of adjunct faculty, offering flexible and accessible development opportunities.

The authors conclude by advocating for ongoing professional development as an essential element in advancing the quality of online education, ultimately bridging gaps in the online classroom and fostering a culture of continuous improvement. Take your online programs from Blah to Brilliant!

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Material Computation: Bridging Design and Fabrication in DeELS

Room: TI 160
Presenters: Isabel Ochoa Quintero (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This project investigates how Digitally Enabled Experiential Learning Spaces (DeELS) can enhance STEAM design education by supporting student engagement with material computation. Material computation integrates material behaviour and fabrication through computational design thinking (Menges 78). Pedagogically, the project examines how DeELS-based material computation supports tectonic exploration in educational contexts by reflecting the qualitative changes that transform material behaviour over time (Menges 10). The authors explored this framework in architectural design courses where students used specialized tools to fabricate 3D-printed terracotta structures.

The DeELS model hybridized an e-classroom with a ceramic fabrication lab and design studio. The presentation discusses the pedagogical challenges in bridging conceptualization and production to support learning outcomes, including representing plastic deformation and managing limited equipment resources. Given environmental variables and inherent material instability, pursuing high-fidelity digital models proved technically impractical and pedagogically unproductive. To mitigate these constraints, the authors developed a custom toolpath generator and particle simulation tool. These tools helped students conceptualize and anticipate emergent material behaviours during 3D printing. Digital tools and physical ceramic prototypes will be demonstrated to promote reciprocal engagement with conference participants.

Connecting to the conference themes, this project enabled the transfer of information into knowledge through the experience of making (Lyon 45), positioning material computation as a mechanism for student agency in the design process. Consistent with the assertion that a design studio is both a process and a place (Sara 325), the DeELS provided a physical and virtual context for project-based learning and research methods to guide student problem-solving.

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Holding Humanity in the Age of AI: Relational Ethics and Digital Transformation

Room: TI 250
Presenters: Fouzia Usman (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Conversations about generative artificial intelligence (AI) in post-secondary education are often framed through futures, efficiencies, and innovation. However, such narratives risk overlooking what Indigenous Ways of Knowing (IWK) and Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) remind us is foundational to learning: relationships, relational accountability, and community. This session invites participants to critically examine how generative AI is reshaping teaching and learning, while centering relationality as an ethical and pedagogical imperative.

Grounded in IWK and perspectives from scholars and practitioners in the Global South, this session asks: How might we engage AI without reproducing colonial, extractive, and oppressive ways of knowing and

doing? Rather than assimilating diverse knowledge systems into AI – an approach that mirrors colonial logics – we explore how AI might be thoughtfully situated within pluralistic epistemologies that value interconnectedness, reciprocity, and lived experience. Participants will be invited to reflect on processes of unlearning entrenched power structures embedded in educational technologies and relearning relational, community-oriented approaches to knowledge creation in the age of AI.

Through guided dialogue and collective sense-making, the session will explore the implications of generative AI for IWK and EDIA in post-secondary education, including questions of epistemic justice, authorship, data sovereignty, and care. Ultimately, this proposal seeks to re-centre “humanness” in AI-mediated learning by foregrounding connections, relationships, and responsibility. Participants will leave with critical questions and relational strategies for engaging AI in ways that honour diverse ways of knowing and being, while resisting reductive and technocentric futures for higher education.

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Teaching AI-Realist Business Communication

Room: TI 100
Presenters: Nathan Murray (Algoma University)

Abstract: If there is one academic subject that has been the most affected by the advent of generative AI, there may be a good case to argue that it is business communication, simply because the actual in-practice work of business communication has been so completely transformed in the last three years. It is impossible to argue in good faith that students, when they enter the workforce and become employees in organizations, will write emails, memos and reports without the use of AI. Indeed, most major corporations actively encourage employee adoption of AI to increase productivity, even if there are important risks associated with AI’s accuracy and reliability. I argue that business communication is a field that needs to confront this reality directly, and that business communication is a particularly productive site for AI-realist pedagogy because authorship in a corporate setting is defined less by originality than by responsibility.

I explore these ideas through a postmortem of a recent in-class assignment in a Writing for the Workplace course. Students first write a cover letter by hand for a real job posting, without AI. They then use ChatGPT to generate a cover letter for the same position, based on their résumé and the job ad. Finally, they compose a reflection analyzing and comparing the two texts across specific dimensions: audience modeling, specificity versus generic competence, agency and decision ownership, strategic risk, and truthfulness. Students are explicitly prohibited from revising either text; the task’s focus is on the reflection, which is diagnostic, not corrective. By foregrounding diagnosis over production, the assignment offers a replicable method for teaching writing as decision-making working with automation, rather than text generation in competition with machines.

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Cultivating Student Community in an Asynchronous, Online Course: A Case Study

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Jaclyn L. Carter (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This presentation brings current scholarship exploring online community building, student-student interaction, and the value of peer observation and feedback for teaching development to bear on a group capstone project assigned in an asynchronous, online course on teaching development. This course has been offered for several years at our university and has evolved from an in-person workshop series to an online, asynchronous microcredential. In previous online offerings, students developed a lesson plan and recorded themselves simulating a learning activity from this lesson. Students worked in isolation, and feedback was the sole responsibility of the instructor.

Research suggests measurable benefits to “student engagement, student learning, and graduate outcomes” when students feel “a sense of welcome, belonging, and community” (Prodgers et al., 2023). To cultivate these feelings, and to combat “the social isolation of distance learning” (Madland & Richards, 2016), the Authors recently revised the capstone project in an effort to prioritize student-student interaction (Moore, 1989), peer observation (Kim et al., 2025), and peer motivation (Madland & Richards, 2016).

After situating the case study in these scholarly conversations, the Authors will explain the history of the course and the details of the revised capstone project, as a way to examine the impact of this scholarship when applied in the asynchronous, online classroom. While structured as a research presentation, we will create multiple opportunities for engagement and dialogue, encouraging a broader conversation about meaningful learning through connections in online learning spaces. 

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What Counts as Learning When Mastery Can Be Simulated?

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Matthew Parker (University of Calgary)

Abstract: As generative AI performs what appears to be disciplinary mastery in multiple and uneven ways, including the production of polished images, coherent texts, and resolved arguments, assumptions about how learning is recognized and assessed in postsecondary education are destabilized. This session asks: as mastery becomes increasingly performable, how must educators rethink what counts as evidence of learning, and which forms of learning remain pedagogically, and ethically, worth valuing?

Drawing on teaching practices developed across multiple undergraduate and graduate architecture courses, the presentation treats architectural education as a diagnostic site where these pressures surface early and clearly. Inspired by Andrew Atwood’s notion of an “expanded field of attention,” the session extends this logic into pedagogy by proposing an expanded field for recognizing rigor. Rather than a prescriptive model, this diagram functions as a thinking device, mapping learning across axes of ambiguity and certainty, process and resolution, to make visible forms of learning that often escape conventional assessment.

Within this expanded field, mastery appears alongside other pedagogical territories, including technical curiosity, joy/play, and attentive rigor. These terms do not describe learner types or fixed outcomes, but conditions through which learning can emerge and be recognized differently. Together, they help slow evaluative judgment and foreground practices of close reading, sustained attention, and responsiveness to how student work evolves over time.

Situating these questions within broader conversations on generative AI and assessment, the session argues that AI reveals less a crisis of authorship than a crisis of recognition. Participants will engage in guided provocations and shared interpretation, using assessment as an attentional practice to explore how learning, rigor, and value might be rethought in postsecondary education.

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Cultivating Digital Civic Learning Partnerships to Strengthen Connection in Higher Education

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Toyosi Adedara (Baylor University)

Abstract: Across postsecondary teaching and learning environments, digital transformation is reshaping how educators collaborate, reflect, and build relationships with students and community partners. This presentation examines how digital tools can mediate community engaged curriculum design and participatory action research processes in higher education. Building from a civic learning partnership in which educators collaborated with community organizations to co design and refine learning experiences for youth, this proposal explores how digital platforms supported relational engagement, collaborative curriculum planning, and ongoing reflective dialogue among partners.

The session draws on scholarship on digital collaboration, community engaged learning, and participatory curriculum design to explore implications for teaching and learning in higher education settings. Evidence from reflective notes, digital communication artifacts, and collaborative curriculum development processes illustrates how technology facilitated connection across time and space, while also surfacing relational tensions and access challenges. Participants will consider how digital platforms can support belonging, reciprocity, and shared meaning making in ways that strengthen civic identity development, collaborative pedagogies, and student agency.

The session goal is to create space for shared reflection about the possibilities and risks of digital transformation in community engaged education. Participants will engage in dialogue about institutional supports needed to cultivate ethical and relational uses of technology for partnership based teaching and learning. Together, the conversation will consider how digital transformation can move from disruption toward meaningful connection in postsecondary settings through collaborative design, reflection, and inclusive learning spaces.

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A Hermeneutic Inquiry into the Algorithmic Governance of Academic Integrity

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Gengyan Tang (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This session explores how algorithmic systems in higher education reshape the moral and pedagogical meanings of academic integrity. Drawing from a hermeneutic inquiry at our university, the study examines how AI text-detection software, introduced to safeguard academic integrity, produced new sites of anxiety, authority, and evasion. Instead of stabilizing norms, it displaced professional judgment with algorithmic thresholds, reconfiguring relationships among students, faculty, and administrators. Through a material hermeneutic framework, the session interprets algorithms, infrastructures, and breakdowns as “texts” that co-produce governance. Findings reveal that academic integrity emerges not as a fixed moral code but as a sociotechnical negotiation sustained by human and nonhuman actors.

Aligned with the conference theme From Disruption to Connection: Digital Transformation in Postsecondary Education, this session invites reflection on how datafied systems transform ethical life and learning cultures. Participants will engage in dialogical activities to interpret their own institutional experiences with digital integrity tools, fostering reciprocal learning and shared insight into how technology mediates moral and educational meaning. The goal is to cultivate a collective awareness of integrity as an evolving relational practice.

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Puppeteer or Puppet?: Using Generative AI or Being Used by It

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Jane Freeman (University of Toronto)

Abstract: As use of Generative AI in academic writing becomes more widespread, it is clear that some students use the tool to increase engagement with their own ideas while others’ use leaves them with a sense of “psychological dissociation from the written output.” (Kosmyna, 2025)

 In this paper, I posit a spectrum of student agency in the use of GenAI, with “puppets” at one end and “puppeteers” at the other and suggest pedagogical means to help students move intentionally from one end of the spectrum to the other. I suggest that a student’s sense of agency in the age of GenAI, “the belief in one’s ability to influence and control outcomes,” (Guo, 2025) is an essential component in deepening capacity to connect with self and others.

While students’ extensive use of “cognitive offloading” of certain tasks to external devices can improve immediate task performance, it also decreases subsequent memory performance and can lead to a sense of “cognitive debt” (Grinschgl, 2022; Kosmyna, 2025). Conversely, students who begin their prewriting rooted in an exploration of their own ideas are better equipped to use GenAI intentionally as a means of distributed cognition that facilitates deeper thinking.

In this session, we will consider collectively how assignment design can help students cultivate an early sense of agency, means of helping students notice choices that move them along the spectrum from puppet to puppeteer, and ways in which a student’s increased sense of personal agency can support deeper connection with self and others. (Riedl, 2025)

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Reimagining Training for Digitally Inclusive Patient and Community-Led Research

Room: TI 160
Presenters: Ingrid Nielssen (University of Calgary)

Abstract: The integration of patient and community perspective into health research evidence is essential to equitable knowledge production; however, systemic, epistemic, and digital barriers often disrupt meaningful engagement in postsecondary research contexts. These disruptions are particularly pronounced for individuals and communities that have been historically marginalized, including those with limited digital access, lower levels of digital literacy, or learning needs that are not well served by traditional academic and technology-mediated environments.

This session explores a patient- and community-engaged research training program designed to build research capacity, trust, and trustworthiness through a sponsored, supportive, and experiential online learning model. Drawing on relevant scholarship in community-based participatory research, inclusive and universal design for adult learning, and equity-oriented research engagement, this session presents key approaches and outcomes from a program that has successfully supported teams of learners from diverse patient, community, professional, and academic backgrounds. Alumni include individuals with neurodivergent learning approaches, people living with dementia, learners with low or limited digital literacy, and those for whom English is not a first language.

The intent of this session includes to: 1) share effective pedagogical and engagement strategies for inclusive, community-based research training; 2) demonstrate how co-learning and digital innovation can support meaningful participation across difference; and 3) invite critical reflection on how postsecondary educators can redesign research learning to better serve diverse communities.

Attendees will be invited to ask questions and share and exchange strategies for fostering inclusive co-learning and collaborative health research environments.

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Simulating Interactive Systems to Teach Systems Thinking

Room: TI 250
Presenters: Martina King (MacEwan University)

Abstract: Using a student-modified version of an open-source systems mapping simulator, Loopy, researchers are investigating the impact of introducing this immersive tool into an established systems mapping assignment in a Sustainability 201 course. The tool enables students to create their own system maps and feedback loops, which are then animated to illustrate causal relationships and respond to student-modified leverage points, demonstrating the impact of hypothetical solutions on system problems.  Preliminary observations addressing the research questions regarding the impact on learning and the ability to apply systems thinking competencies, as well as student feedback on their confidence and experience using the tool, will be shared. The presenter will discuss the potential implications and provide inspiration for integrating constructivist simulation learning across disciplines to teach abstract concepts.

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What Counts as Experiential Learning? Introducing and Applying a Criteria-Based Framework

Room: TI 230
Presenters: Christine Mishra (University of Toronto)

Abstract: Experiential Learning (EL) is widely promoted as a high-impact teaching practice, yet it remains difficult to define and is therefore often misunderstood or applied inconsistently (Roberts, 2015). Although Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1984) is the foundational model for EL, it is difficult to operationalize and offers limited guidance for instructors and institutions seeking to identify, implement, or evaluate high-quality EL in practice. These challenges are heightened in policy environments such as Ontario, where EL is used as a key metric in performance-based funding models (Government of Ontario, 2020).

This presentation introduces a practical criteria-based framework for EL that translates pedagogical theory into a set of clearly articulated evaluative criteria. Drawing on EL literature, the framework identifies core elements that distinguish EL from similar pedagogical approaches, as well as additional criteria associated with the most effective implementations. These criteria can be used to support both the design of new experiential initiatives and the evaluation of existing programs.

The presentation also reports on a small case study in which the proposed framework is compared with the EL criteria currently used at one Ontario university. This comparison illustrates how a theory-informed framework can support more consistent and transparent approaches to defining EL at the institutional level.

The session concludes with a discussion of implications for institutional policy, curriculum planning, and educational development, and invites participants to consider how this framework might inform experiential learning policy and practice within their own institutional contexts.

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Ghosts in Our Machines: Why We Need Philosophy to Navigate AI Futures

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 1
Presenters: Alexandria Poppendorf (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Philosophy created formalized education. From Plato’s Academy in ancient Greece to state-sponsored Confucian schools in imperial China, and later to the medieval, Renaissance, and Enlightenment universities, formal education emerged as a space to explore foundational questions: Where do we come from? How do we understand knowledge? What kinds of relationships shape our lives and communities? Yet these spaces were not without inequity. They limited access and marginalized those outside dominant social, political, or cultural groups – patterns that persist today. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, higher education shifted further. Still haunted by these ghosts of inequity and increasingly stripped of philosophical grounding, universities became sites of job preparation, where knowledge is a commodity and productivity metrics define success. This shift reflects broader forces of globalization and the technocratization of the academy (Patel, 2021). In this roundtable discussion, we will openly explore our feelings about these hauntings and how this shift has shaped our institutions and relationships with knowledge, teaching, and each other. To guide us, I will share aspects of my in-progress doctoral work, which uses hauntology, a philosophical framework that encourages us to notice what is missing or overlooked in institutions and experiences (Derrida, 1993; Fisher, 2013, Gordon, 1997), to reflect on what has been lost in my experiences as both learner and teacher. Together, we will explore how philosophical reflexivity can help us navigate persistent inequity and rapidly evolving AI-rich environments, strengthen our relationships with knowledge and teaching (Privato & Magnusson, 2024).

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Hospicing Traditional Assessment: Co-designing Equitable Futures in Online Graduate Education

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 2
Presenters: Alicia Romero (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: The discourse of "digital transformation" arrives with a promise of connection, yet often delivers a more efficient mode of alienation. This session begins by critically examining this promise, asking not if our tools connect us, but what political and ethical work they actually do. The work is animated by a central inquiry: How might assessment co-design become a practice for hospicing (Machado de Oliveira, 2021), to leave behind, the colonial logics that haunt our online educational spaces?

This is an invitation into a collaborative inquiry. We will begin by mapping the scholarly landscape of assessment co-design, exposing the persistence of the factory and the courtroom as dominant pedagogical metaphors. From there, we move from analysis to imagination. In a guided, interactive session, we will engage in metaphorical visioning, first to name the emotional reality of minoritization (Stewart, 2017) within assessment, and then to collectively imagine what new possibilities, within the online learning realm, might be birthed in the space that hospicing clears. This work is about giving form to new metaphors for an assessment otherwise, one rooted not in judgment, but in shared creation.

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Psychological Safety: A Key Consideration in Pedagogical Innovation 

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 3
Presenters: Alyssa Counsell (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: As instructors pursue digital and other pedagogical innovations, the process requires a degree of experimentation, uncertainty, and risk-taking on the part of the instructor, but also their students. This proposed session will introduce psychological safety as a critical construct for pedagogical innovation in digitally mediated contexts. Psychological safety is a shared belief that an environment is safe for interpersonal risk-taking (Edmondson, 1999). Previous research suggests psychological safety is associated with learning and assessment (Tsuei et al., 2019; Wake et al., 2024).

The session is guided by the question: How can instructors intentionally cultivate psychological safety when implementing pedagogical innovations? The facilitator will draw on experiences teaching psychology statistics courses to share reflections on psychological safety during changes such as authentic assessment, ungrading, new statistical software, and course redesign. These reflections will highlight the reciprocal relationship between psychological safety and pedagogical innovation. Participants will be invited to share their own experiences and discuss actionable practices adaptable to diverse learning environments.

The goals of the session are to raise awareness of psychological safety as a lens for digital pedagogical design, surface shared challenges and successes across various contexts, and collaboratively generate practical strategies for fostering psychologically safe learning environments.

This topic is highly relevant to the conference theme, as psychological safety can be understood as an enabling condition for meaningful engagement with digital innovations. Without attention to psychological safety, digital transformation may unintentionally heighten anxiety or discourage productive risk-taking or perpetuate existing inequities, particularly for students who already struggle with technological literacy.

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Decolonial Pathways to Data Science Capacity Building in Africa: Lessons from a Diaspora-Engaged University Partnership: Hybrid and Multidisciplinary Approaches to Building Data Science Competence in African Higher Education

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 4
Presenters: Andy Asare (University of Calgary)

Abstract: This reflective study examined the development, delivery, and implications of a multidisciplinary data science and analytics capacity-building program, in collaboration with the University of Calgary and universities in Ghana, Rwanda and Kenya. The study employed a reflective-analytic methodology grounded in a constructivist-decolonial approach to unearth pedagogical, institutional, and diaspora-engagement dimensions. The initiative engaged 386 participants across multiple faculties and universities in Africa through hybrid learning modalities.

The findings reveal significant improvements in technical competencies, such as a 65% increase in Python proficiency, and enhanced institutional visibility through interdisciplinary collaboration. This indicated that hybrid, multidisciplinary, and diaspora-led engagements can significantly enhance data-science competencies and academic confidence while fostering institutional visibility and curricular innovation. However, persistent challenges such as limited infrastructure, scheduling conflicts, and the absence of industry partnerships underscore systemic constraints facing African universities. The study contributes to African higher-education scholarship by offering an empirically grounded, decolonial model of data-science capacity-building that aligns with institutional, national, and global digital-transformation agendas. The study also provided practical recommendations for data science and analytics diaspora capacity-building initiatives at the institutional, national, and international levels.

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Widening the Communication Skills Gap? AI’s Risks and Opportunities for Equity-Seeking Students in Canadian Postsecondary Contexts

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 5
Presenters: Arti Modgill (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT have rapidly diffused across Canadian postsecondary classrooms, offering efficiency gains in academic communication while raising concerns about the potential deepening of existing inequities. Equity-seeking students, including racialized, Indigenous, first-generation, multilingual, and low-socioeconomic-status learners, often enter higher education with documented gaps in academic communication proficiency (Roberts, 2017). Emerging research suggests that uncritical adoption of generative AI may exacerbate these disparities. Studies indicate that AI tools can constrain culturally and linguistically diverse expression for multilingual learners (Stamer et al., 2023), widen digital divides in communication skill development for marginalized students (Tian, 2025), and introduce new challenges for equitable AI literacy in postsecondary education (Yang, 2025). Collectively, this work raises concerns about reduced opportunities for sustained practice in original communication and critical engagement for students who may be most reliant on AI tools.

This 25-minute roundtable discussion synthesizes this emerging evidence with established research on communication skill gaps at postsecondary entry to examine the implications of generative AI for communication development among equity-seeking student populations. The session will include a brief facilitator-led synthesis of key findings and Canadian postsecondary considerations, followed by guided discussion focused on surfacing tensions, risks, and unanswered questions surrounding AI use in communication-intensive courses. Rather than advancing prescriptive solutions, participants will collectively explore possible directions for pedagogy, assessment, and AI literacy that warrant further investigation. The session aims to foster critical dialogue about how generative AI may reshape communication skill development and equity in postsecondary education, identifying areas of concern, opportunity, and future inquiry.

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Making Sense of Experiential Learning: Do, Be, Connect, Reflect

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 6
Presenters: Astrid Eckstein (University of Calgary)

Abstract: As postsecondary institutions navigate rapid digital transformation, experiential learning (EL) is increasingly positioned as a unifying pedagogical approach that bridges learning across modalities, contexts, and disciplines. Recently, our university articulated a simplified definition of EL as learning by doing, being, connecting, and reflecting. While accessible and generative, this reframing raises important questions about interpretation, balance, and enactment within teaching and learning environments.

This roundtable invites participants into a shared inquiry exploring how educators and students understand and prioritize these four elements across diverse courses, disciplines, and learning modalities. Drawing on EL scholarship (Authors, 2009; Author et al., 2024) and research on digitally supported reflection (Author et al., 2023), the session considers how the A.I.R. framework (Authentic experience, Intentional design, Reflection) can support intentional EL design without prescribing a single model of practice. Central to this inquiry is the question: What drives meaningful experiential learning from a student perspective across diverse institutional and disciplinary contexts?

Participants will engage in structured dialogue prompts to examine how doing, being, connecting, and reflecting are interpreted within their own teaching and learning experiences; how digital tools shape these elements; and whether EL requires balance among them or simply their intentional presence.

The goal of this session is not consensus, but collective sense-making. By centering relational dialogue, multiple perspectives, and critical reflection, the roundtable creates a space for reciprocal learning and inclusive engagement across disciplines, supporting educators in developing shared language and design awareness for experiential learning amid ongoing digital transformation.

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Contextualizing Assessment in Apprenticeship and WIL-Based Learning

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 7
Presenters: Chukwunonso Oraedu (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology)

Abstract: Experiential learning (EL), rooted in the principle of “learning by doing,” has long been central to human knowledge acquisition (Kolb, 1984; Billett, 2016). Contemporary practices such as apprenticeships and work-integrated learning (WIL) extend this tradition by embedding learners in authentic contexts that foster active engagement and skill development (Chan, 2023; Oliver, 2015). However, while EL is widely recognized as a learner-centric pedagogy that enriches educational experiences, assessment within these contexts remains a persistent challenge. Scholars argue that designing scalable, authentic, and context-sensitive assessment tools for EL is complex (Quinn & Shurville, 2009; Gosen & Washbush, 2004). This proposal addresses this gap by exploring two key research questions: (1) What constitutes meaningful assessment in apprenticeships and WIL-based learning environments? (2) How can practical and sustainable assessment methods be designed to align with the goals of WIL and apprenticeship-based learning? This inquiry is particularly significant in the era of digital transformation in postsecondary education, where technology-driven platforms increasingly mediate experiential learning and assessment practices. Developing robust frameworks for assessing EL in digitally enhanced environments is critical to ensuring equity, validity, and learner success. The session will adopt a 25-minute roundtable format to promote shared learning, reciprocal engagement, and meaningful inclusion. Participants will engage in collaborative dialogue, with each attendee allocated time to share perspectives and co-create insights. This interactive approach aims to generate actionable ideas for designing assessment strategies that reflect the dynamic realities of apprenticeship and WIL in digitally transformed educational landscapes.

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Teaching and Learning Research, Scholarship and Inquiry

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 8
Presenters: Gbenga Adejare (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Drawing on my personal experiences teaching sociology during uncertain times, alongside a synthesis of contemporary empirical research, I will analyze how language, symbols, and interpersonal dynamics influence students' self-perceptions and engagement in the classroom and beyond. Informed by inclusive pedagogical theories, I will present evidence-based strategies to cultivate supportive learning environments. By fostering collaborative practices, promoting critical dialogue, and leveraging digital tools, educators can effectively mitigate the impact of stereotype threats and empower students to reconstruct their identities and enhance their academic confidence. 

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Beyond the Theory-Practice Spectrum: Relationships between SoTL and Scholarly Teaching 

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 9
Presenters: J Overholser (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: It is often difficult to articulate the relationship between scholarly teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) because of the integrated nature of these topics and the tendency to interpret them through boundaries dividing teaching, learning, and scholarship. We argue that it is important to disrupt these assumed barriers by creating meaningful connections between SoTL and scholarly teaching. In this roundtable, we will discuss the existing theory-practice spectrum by reviewing literature and our experiences of scholarly teaching and SoTL. We will then introduce our own model of the relationship between scholarly teaching and SoTL, which incorporates personal teaching, researched-informed teaching, and research-integrated teaching. Finally, we will explore how this model can benefit educators at any stage of their teaching and learning journey to conceptualize, connect, and provide evidence for their own scholarly teaching and SoTL work.

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Cultivating Student Engagement and Uptake of Student Supports: Online and Remote Learning for Indigenous Learners

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 10
Presenters: Janine Olivier (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Online learning can be convenient for Indigenous nursing students to maintain a balanced lifestyle; however, it can interfere with learning and connection to the program (Van Bewer & Sawychn, 2024). Accessibility and convenience are not always available to First Nations communities and having programs, such as nursing, delivered online allows students to complete their education without having to leave their communities, families, and supports. Having a sense of belonging has been linked to persistence, retention, social acceptance, and academic success (Montague et al., 2025). Providing education to Indigenous students’ needs to encourage a transformative approach to learning based on respecting Indigenous knowledge, experience and respect while encompassing mainstream learning environments (Battiste, 2013). Educating Indigenous students requires a culturally safe approach to understand the unique situations that the students come with (Van Bewer & Sawychn, 2024). In the faculty of Nursing, at the University of XXX, Indigenous students are offered academic and non-academic supports with an intention to increase learner success. An Indigenous Academic Coach role was created for a nurse educator to walk alongside, develop tutorials, and connect with students through the virtual learning environment. In the first few semesters of this new program, we are finding that student engagement is low.

We would like to host a roundtable discussion to bring this question to other educators and students to explore: What virtual teaching and learning strategies are you using to increase student engagement and support Indigenous learners’ needs and promote meaningful connection to your program?

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Rethinking Curriculum and Pedagogy: Evaluating the MSW-ICD Program to Address the Dynamic Complexities of Global and Local Contexts : Relational, Student-Partnered, and Decolonial Approaches to Digital Transformation in Higher Education

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 11
Presenters: Lisa Bondt (University of Calgary) 

Abstract: This roundtable invites participants into a relational and interactive dialogue on how Master of Social Work (MSW) programs within postsecondary education can meaningfully integrate student voice, Indigenous and decolonial ways of knowing, and global community-based learning within curriculum evaluation and renewal. Grounded in a participatory evaluation of the International and Community Development (ICD) specialization, the session explores the guiding inquiry: How can collaborative, digital, and community-rooted approaches strengthen curriculum design in an era of growing global complexity, inequity, and transformation? Drawing on scholarship in decolonial and Indigenous methodologies (Smith, 2021; Kovach, 2010) and student-as-partners frameworks (Cook-Sather et al., 2014; Lorenzetti et al., 2022), the session shares emerging insights from surveys, interviews, and digital feedback tools used to explore learning experiences across intercultural and community-engaged contexts.

Aligned with the conference theme, this session examines how digital spaces can support relationality, reciprocity, and ethical engagement. As the ICD specialization is delivered primarily online, the program offers a unique lens on how digital pedagogy can expand accessibility for globally situated learners while honoring place-based knowledge and community relationships. Early findings highlight both opportunities and tensions in weaving together technology, land-informed learning, and decolonial commitments in virtual environments.

The roundtable session aims to: (a) share emerging findings from the participatory and community-engaged evaluation process; (b) invite participants to exchange strategies for centering learner and community voices in program renewal; and (c) collectively map digital and relational approaches that support reciprocal learning partnerships. The roundtable will foster shared dialogue, collaborative reflection, and inclusive knowledge exchange grounded in respect, relational accountability, and meaningful inclusion.

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Cameras On or Off?

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 12
Presenters: Mark Altosaar (University of Calgary)

Abstract: If you were running a live online class, would you mandate cameras on, and why?

While the pandemic initially drove teaching online out of necessity, virtual and hybrid instruction has become a new normal, frequently offered as an alternative to in-person learning. Yet when it comes to student achievement, how we judge, experience, and design for participation and connection over video links remains under exploration—whether in small seminars or large lectures.

Given that institutional policies on camera use are not standardized, instructors must often determine their own approach and consider its impact on classroom community.

This roundtable invites participants to critically examine how expectations around student camera use during live online lectures shape instructional strategies, learning environments, inclusion, and student-teacher relationships.

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Connecting Over a Board Game: How Student-Centered Assessment in an Anti-Racism Class is Fostering Connection at a Canadian University

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 13
Presenters: Motilola Akinfemisoye-Adejare (University of Calgary)

Abstract: In the face of rapid digital transformation in higher education, our session offers a compelling exploration of how student-centered learning can create meaningful connections and foster a sense of belonging. Aligned with the conference theme, we will discuss the innovative ways that students are tackling complex social issues, through creative and engaging assessment in a course on anti-Black racism. We will showcase a case study from a Canadian university where students collaboratively designed a board game, as a creative project assessment intended to educate their peers about dismantling anti-Black racism. This interactive project not only served as a creative outlet but also provided a platform for profound dialogue and reflection on actionable steps that can be taken to dismantle anti-Black racism in different settings. By utilizing digital tools and collaborative design, students were empowered to engage actively with critical social issues, transforming disruptive change into opportunities for connection and understanding. The session will feature both the instructor and the students who created the board game, sharing insights into the pedagogical strategies that nurture student agency, creativity, and engagement. We will discuss both the challenges and successes of implementing this student-centered approach, providing practical strategies for educators seeking to enhance and foster connection in their classrooms. This session will also feature the exchange of ideas and experiences as we explore how fostering creativity and collaboration among students can lead to richer educational experiences, cultivate empathy, and ultimately reinforce belonging at postsecondary institutions. Together, we can harness the power of student-led initiatives, especially in assessment design, to create inclusive and transformative learning environments that resonate in our diverse academic landscape.

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Reimagining Higher Ed Through Student-Identified Interdisciplinary Challenges

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 14
Presenters: Shafaq Batool (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Universities are organized through distinct disciplinary lenses, yet many contemporary social and technological challenges exceed the limits of siloed fields, making interdisciplinary education essential (Brewer, 1999). Despite its promise, interdisciplinarity exposes structural gaps, including fragmented systems and uneven institutional support (Cooke et al., 2020).

Led by national student fellows, this project centres student voices across Canadian postsecondary institutions. Through narratives from ten students responding to barriers in interdisciplinary learning, reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) identified five themes: the labour students bear navigating fragmented systems, the decisive role of institutional structures, tensions between inclusion and exclusion, the need for epistemic humility, and the importance of sustainable infrastructure.

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Grappling with Inclusion: Wrestling as a Site of Lived Belonging

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 15
Presenters: Steven Sheppard (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Inclusion in education is often presented as a settled policy achievement, yet remains fragile, conditional, and unevenly lived. This session presents a work-in-progress narrative inquiry examining high school wrestling as an unlikely but generative site for understanding how inclusion, belonging, and exclusion are enacted in practice. Grounded in Critical Disability Studies and curriculum theory, the study explores how wrestling—an embodied, relational, and high-risk learning space—both reproduces and disrupts the sorting logics common in schooling and postsecondary education (Dolmage, 2017; Eisner, 2002).

The research draws on narrative interviews, artifact walks, and reflexive fieldwork with Alberta high school wrestling coaches and athletes, including participants with lived experience of disability. Narrative inquiry is used not simply as a method, but as an epistemological stance that treats experience as storied, relational, and situated (Clandinin & Connelly, 2000; Clandinin, 2023). While data generation is ongoing, early narrative engagements and field observations suggest that wrestling spaces sometimes normalize adaptation, interdependence, and embodied difference as ordinary aspects of participation—standing in contrast to institutional contexts where inclusion is often reduced to compliance, surveillance, or individualized deficit management (Goodley, 2024; Dolmage, 2017).

Rather than reporting finalized findings, this session focuses on the conceptual framing, methodological approach, and emerging tensions shaping the inquiry, including fairness versus flexibility, risk versus access, and inclusion as rhetoric versus lived belonging. Aligned with the conference theme From Disruption to Connection, the session positions disruption as an opportunity to surface structural conditions that shape who belongs in learning spaces. A guided Q&A will invite participants into dialogue about methodological choices and relational approaches to inclusion in postsecondary teaching and learning.

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Making the Hidden Curriculum Visible: Teaching CV and Funding Strategy 

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 16
Presenters: Vienna Doenni (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are expected to demonstrate readiness for career progression through strategically constructed curricula vitae and competitive funding records. Yet explicit instruction in these expectations is often absent from formal curricula, leaving critical knowledge embedded in an unevenly accessible “hidden curriculum” that disadvantages those without access to informal mentoring networks (Author, 2001; Author, 2013). This session asks: How can CV and funding literacy be taught as intentional postsecondary learning rather than left to chance?

This roundtable explores how CV and funding strategy can be reframed as teachable, equity-oriented practices across early academic career stages, with a focus on graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Drawing on research on academic socialization and researcher career development (Author et al., 2011; Author et al., 2017), the session introduces a competency-based approach that uses digital tools such as annotated CV exemplars, funding-portfolio mapping, and reflective planning to make expectations explicit, transparent, and transferable.

The topic aligns with the conference theme From Disruption to Connection because digital transformation and unstable academic career pathways have increased reliance on opaque norms (Author, 2020). Making expectations visible strengthens connection, confidence, and persistence across disciplines.

Participants will engage in guided table discussions around when funding and CV literacy should be introduced, how expectations can be scaffolded from graduate training through postdoctoral appointments, and how institutions can support funding readiness while attending to well-being. The session is designed to foster reciprocal dialogue, inclusive participation, and cross-institutional learning, leaving participants with adaptable strategies for embedding CV and funding literacy into postsecondary teaching and professional development.

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Let’s Talk About Online Discussions: Ideas You Can Use Tomorrow

Location: MacEwan Ballroom A&B, Table 17
Presenters: WanQi (Belinda) Jin (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Want to breathe new life into your online discussions,or share what's already working well?

Asynchronous online discussion forums are among the most common tools in postsecondary online and blended courses, but low participation, surface-level responses, and student disengagement remain frustratingly common. The good news? Research shows that thoughtfully designed discussions can transform forums into spaces where students genuinely connect, think critically, and learn collaboratively. This session is your opportunity to share your experiences and take away new strategies. Bring your challenges, experiments, and questions. Let's share practical strategies for crafting better discussion prompts, explore what meaningful engagement really looks like across disciplines, and identify the support you need. You'll leave with fresh ideas, real examples, and concrete strategies you can put into practice in your next course. Come ready to talk. Leave ready to act.

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AI-Glasses in Our Classes: An Interactive Session on Academic Integrity in a Postplagiarism Era

Room: TI 100
Presenters: Bibek Dahal (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Use of artificial intelligence (AI) in postsecondary has already transformed the conventions of academic integrity, providing both tremendous opportunities and pressing challenges. There is no limit where and how we can use AI in educational contexts; some uses can be visible, but others may not. In postplagiarism era, as Eaton (2023) underscored, the wearable technologies become “implantable/ingestible/embeddable and cosmetically invisible” (p. 8). 

The increasing use of AI-glasses in postsecondary could be an example, which has already been challenged the conventions of assessment practices (Arantes & Welsman, 2025). The traditional glasses that combine with wearable computers, generative AI, cameras, and heads-up displays (HUDs) can perform as real time translator, context-aware navigator, and support seeker (Elgan, 2025; Sai et al., 2024). Studies highlighted both positive and negative aspects associated with the use of AI-glasses in postsecondary contexts (Grace & Haddock, 2023). In this interactive session, we aim to facilitate a space for participants to experience and reflect on potential pros and cons of AI-glasses use from both students’ and instructors’ perspectives. The session will be organized in order to provide space for interested participants to try the AI-glasses first, and then they will be divided in certain groups depending on the number of participants. We will facilitate the group discussion on academic integrity implications of AI-glasses use in postsecondary teaching, learning, and assessment. At the end, one member from each group would share what they discussed in their respective group. 

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From Disruption to Connection: Role-Playing Relational Futures

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Alexandria Poppendorf (University of Calgary)

Abstract: While most research on games for learning centers on digital formats, analog tabletop games, particularly tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs), remain underexplored. When analog games are used in educational settings, they are often employed to support linear, outcome-driven curricular goals, adding “fun” through novelty rather than reshaping pedagogy. Such implementations tend to produce learning experiences that lack the rich, student-generated narrative depth that fosters meaningful engagement (Clandinin et al., 2018). The few researchers who examine TTRPGs in education, especially in postsecondary contexts, argue that these games hold transformative but largely untapped potential. When thoughtfully implemented, TTRPGs can facilitate student-directed, relational, imaginative, and inclusive learning (Lim et al., 2014; Naul & Liu, 2020; Ntokos, 2019).

This workshop invites participants to experience firsthand the pedagogical possibilities of narrative-focused TTRPGs in higher education. Facilitated by two doctoral candidate games researchers, the session will begin with a brief overview of TTRPG use in postsecondary contexts, followed by small-group play using custom-designed scenarios aligned with the conference theme. Through guided narrative game prompts, participants will reflect on technology and digital futures in education and consider how TTRPG-based approaches might be adapted to their own teaching and learning contexts. All materials, including dice and character sheets, will be provided. With two facilitators, the workshop can accommodate a flexible range of participant numbers.

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Publishing in Imagining SoTL’s CPLT Conference Special Issue

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Erika E. Smith, Michelle Yeo, Austin Ashbaugh, Kimberley A. Grant, and Derritt Mason (University of Calgary)

Abstract: During this panel, journal and special issue editors will discuss the process behind the first-ever special issue of Imagining SoTL covering last year’s conference theme, “Reassessing Assessment.” We will walk through the review process, unpack the criteria reviewers use, show the different types of submission formats, discuss how to avoid common mistakes made by authors, and share advice from our side of the desk. There will be an opportunity to ask questions of the editors and brainstorm about your potential submission to the journal.

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Bloom's Will Be Able to…: GenAI’s Impact on Backward Design 

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Anwen Burk (Vancouver Island University)

Abstract: This session invites participants to reflect on course design and the development of learning outcomes within the context of Generative AI (GenAI). The central question examines how traditional pedagogical hierarchies, specifically Bloom’s Taxonomy, should evolve in light of GenAI tools' ability to instantly achieve "Creation," currently the highest level of the cognitive domain. This session is anchored in the backward design framework, which prioritizes establishing student learning outcomes before developing assessments and content (Lungu, 2025).

Through facilitated discussion, we will ask participants to consider the role of Bloom's in their own course design. We will do this in three ways. First, they will critically examine emerging revisions to Bloom’s which challenge traditional interpretations and reflect GenAI’s impact on higher-order thinking and creation.  These emerging revisions will include, but may not be limited to, Kassorla’s (2025) Inverted Bloom’s Taxonomy for the Age of AI and Gonsalves’ (2024) extended model for critical thinking (2024).

Second, participants will reflect on how these revisions may impact the principles of backward design to reimagine course learning outcomes and assessments that promote transparency, authentic, human-centered learning in an era of Generative AI.

Finally, we will challenge participants to consider how these models can be further refined to meet the needs of their discipline.

This session will be facilitated by curriculum and learning designers and is intended to appeal to a broad disciplinary audience.

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From Digital Disruption to Experiential Innovation: Co-Creating Pathways for Student Success

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Gillian Robertson (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Digital disruption is reshaping the skills students need to thrive in a rapidly evolving world (Auon, 2024). As digital disruption reshapes the skills students need, higher education must move beyond content delivery to foster authentic, high-impact learning (“HIP”) experiences. Experiential learning practices – such as service learning and research – are linked to high impact learning and researched shows these practices enhance critical thinking and self-reported skill development (Kuh, O'Donnell & Schneider, 2017; Finley & McNair, 2013).  Not only does active engagement in experiential learning deepen skill development but it also boosts student motivation (Kong, 2021).

Experiential Learning (EL) activities are critical for equipping learners with transferable skills, intercultural competence, entrepreneurial thinking, and sustainability awareness, key priorities for higher education. This interactive session explores practical strategies to leverage on-campus resources and embed EL into classrooms to support transformative learning and advance institutional strategic goals.

This interactive panel will showcase examples of tools, projects, and partnerships that foster authentic learning experiences. Participants will discuss barriers and opportunities for incorporating EL in their classrooms and engage in collaborative brainstorming to adapt these approaches within diverse disciplines and identify opportunities for integration.

By the end of the session, attendees will:

Identify campus resources that can amplify EL in their courses.

Develop actionable ideas to embed EL into curriculum.

Share strategies to overcome barriers and create inclusive, future-ready learning environments.

Join us to co-create solutions that prepare students for success in a digitally transformed world.

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Connecting Learning to Practice: Video Simulations and AI Feedback in Undergraduate Social Work Education

Room: TI 148
Presenters:  Cari Gulbrandsen (University of Calgary)

Abstract: The Bachelor of Social Work (BSW) program prepares learners for practice in a regulated health profession, requiring graduates to demonstrate skills, competence, ethical decision making and critical reflection. This requires exposing learners to the complexities of real-world situations and providing opportunities to practice their skills.  Simulated case studies are recognized as a promising form of experiential learning, designed “to replace or amplify real experiences with guided experiences … in a fully interactive fashion” (Lateef, 2010, p. 348). In social work education, simulations help bridge theory with practice (Meredith, Heslop, & Dodds, 2023).

This session reports on a funded curriculum and research project that developed and implemented high-quality, multidimensional video simulations for a BSW program.  The simulations place learners in the role of a social worker, engaging them in decision-making and reflection within realistic practice scenarios involving diverse populations across the lifespan. This session will explore the question: How can online video simulations help prepare BSW students for practice through experiential learning, skill development, critical thinking, and ethical decision making?

Early findings suggest that video case studies create a greater sense of realism and promote learner engagement and emotional responsiveness. The simulations create safer spaces for learners to practice, refine skills, and build confidence.  During this interactive session, participants will engage with the video simulations and share in discussion about the pedagogical possibilities and challenges of these emerging technologies. We will introduce the next phases of this project, which will incorporate AI-generated feedback to deepen learners’ self-awareness and reflective practice skills. 

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What is ‘Curriculum’? Addressing Ambiguity During Rapid Change

Room: TI 250
Presenters:  James Beres (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology) 

Abstract: In higher education, ‘curriculum’ is as ambiguous in meaning as it is ubiquitous in use, yet it remains an under-researched and under-discussed topic (Tight, 2023). This is of particular concern during this time of rapid change across the post-secondary sector, not only in Canada but around the world, as curriculum defines what knowledge students will access and what they will gain from their post-secondary studies (Barnett and Coate, 2005). Through the curriculum, the core of the disciplinary & professional field is put into practice in teaching (Bernstein, 2000). Difficult conversations about implementing changes to the current curriculum to meet the changing educational landscape become even more challenging when faculty hold different understandings of the nature of curriculum, yet engage in discussions under the false assumption that everyone shares a common understanding of what the word ‘curriculum’ means (Lattuca & Stark, 2009). In this interactive session, participants will examine the diverse and often ambiguous ways faculty members think about the term ‘curriculum’. Beginning with an exploration of five qualitatively distinct ways in which faculty conceptualize curriculum, as identified in Author’s (2025) phenomenographic research study, participants will explore how these different ways of understanding curriculum impact the design, evaluation, and renewal of curriculum in their educational contexts. Working individually and in small groups, participants will identify potential challenges and propose solutions to address these differences in curriculum understanding, leaving this session prepared to bring curriculum conversations forward with their peers and leaders, which ultimately will lead to increased student success.

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What Would Freire Say About AI? Rethinking Digital Transformation Through Critical Pedagogy 

Room: TI 110
Presenters: Fouzia Usman (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly positioned in post-secondary education as synonymous with innovation, excellence, and digital transformation. Often framed as inevitable and neutral, AI adoption risks obscuring the power relations, pedagogical assumptions, and equity implications embedded within educational technologies. This session explores the guiding inquiry: What might Paulo Freire say about digital transformation in post-secondary education, and how can critical pedagogy inform more equitable AI practices? Drawing on Freire’s critical pedagogy (Freire, 2000) and scholarship on AI, power, and inequality (Benjamin, 2019; Selwyn, 2023), the session examines AI as a political and pedagogical intervention rather than a purely technical solution.

Applying an Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (EDIA) lens, the session interrogates how AI can reproduce banking models of education, algorithmic bias, surveillance, and deficit framings that disproportionately affect marginalized learners (Noble, 2018). At the same time, it explores possibilities for engaging AI as a site of praxis grounded in dialogue, accessibility, and justice. 

This topic is critically important to the conference theme, From Disruption to Connection, as it reframes digital transformation from technological disruption toward relational, humanizing, and inclusive pedagogical practices. Relevant across disciplines, the session speaks to educators, educational developers, and institutional leaders navigating AI adoption in teaching and learning contexts.

The intent of the session is to foster critical consciousness (conscientização) and equip participants with questions and pedagogical strategies for ethically engaging AI. Through guided dialogue, small-group reflection, and collective sense-making, participants will co-construct insights, share experiences, and explore inclusive approaches to AI that prioritize connection, agency, and equity in post-secondary education.

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Transnational Trajectories and Scholarly Socialization of International Doctoral Students

Room: TI 118
Presenters: Aliya Kuzhabekova (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Doctoral education plays a pivotal role in shaping the scholarly identities, competencies, and trajectories of future academics. While extensive research has examined doctoral socialization broadly (Austin, 2002; Weidman, Twale, & Stein, 2001), the experiences of international doctoral students navigating transnational, institutional, and personal challenges remain underexplored. This panel examines the scholarly socialization and researcher identity development of international doctoral students in North America and the readjustment experiences of returning graduates. Four complementary papers are presented. The first explores dual-anchored socialization, showing how students negotiate Canadian disciplinary norms while maintaining ties to home-country academic communities, leveraging transnational networks and digital mentoring (Guo, Zhang, & Kong, 2020). The second investigates international doctoral mothers in STEM, highlighting how temporal, spatial, and caregiving pressures intersect with migration constraints to shape identity and professional development (Shah et al., 2021; Ahmed, 2006). The third adopts an asset-based perspective, illustrating how students strategically mobilize community cultural wealth and professional capital to navigate academic spaces in the U.S. and U.K. (Yosso, 2005; Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012). The fourth examines the readjustment of returning scholars in Azerbaijan, revealing how structural constraints and individual agency shape continued scholarly identity development. Collectively, the panel illuminates transnational, temporal, and resource-based dimensions of doctoral socialization, offering insights into strategies and policies that support international students’ academic integration, resilience, and professional success.

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 Seven Rs for Decolonizing Students-as-Partners

Room: TI 120
Presenters: Richard Hayman (Mount Royal University)

Abstract: The students-as-partners (SaP) movement encourages postsecondary transformation by directly challenging academia’s traditional hierarchies and systems of representation. However, existing SaP frameworks do not fully address issues of Indigenous representation and relational accountability. Our research seeks to answer the question “How do we create meaningful partnerships in teaching and learning that value mutual respect, shared decision-making, and diverse perspectives to transform practice?” We propose a new SaP framework that expands on Cook-Sather et al.’s (2014) 3Rs and Matthews’ (2017) five propositions for SaP by weaving in principles from the 5Rs of Indigenous online learning (Restoule, 2018; Tessaro et al., 2018) and the 6Rs of Indigenous research (Tsosie et al., 2022). We provide a reconceptualization of six core principles–Respect, Reciprocity, Responsibility, Relevance, Relationships, and Representation–and introduce an essential seventh principle–Reflection. We discuss how this 7Rs framework can productively disrupt Western practices and hierarchies to inform meaningful connections and collaborations across research, teaching, and learning contexts. Our work demonstrates that intentionally integrating Indigenous worldviews enhances the work of Indigenizing and decolonizing both the SaP movement and the scholarship of teaching and learning. 

Facilitated by student partners and faculty, this presentation invites participants to examine tensions in existing SaP frameworks before discussing how the 7Rs framework can disrupt and transform postsecondary education through inclusive, decolonial, and Two-Eyed Seeing approaches in an ethical space. Guided dialogue and group reflection will explore how we can enact such transformation, promote more equitable educational experiences, and authentically include marginalized student and Indigenous voices in a welcoming learning environment.

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From Disruption to Design: Proactive Assessment Strategies

Room: TI 140
Presenters: Yang Liu (University of Calgary)

Abstract: The rapid integration of Generative AI (GenAI) into higher education has created a significant "disruption," challenging traditional assessment methods and raising concerns regarding academic integrity (Koop & Gröblinger, 2024). Moving beyond reactive measures, this interactive session explores proactive redesign strategies that leverage GenAI as a tool for critical appraisal and practice readiness.

Co-facilitated by faculty instructors and an instructional designer, we will present concrete case studies of redesigned assessments. Specifically, we will share a "comparative inquiry" model where students first answer questions via traditional inquiry-based learning (Summerlee, 2018), then replicate the process using GenAI. This approach forces students to audit AI "hallucinations" (Farrokhnia et al., 2023) and critique the validity of AI-generated sources against their own research.

To bridge the gap between abstract concepts and lived experience, this session includes live demonstrations and sensory engagement. We will utilize AI-generated media (e.g., audio/music transmutations) to demonstrate how AI processes and "sanitizes" cultural data. This sensory component serves as a catalyst for dialogue about the invisibility of AI in daily life and the discomfort students feel regarding AI in professional practice spaces (Trăistar, 2023).

Participants will leave with actionable strategies for designing assessments that prioritize ethical decision-making and verify that students can distinguish between AI content reproduction and authentic practice skills (Lehtiniemi, 2023)

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Equity, Access, and Community Across Delivery Modes in Work-integrated Learning 

Room: TI 148
Presenters: Christine Martineau (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Digital transformation in higher education can either fragment or strengthen community. This is especially important in Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) as it becomes increasingly prioritized in Canadian post-secondary education, concerns persist about equitable access, especially among structurally marginalized student populations (Mallozzi & Drewery, 2019; Stirling & West, 2021).This interactive session explores how intentional design in work-integrated learning (WIL) can advance equity, access, and belonging across diverse delivery modalities.

We will share insights from multiple iterations of a flexible micro-WIL course created in 2022 (in-person, asynchronous and online) and a redesigned in 2025 to include an Indigenous-only section. Drawing on surveys and interviews with students and supervisors and the teaching team’s experiences, we examine how digital and in-person configurations shape student engagement, professional competency development, and workplace readiness.

We will explore the process to re-envision the course, grounded in our university’s Indigenous Strategy and guided by the knowledge of Treaty Peoples, this course was envisioned as a space where Indigenous ways of knowing, doing, being, and connecting stand alongside Western approaches to career development. We will discuss how and why we revised aspects of the course to meet students where they are—honoring their experiences rather than asking them to conform to institutional norms.

Attendees will gain concrete strategies for implementing or enhancing WIL programming. This session is ideal for instructors, program designers, and researchers seeking to make applied learning more accessible, meaningful, and transformative across disciplines.

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Becoming Digitally Literate: A students-as-Partners Story

Room: TI 250
Presenters: Cari Din (University of Calgary)

Abstract: Experiential learning (EL) is learning through doing, being, reflecting, and connecting (Flanagan et al., 2024) and we know that creating meaningful evidence of EL and assessing it can be a challenging process for students and instructors (Chan, 2023). We also know that student experience and learning is strengthened when they work in partnership with their instructor(s) and peers. In this presentation, a story of leveraging the students-as-partners framework (Bovill, 2017) to not only guide the EL process in an undergraduate leadership course but to empower students to develop digital ways of representing their learning (Matthews, 2021) will be shared. The instructor in this story was the digital learner, and her power-sharing with and between students enabled feelings of care, connection, and community in this context – which in combination increase the depth, breadth, and meaningfulness of learning (Vargas-Hernández, 2022). The students lead the digital learning in this EL course and showcasing an example of pedagogy that subverts traditional norms in developing and “doing,” assessment (Bound, 2024).

To welcome and engage diverse participants in an inclusive way, this interactive session is a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) experience. Participants will be provided with audio, analog, and digital ways of engaging with the topics and each other. Participants will co-create collaborative agreements for their collective session experience and select multiple media to represent their curiosities, ideas, and plans during the session.

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