Interactive Paper 30 min

• Muhammad Zubair Faculty of Science — U of A; Concordia University of Edmonton

This session introduces a practical and evidence-based Smart Teaching Framework designed to enhance learning, equity, and engagement in undergraduate Biochemistry courses. The framework integrates four core pillars: Backward Design, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), Reflective Engagement, and Inclusive Assessment. Together, these strategies support diverse learners, reduce barriers, and promote a deeper understanding of complex biochemical concepts.

Drawing on classroom implementation from a second-year Biochemistry course, the session demonstrates how clear outcome alignment, multiple means of representation, active reflection activities, and flexible assessment options can significantly improve student participation and confidence. Participants will gain actionable techniques that can be immediately applied in their own STEM classrooms to create more accessible, student-centred learning environments. This presentation will be valuable for instructors seeking practical, scalable methods to design inclusive and high-impact learning experiences.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Nazlee Sharmin Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Mike Petryk School of Dentistry — U of A
• Ava K Chow Mike Petryk School of Dentistry, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry — U of A

Histology, the microscopic study of tissue structure, is a foundational component of health professional education. Despite its importance, students often perceive histology as difficult and disengaging [1]. Factors that contribute to these difficulties include the abstract nature of microscopic structures, the cognitive load of learning new terminology, limited instructional time, and the absence of teaching approaches that effectively capture and sustain student interest [2] Traditionally, histology has been taught through a lecture-laboratory model, in which microscopy laboratory sessions provide hands-on experience that complements the didactic content presented in class [3]. Although limited instructional time has been identified as a key factor contributing to reduced student motivation, recent curricular reforms have further decreased contact hours as part of efforts to create more integrated medical and dental curricula [4].

To enhance learning efficiency and engagement in oral histology, we incorporated augmented reality (AR) to develop a mobile application, Tooth ARcademy [5]. The app includes three modes: Learn, Practice, and Quiz. In the AR-based Learn mode, annotations of a histology image are revealed when students view unannotated histological images through their device’s camera. The Practice mode enables independent exploration of a comprehensive library of annotated and unannotated histological sections beyond scheduled class time, while the Quiz mode supports self-assessment and knowledge reinforcement at an individualized pace.

Tooth ARcademy was introduced to first-year Doctor of Dental Surgery (DDS) students, and a survey was conducted to evaluate user perceptions. Most participants reported that the app improved conceptual clarity, made learning more enjoyable, and facilitated understanding of oral histology concepts.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Laura L. Velazquez Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies / Centre for Teaching and Learning — U of A

This session uses a structured, choose‑your‑own‑adventure format grounded in the presenter’s experience teaching a 300‑level, writing‑intensive undergraduate course that integrated AI into the curriculum. From this concrete context, participants examine key trade‑offs in AI use, assessment design, student voice, and accountability, connecting these tensions to their own courses and institutional priorities.

To explore these issues in practice, participants follow one of two simple interactive pathways: a shared Gemini‑based scenario or a Twine interaction. Rather than prescribing best practices, the session emphasizes consequences, surfacing how different design decisions can shape student engagement, confidence, and learning behaviours in both expected and unexpected ways. Although participants may take different paths, the session reconvenes for guided reflection through both small‑group and whole‑group discussion. Structured prompts help participants compare experiences across pathways, identify recurring patterns, and articulate concrete trade‑offs such as surveillance versus trust, structure versus autonomy, and efficiency versus depth of learning.

These discussions broaden to larger questions of transparency, student agency, and equity in AI‑mediated writing tasks. Participants consider whose labour becomes visible or invisible and which students are most affected by particular tools or policies. Building on this analysis, they leave with at least one draft revision to an AI‑use guideline they can adapt to their own context, along with reflection questions to discuss with students or colleagues.

Designed to be inclusive and discussion-centred, the session offers multiple ways to participate, including whole‑group conversation, small‑group dialogue, quiet individual reflection, and optional AI use. This flexible structure supports participants with different levels of AI familiarity and from varied disciplines, addresses “Bridging the gap” by tying concrete classroom decisions to broader pedagogical questions about AI, and addresses “Building foundations” by helping participants create practical, sustainable AI‑related curriculum and assessment guidelines.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Ben Dyson Faculty of Arts/Science, Dept. of Psychology — U of A

Analog games simulate environments, both concrete and abstract, real and imaginary, where players take on novel roles of agency and adopt shared rule sets to maximize outcomes through optimized decision-making (Dyson, Zhang & Na, 2024). Thus, games become an important experiential learning tool in STEM education and beyond (Larkin & Lowrie, 2023): children, students, adults and the elderly may have already indirectly played with specific concepts before directly learning about those concepts (Dyson, 2025).

Inspired by contemporary work on character immersion in analog games (Holland, 2024), I will provide an example of the way in which individuals can learn via game action through the use of a novel card game, Shape, themed specifically in reference to the University of Alberta’s Strategic Plan. In particular, the game involves completing projects worth a different number of ‘impact points’. Projects are completed by using cards representing ‘collaborators’ (where the card properties match some of the project requirements) and ‘innovators’ (where the card properties do not match any of the project requirements but allow for the recruitment of new cards). After briefly introducing the rules, all attendees will have the opportunity to play Shape: A Strategic Game. We will conclude by discussing how specific theming affects interacting with and learning from the game (Blessing, Sakosky & Engelstein, 2024), by considering a Shape variant set in the context of filming a Hollywood Monster B-movie. At the end of the session, the player who made the biggest impact wins!

Spark Talk 10 min

• Jennifer Quist Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A

Experiential research development projects, such as this infamous English 103 project known among students as "The Fire Side-quest," require first-year students new to the research process to integrate concepts and theory on research into their real-world practice as researchers through Cultural Studies methods of undertaking simple, focused tasks in person and in public.

These smaller projects develop a final capping project, inviting and making visible the humanity and creativity of the research process, and diminishing the possibility of the abuse of generative AI. The project's main objective is for students to encounter and understand research as an integrated, holistic way of seeing, being in, and affecting the world. Finished assignments are 3 to 4-minute videos with voiceover equivalent to 400-500 words posted publicly on YouTube, TikTok, or Instagram. Lavish video production values are not required. Students challenging themselves to advance their research by earnestly engaging with the task and their topic is required.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Namakula Rayyah Sempala School of Public Health (Community Engagement) — U of A

This session explores how immigrant and non-Indigenous youth can meaningfully engage with Indigenous youth in secondary school settings through decolonial, relational, and responsibility-based approaches to learning. Grounded in Indigenous resurgence theory, anti-racist education, and community-based research, the session examines how dominant narratives of multiculturalism often obscure Indigenous sovereignty and inadvertently reproduce colonial harm. Using Edmonton (Amiskwaciy-wâskahikan) high schools as a case context, the session highlights how classrooms can become “third spaces” where youth critically examine identity, belonging, and shared responsibility for reconciliation.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Elsie Rebecca Osei Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, Dept. of Human Ecology — U of A
• Megan Strickfaden Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, Dept. of Human Ecology — U of A

This session explores a transformative university-community partnership in which Human Ecology students collaborated with artists from the Nina Haggerty Centre for the Arts and Chrysalis, an Alberta Society for People with Disabilities, on a creative hacking project. We move beyond traditional service-learning models to examine a partnership built on mutual expertise, where disabled artists were co-designers and drivers of the creative-technological process. We'll discuss how this collaboration reshaped pedagogy, enriched student learning, and challenged assumptions about ability and innovation.

We will begin with a brief, guided collective vulnerability exercise to briefly surface the emotional and cognitive experience of encountering inaccessible systems, a foundational empathy for the session's theme. Following the presentation, a structured group discussion will be facilitated, prompting participants to identify one barrier in their own context and one actionable "hack" to begin dismantling it. The space will be one of shared reflection, where community wisdom, student experience, and pedagogical insight hold equal value.

The session aims to: (1) Demonstrate a framework for equitable, asset-based community partnerships that center community voice; (2) Provide concrete strategies for educators to design courses where collaboration is the curriculum, leading to transformative learning for all parties, and; (3) Inspire participants to re-imagine their own teaching and learning spaces through the lens of meaningful inclusion and co-creation.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Gabriela Abbud Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A
• Mark Hall Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A
• Crystal MacLellan Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A
• Daniel Gillespie Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A
• Michelle Barnes Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A

Clinical skills practice, role-play, and case discussions are core active teaching methods in the MScPT program. While effective for many conditions, these approaches may be limited in teaching about the complex cognitive and behavioural presentations in dementia [1]. This limitation was highlighted in a SPOT comment:

“Many of the seminars required us to role-play about conditions we were not familiar interacting with... This felt weird and was not helpful. (example: we were asked to role-play portraying patients with dementia without having any previous experience, not only was this not helpful for me to learn how to interact with patients who have dementia but it felt offensive).”

This feedback prompted exploration of alternative approaches to better support learning and clinical empathy [2]. Following a literature review, the course instructor identified the Virtual Dementia Tour [3] (VDT) as a feasible experiential learning activity for the Aging in Physical Therapy course. With support from a TLEF award [4], instructors completed training and implemented the activity using a revised Kolb’s experiential learning framework [5].

Students from three campuses (Edmonton, Calgary, and Augustana; n=122) completed the VDT, followed by individual reflection and group debriefing. Feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with 97% reporting increased understanding of dementia-related impairments and 87% reporting improved readiness to adapt future practice. Students reported enhanced empathy and awareness of the importance of clear, multimodal communication, environmental awareness, empathy and holistic support.

Up to 10 attendees will be invited to participate in a shortened VDT experience. The remainder of the audience will be given a behaviour observation checklist, which will inform the debrief and contribute to the learning objectives.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Shuai Yu Faculty of Engineering, Experiential and Professional Education — U of A
• Vincent McFarlane Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering — U of A

Large university courses often struggle with low participation and engagement, particularly in non-mandatory seminars. While gamification has increasingly been incorporated into education to enhance classroom dynamics and student engagement, empirical research on gamified learning in Canadian higher education remains relatively limited (Rodrigue, 2020). This session shares findings from a mixed-methods case study examining the use of Kahoot! as a gamified learning tool in a large undergraduate engineering course at the University of Alberta. Kahoot! quizzes were intentionally designed to emphasize theory- and concept-based questions, addressing a common challenge in engineering education where students focus on the application of equations without fully understanding underlying principles.

Survey data from two cohorts and in-depth student interviews were used to explore how gamified quizzes can enhance student engagement and participation, reinforce conceptual understanding, and support learning through peer collaboration, repetition, immediate feedback, and conceptually focused questions. Findings are discussed through the lens of the Theory of Gamified Learning (Landers, 2014) and Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001), with particular attention to how gamification can strengthen both behavioural (motivation, attendance, engagement) and cognitive (conceptual understanding) dimensions of learning.

The session will include interactive components throughout. Live polling (e.g., Slido or Mentimeter) will allow participants to share their experiences with gamification in teaching, and a brief Kahoot! activity will be used to review key ideas and prompt discussion about adapting gamification strategies to support learning in their teaching contexts. The session aims to provide practical takeaways that participants can apply in their own teaching practice.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Sherif Elbarrad Faculty of Management — Concordia University of Edmonton
• Yasser Ali

This session introduces the idea of living educational content and presents a faculty-led, platform-delivered approach to course materials and assessment. Living content is described not only as an evolving eBook, but also as a continuously growing test bank that accepts ongoing contributions from faculty. In this model, instructors can add, refine, and share questions over time, while linking content directly to cases, game-based activities, Excel-based assignments and other question types. The session demonstrates how these tools work together to support applied learning, skills development, and timely feedback, without relying on traditional publisher textbooks.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Luiza Guimaraes Centre for Teaching and Learning — MacEwan University
• Kalyani Thurairajah Faculty of Arts and Science, Dept. of Sociology — MacEwan University

Transformative learning experiences are rarely possible in higher education without reflective instructors who remain open to growing and being transformed themselves. While most universities offer teaching support to junior faculty, limited support is available for mid-career faculty as they face evolving expectations and new opportunities and challenges (Baldwin, Lunceford & Vanderlinden, 2005). This session presents how a faculty development program empowered experienced instructors to gain new perspectives on what constitutes teaching excellence and inspired them to create new pathways for growth and impact. Through group training and one-on-one coaching sessions, the program offered a space for tenured faculty to reflect on how they conceptualize teaching excellence and to articulate the steps they need to take to achieve these teaching goals. Instructors who participated in the program reported gaining agency and feeling more hopeful about the future and more confident in their ability to contribute at higher levels.

Our session begins with a brief exploration of existing literature on the development of mid-career faculty. Next, we explain our decisions regarding program development and design, and we present evaluation data on our offerings, highlighting key lessons learned along the way. Then, we facilitate an activity where participants discuss the benefits and challenges of investing in the development of mid-career faculty and consider additional pathways to promote the growth of experienced instructors.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Laura Woodman Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences — U of A

One common discourse surrounding postsecondary education is that students are not just there to learn, but to gain valuable life skills and opportunities to help them succeed. While institutes like the University of Alberta have launched many initiatives to enhance wellbeing, including mental health and wellness supports, busy students can lack the time or motivation to attend. Further, courses with challenging material may expect students to emotionally disconnect and maintain an objective, analytic focus, separating the head from the heart and perpetuating the cycle of disconnect.

Drawing on Indigenous worldviews of health and balance, this session shares the experience of one instructor incorporating self-care activities into classes of 20 to 60 students. The intent of this session is to demonstrate ways to purposefully include self-care during challenging classes, which can create a classroom environment that fosters wellness, collaboration, and community. Participants are invited into a space for shared learning and reciprocal engagement as we discuss ways to incorporate self-care that go beyond mentioning campus resources and asking students to create a self-care plan, and enter a conversation on how to meaningfully implement self-care to enhance student wellbeing in their personal, academic, and later professional lives. During our time together, participants are invited to engage in an arts-based self-care activity as the session unfolds, offering an opportunity to join head, heart, and hands within an academic space.

Panel 60 min

• Abigail Gallimore Faculty of Education — U of A
• Melissa Tremblay Faculty of Education — U of A
• Rebecca Gokiert School of Public Health — U of A
• Elliott Young School of Public Health — U of A
• Mariam Busari Faculty of Education — U of A

Centering the ways of knowing and lived experiences of marginalized students enhances collective understanding and can cultivate deeper, more reciprocal relationships within learning environments (Harry et al., 2024). This is one of the reasons the Evaluation Capacity Network (ECN) intentionally brought together a community of practice for members from equity-deserving communities. Drawing on experiences from participants in the ECN’s Decolonial Evaluation Emerging Scholars Fellowship and its supervisory team, this session highlights learning that emerged from the development of a community of practice, engagement in a decolonial evaluation webinar series, and participation in small, relational community-building workshops. We will share how these experiences illustrate how decolonial approaches can be meaningfully integrated into a community learning environment that encourages responsible, reflective evaluation practice.

The session has two primary aims. First, we will share insights into the intentional and reflective steps taken to cultivate an inclusive, informed, and supportive community of practice for students. Second, the session invites conversation with attendees to explore challenges and possibilities for growth in creating inclusive and sustainable spaces for dialogue with equity-deserving communities.

Although structured as a panel, the session will be facilitated as a conversation circle to emphasize shared learning, reciprocity, and collective meaning-making. This format prioritizes relational engagement and honours the lived knowledge of all attendees. By centering multiple ways of knowing and intentionally creating space for reflection, the session aims to ensure that all insights are welcomed, respected, and meaningfully included.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Max Quilliam Museums, Mactaggart Art Collection — U of A
• Jill Horbay Museums, Museum Programs and Outreach — U of A

Midday Musings is a program created by the University of Alberta Museums that invites university faculty and staff to connect with museum collections through lunch hour activity sessions. This program uses object-based learning and activities to create a space that prioritizes hands-on engagement and mindfulness for participants.

This talk will reflect on the first year of the Midday Musings program, sharing our successes, areas for improvement, and efforts to be responsive to our participants as we continue to shape the program. In particular, we will discuss the use of object-based learning as a starting point for program design, as well as the mental and social well-being benefits that we have seen as a result of using this programming model.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Elizabeth McGinitie Augustana Faculty — U of A
• David King Augustana Faculty — U of A

Like many chemistry programs nationwide, at the University of Alberta’s Augustana Campus, we have historically relied on a theoretical approach to lab safety training for our undergraduate chemistry students. What this has meant is that our students have been trained on how to respond to lab accidents and how to use the various safety equipment present in the lab space by completing online training modules developed by the University of Alberta. However, we pose the question: Is theoretical lab safety training on its own enough to properly equip students with the skills that they need to safely and confidently respond to accidents when they do inevitably occur in the lab space?

In this presentation, we will discuss a first-of-its-kind, hands-on chemistry lab safety training session that was developed at Augustana for senior undergraduate chemistry students. We will also present faculty, staff and student perspectives on this new approach to chemistry lab safety training with the aim of engaging all session participants in conversations regarding the benefits, challenges and limitations of both hands-on learning and theoretical learning.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Gregory Thomas Faculty of Education — U of A

Metacognition refers to an individual's knowledge, control, and awareness of their thinking and learning strategies. The development of students’ metacognition is consistent with core educational goals in higher education, such as developing students’ self-regulation and their growth mindset. However, embedding for instruction for metacognition can prove difficult. Practical, time-efficient means of doing so are difficult to locate in the literature. Bridging the gap between theory and practice in higher education regarding metacognition can be challenging. This SPARK talk outlines one, time-efficient, adaptable, and comprehensible way to embed instruction that aims to develop and enhance students’ metacognition across subject areas. It involves explicitly directing students’ attention to the thinking their instructors, as subject experts and expert learners, engage in when interacting with them. Practical examples will be provided.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Allison Fieldberg Faculty of Law, Experiential Learning Program — U of A

Experiential learning in professional programs depends not only on innovative pedagogy, but on the quality of partnerships among educators, students, and external communities. In law, these partnerships must operate within complex ethical, regulatory, and professional constraints. This SPARK Talk shares examples of experiential learning from the Faculty of Law, where a faculty-wide experiential learning ecosystem has been developed to integrate clinics, externships, professional shadowing, and embedded course-based experiences through a common design and risk-management framework.

Grounded in experiential learning theory and design-based research, this work treats experiential learning not as a curriculum add-on, but as an intentionally designed learning opportunity. Faculty, community partners, and students are engaged in co-design processes that align pedagogical goals, professional obligations, and student readiness. Iterative cycles of prototyping, feedback, and refinement are used to improve learning quality, expand access, and strengthen partner confidence in working with students.

The talk will highlight the intended outcomes of this approach, what is actually happening in practice, and what we are learning along the way, including the invisible labour of coordination, compatibilities between academic and professional timelines, and the role of risk management as both an enabler and a constraint on innovation.

Participants will leave with practical insights into how collaborative, theory-informed design can support sustainable, innovative, and high-impact experiential learning across institutional and community boundaries.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Trudy Cardinal Faculty of Education, Elementary Education — U of A
• Brittany Ouellette Faculty of Education, Special Education — U of A

This session explores creative, relational, and culturally grounded approaches to assessment in post‑secondary learning spaces, drawing on an autobiographical narrative inquiry conducted within the Aboriginal Teacher Education Program (ATEP). Centred on the assignment Creative Unmapping of Expression from EDPY 301: Introduction to Inclusive Education, the session examines how visual storytelling, process‑based reflection, and collaborative meaning‑making can honour learners’ gifts and unsettle dominant Western assessment norms. Through images, annals, and narrative field texts, the session traces how pre‑service teachers engaged with layered, story‑based representations of learning that foreground land, relationship, and lived experience. Attending to the ATEP Guiding Values of wîcihitowin (sharing); mâmahwohkamâtowin (working cooperatively); and manâtisiwin ekwa manâhcihitowin (respect and respect for each other), full permission was requested and granted to compose this manuscript and conference proposal by Dr. Evenlyn Steinhauer, ATEP Director, Dean of Indigenous Education at the University of Alberta.

Creating a space for shared learning and meaningful inclusion, the session will model the very practices it describes. Participants will be invited into relational engagement through guided reflection, small‑group conversation, and opportunities to think with images and stories. The facilitation will emphasize reciprocity, respect for diverse experiences, and an openness to multiple forms of expression. Rather than positioning participants as passive recipients, the session will cultivate a collaborative learning environment where knowledge emerges through dialogue, story, and collective wondering. This approach honours the relational ethics at the heart of Indigenous pedagogies and supports participants in imagining more inclusive, life‑giving assessment practices in their own contexts.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Nour Armoush Faculty of Education, Measurement, Evaluation, and Data Science — U of A
• Geoff Bostick Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A

Developing high-quality educational assessment items can be a challenging and time-consuming task (Haladyna, 2022; Vanderbilt et al., 2013). Recent work suggests that instruction-tuned large language models (LLMs) can support experts during the item development process (Kıyak & Emekli, 2024).

This interactive session explores how instructors can leverage LLMs in developing items for educational assessment. Participants will learn how different LLMs (e.g., ChatGPT and Gemini-style models) and prompting techniques can generate questions aligned with course learning outcomes, going step-by-step through the process of prompt development, item generation and revision.

Through a short presentation, live demonstration and hands-on activities, participants will learn the advantages and challenges of using LLMs for item generation. Participants will leave with increased confidence in using LLMs for assessment development, along with practical strategies and a manual for generating items using current models.

To participate in this session's learning activities, please come prepared with the following to help provide the AI tool with the necessary context:

• Any learning outcomes or objectives for which you would like to develop question items.

• One sample question item (one of your best) to serve as a reference.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Nour Armoush Faculty of Education, Measurement, Evaluation, and Data Science — U of A
• Geoff Bostick Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Physical Therapy — U of A

Instruction-tuned LLMs can support the quick generation of large quantities of educational assessment items (Indran et al., 2024). However, these generated items frequently contain quality issues and require review and revision before being used in the classroom (Wu et al., 2025).

This session introduces participants to current methods and best practices for evaluating generated test items. We will demonstrate multiple evaluation approaches, including automated techniques and expert-based review processes, and discuss the advantages and challenges of the different approaches. Finally, we will provide recommendations and strategies for storing and organizing items.

Following a hands-on demonstration of item evaluation tools and strategies, participants will evaluate items through guided activities. After testing multiple evaluation approaches, participants will leave with a greater understanding of the common challenges and limitations in using LLM-generated items.

To participate in this session's learning activities:

• If you also registered for session Item Generation (Part 1): Please bring the question items you generated for evaluation.

• If you are joining us for this session only: Examples of AI-generated items will be provided so you can participate fully in the evaluation process.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Brian Rempel Faculty of Augustana, Sciences — U of A
• Amy Kabrhel College of Science, Chemistry — University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
• Elizabeth McGinitie Faculty of Augustana, Sciences — U of A

Sometimes, simple things like calculating students’ final grades in a course can be surprisingly troublesome. Some students show what they have learned very well on the final exam, but others might perform better in other course elements. Can we create an equitable grading scheme that lets students show their knowledge in different ways using the course assessments we already have?

We recently experimented with Fluid Grading Schemes. In our course syllabi, we outline multiple possibilities for each student’s course grade by variably weighting individual course components. In the first variation we have tried, the highest possibility is automatically selected as the student’s final course grade. In the second variation, students select the scheme they feel best matches their abilities. Details of implementation shall be presented, along with an analysis of the variation among different schemes and the overall impact on letter grade distributions. The course instructors shall also present their reflections on the benefits and drawbacks of this approach, rooted in principles of learning, as well as how fluid grading schemes are an equity-affirming practice. Participants will be invited to draft a fluid grading scheme for an existing course.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Torrey Dance Faculty of Engineering, Experiential and Professional Education — U of A
• Ania Ulrich Faculty of Engineering, Experiential and Professional Education / Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering — U of A

In Fall 2025, INT D 209: Designing Your Life was launched at the University of Alberta, an interdisciplinary elective adapted from the popular Stanford University framework. The course applies design-thinking skills and mindsets to help students navigate their personal and professional futures, prioritizing experiential learning through mini-lectures, in- and out-of-classroom activities, group discussions, and peer coaching.

In this 30-minute fireside chat, the teaching team will share their "on the ground" reflections on the successes and "wicked problems" encountered during the inaugural term, which included approximately 40 students from various faculties around the institution. The team will also highlight how the course attempts to cultivate transferable skills—such as empathy, active listening, and critical reflection—while wrestling with the challenges of generative AI and addressing the growing need for students to manage career-related anxiety.

The session will begin with a brief overview of the course, including the development process, followed by a semi-structured dialogue between the two members of the teaching team, exploring: (1) The Interdisciplinary Bridge: How we navigated diverse perspectives to create a cohesive classroom experience; (2) The Power of Prototyping: Reflecting on the use of prototyping during the development process, as well as how students engaged with "Odyssey Planning" and real-world prototyping conversations; and (3) The Instructor’s Journey: Sharing the challenges of facilitating ambiguity and the vulnerability required to teach life-design.

This session will include an open-floor Q&A. We will invite attendees to share their own experiences with experiential learning and discuss how student agency and resilience can be fostered through experiential learning and innovative curriculum design.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Matt Kingston Alberta School of Business, Dept. of Strategy, Entrepreneurship and Management — U of A

Our course teaches systems mapping and how to apply that skill to grand challenges such as climate change. A game called Climate Fresk has been developed based on the UN IPCC as an 8-person card game, designed to show players the interconnectivity between society and climate change, highlighting outcomes such as conflict, disease, famine, and other events that folks may not necessarily realize are connected to human activities and the climate system. Climate Fresk is a wonderful game that unveils the impacts and connections between climate and society over the course of 5 rounds, but it is difficult to scale. I took the Climate Fresk game and attempted to deploy it in a 500-person hiflex lecture (being both in person and online at the same time) about systems mapping, over the course of two days. I learned many things, including how to fail and how to make it work better next time. The purpose of this experiment was to see if a topic such as climate change could be integrated into a skill such as systems mapping, and if, by performing this skill, students would better understand this topic. This topic was then brought back at the end of each round to highlight the actual impacts on business, tying back to the theme of the course: Business and Society.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Roula Salam Faculty of Education, English Language School — U of A

In this adventurous and fun session, we will work together to examine how peer feedback works as a decolonizing teaching practice in graduate writing classrooms that include students from diverse disciplinary, linguistic, and cultural backgrounds. Rather than treating academic writing as "this is how we must all write to do well in our program", this session frames writing and feedback as socially situated practices shaped by disciplinary traditions, power relations, and knowledge hierarchies. Participants will consider some of the challenges international graduate students may face when writing, such as navigating dominant writing norms, giving and receiving feedback across cultural contexts, and negotiating expectations around clarity, argumentation, and authority.

Throughout the session, my aim is to help support participants in developing practical, adaptable strategies for designing peer feedback activities that promote critical thinking, dialogue, and mutual learning. Through guided peer-review exercises, collaborative analysis of language and authorial voice, and structured discussion, together we will explore ways to foster reciprocity, care, and shared authority in graduate writing classrooms.

To support active engagement (read: make it fun!), the session will incorporate an activity in which participants collaboratively design or revise peer feedback frameworks as they work in small groups with prompts and scenarios drawn from diverse disciplines and cultural contexts. We will experiment with feedback approaches that question dominant academic norms and make room for multiple ways of writing and knowing. This teaching approach emphasizes collective problem-solving and positions participants as co-designers of inclusive feedback practices, creating a space for shared learning, dialogue, and meaningful inclusion.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Tian Tian Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Chemical and Materials Engineering — U of A

This SPARK talk shares my recent experiences designing course materials for two highly theoretical engineering courses—Mass Transfer and Kinetics of Materials—using browser-first interactive course materials and generative AI support. I explore how tools such as marimo, developed with AI acting as a coding and design agent, can transform traditionally abstract, equation-heavy content into interactive, accessible learning experiences that better connect theory with practice. These modules emphasize interactivity in conventional engineering plots, calculations, and simulations, while remaining fully browser-based and requiring no additional setup, allowing students to engage with the same materials consistently in and out of class. I will briefly discuss how these interactive elements were incorporated into assignments to support exploratory learning, as well as early efforts to create an AI learning companion using Gemini Gems to support student understanding beyond the classroom. The session reflects a personal teaching journey toward creating equitable, low-barrier, and versatile learning materials that help students stay conceptually aligned across lectures, independent study, and assessment, while offering transferable ideas for teaching theory-intensive courses across disciplines.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Thomas Barker Faculty of Arts​, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A
• Shahin Moghaddasi Sarabi Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A

In this session, we take a closer look at why so many students reach for generative AI, not as a shortcut, but as a way to manage the pressure of “sounding academic.” Our recent work (Barker and Sarabi, 2026) shows that students often feel torn between what they can learn through practice (content, methods, structure) and what feels much harder to grasp: voice, confidence, cultural fluency, and the sense of belonging that knower-code disciplines reward. For many, AI becomes a tool for fitting into expectations they don’t fully understand or feel they can meet. Instead of approaching AI use as a policing issue, we invite participants to explore it as a window into the identity work students are already doing in our classrooms.

Our goal is simple: to think together about small, doable teaching moves that lower assimilation pressure, make expectations more transparent, and help students develop an authentic academic identity, one that doesn’t depend on AI to feel “good enough.” We’ll share discipline-specific examples that ask participants to draw on their own experiences, observations, and judgment—assignments that support real learning and that AI can’t easily replace.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Rebecca Gokiert School of Public Health — U of A
• Sophie Wood School of Public Health — U of A
• Marian (Ayan) Caterial Sanchez School of Public Health — U of A
• Marieliv Flores Villalobos School of Public Health — U of A
• Umaira Behzad School of Public Health — U of A

Since its launch in 2023, SPH 563: Evaluation in Public Health Practice has evolved into a cornerstone of the University of Alberta's Master of Public Health program, demonstrating a transformative pedagogical model that bridges academic theory and real-world application.

Adapted from a successful spring intensive model, SPH 563 utilizes case-based experiential learning to immerse students in the complexities of evaluative thinking. The strength of the course lies in its reciprocal relationship with the public health sector: we establish the classroom as a site of community-campus collaboration, support the co-creation of evaluation plans, and, in turn, provide meaningful capacity to our partners. Through sharing their evaluation contexts, priorities, and practice wisdom, community partners serve as co-educators, grounding student learning in real-world evaluation challenges such as needs assessments, evaluation design, and impact monitoring that align with Canadian Evaluation Society competencies. To date, we have collaborated with 41 community organizations and approximately 250 learners.

This session will showcase our pedagogical model that centres on fostering sustainable community partnerships and integration of diverse "ways of knowing” (including Indigenous and arts-informed approaches) into evaluative design. Furthermore, we will highlight our collaborative instructional model, which engages Teaching Assistants, Postdoctoral Fellows, and past learners. Attendees will gain insights into how experiential frameworks can be scaled to meet professional competencies while fostering a sense of belonging and agency among students. By sharing our successes and challenges from the past three years, we invite a dialogue on how to turn the classroom into a vibrant hub for community-driven innovation.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Roger Moore Faculty of Education, Dept. of Elementary Education — U of A

Step into a fast-paced, hands-on builder space where ideas become visible, testable, and shareable. In this rapid cycle of building, seeing, and refining, participants prototype a solution to a real teaching challenge from their own course. Through visible thinking, collaborative feedback, and low-stakes experimentation, attendees experience how making accelerates clarity, creativity, and problem-solving.

The session is intentionally designed for inclusion and belonging: participants choose their own challenge, work with accessible materials, and engage in structured peer exchange that honours diverse perspectives and teaching contexts. You will leave with a ready-to-use Builder-Space Template and a concrete next step for your course.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Nancy Bray Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A
• Christina Grant Faculty of Education, English Language School — U of A
• Andreas Hamann Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, Dept. of Renewable Resources — U of A
• Shahin Moghaddasi Sarabi Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A
• M. Elizabeth (Betsy) Sargent Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A
• Shereen Seoudi Online and Continuing Education, Online Learning — U of A

The introduction of Generative AI tools has profoundly changed how we understand the act of writing, particularly for our students. Our research project–the Writing Strategies Inventory (WSI)–investigates how students’ writing knowledge shifts as Generative AI becomes part of their writing toolbox. In our session, we will present early results from our study and explore the pedagogical implications of these early results.

Students in a large, asynchronous writing course offered in Fall 2025 completed the Writing Strategies Inventory survey, which asked them to assess their knowledge related to writing. The survey asks students questions like “Can you write quickly and effectively under pressure, as on an essay exam?” and “Can you make your sentences make sense to readers most of the time?” Ten questions on the survey asked students questions specifically related to their understanding and use of Generative AI for writing. Students complete the survey twice: once at the beginning of the term and again at the end of the term, so that we can identify changes in students’ knowledge about writing over the semester.

During our interactive session, the session participants will respond to the 10 WSI questions related to Generative AI and writing using polling software. We will compare the session participants’ responses with those of the students in the Fall 2025 class, and together with the session participants, we will brainstorm how our students’ responses to the WSI might change how we approach the use of AI in writing classrooms.

Panel 60 min

• Michael Litwack Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A
• Judith Garber Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Political Science — U of A
• Asher (Robert) Kirchner Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Linguistics (retired) — U of A
• Sara Carpenter Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Educational Policy Studies — U of A
• Dorothy Woodman Faculty of Arts, Dept. of English and Film Studies — U of A

This panel—informed by anti-Zionist, decolonial, and antiracist pedagogies—will identify and work through some difficulties faced by instructors who fear classroom conversations about antisemitism. By introducing anticolonial and intersectional strategies applicable in our current moment, this session will help situate antisemitism in a longer history of race and racism in the modern world.

While universities and governments in Canada increasingly default to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of antisemitism, this panel will explain why this at once overly broad and overly vague definition actually impedes critical thinking and productive classroom discussions. Specifically, we suggest that instructors can most effectively oppose anti-Jewish and other racist hatred by not getting hung up on agreeing on how to define antisemitism. Each panellist will offer a critical lens for teaching about antisemitism in relation to historical and contemporary formations of race and settler colonialism, as well as provide pedagogical strategies for navigating difficult conversations with students who hold diverse political commitments. In the process, this panel will show why the best way to address and redress antisemitism is to simultaneously foreground and combat other forms of racism, including anti-Palestinian racism.

Through brief presentations and facilitated discussion, this session will ultimately provide attendees with historical and pedagogical knowledge necessary for thinking and talking responsibly about antisemitism, racism, and settler colonialism in the classroom, especially during times of genocide.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Barbara Edmondson Faculty of Education, English Language School — U of A
• Zuzana Buchanan Faculty of Education, English Language School — U of A

This choose-your-own-adventure presentation will demonstrate how instructors can use NotebookLM to coach student autonomy, support active engagement and build student buy-in in culturally and linguistically diverse university classrooms. Through guided examples and interactive modelling, the presenters will show how digital tools, combined with inclusive teaching practices, can support intrinsic motivation and meaningful participation, particularly for international and English as an Additional Language (EAL) students. The presenters envision balanced interaction of human qualities with the AI supportive technology to meaningfully connect students with classroom content.

The session will highlight awareness and inclusivity as foundations for engagement across disciplines. Presenters will discuss practical strategies for acknowledging the cultural and linguistic diversity present in the classroom, including low-stakes polls, needs assessments, and activities that normalize multilingualism. These approaches will be framed as ways to create a respectful learning environment where students feel comfortable participating and taking ownership of their learning. Embracing effective intercultural communication strategies will be emphasized as a key element of learner autonomy.

The presentation will then focus on inclusive instructional practices that lower participation barriers and increase motivation and confidence. NotebookLM will be used to model reflective questioning and to provide accessible materials such as language glossaries and visual supports. Overall, the presentation will demonstrate that small, intentional adjustments—supported by tools such as NotebookLM—can significantly enhance student engagement, autonomy, and intrinsic motivation without requiring major curricular change.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Sherry Ann Chapman Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences, Dept. of Human Ecology — U of A

In June 2025, while preparing to teach a familiar, blended course, I set two goals: To shift from eClass to Canvas and to check the assignment design based on the degree to which generative AI is part of everyday life. A cascade of design decisions led to unanticipated classroom rapport and student-instructor enthusiasm about the format of the final assignment. Aligning with two festival threads: “Building foundations” and “Dreaming big,” I will speak to the place of handwriting in a course and opportunities in an “unboxing video” as the synthesizing stage of a multi-step major project.

HECOL 100 (“Introduction to Principles & Practice in Human Ecology”) is a flipped course (Canvas; in-person). By the end of HECOL 100, students should be able to: (a) define human ecology and (b) describe systems thinking for studying everyday life and for helping individuals, families, communities, and Earth in ecologically conscious ways. In Fall 2025, through preparation, in-class experiences, and reflective learning, students familiarized themselves with and applied course content through handwritten “Preliminary Plans” and “Scripts” to create their “Unboxing Videos.” If students chose to use GenAI, they were expected to cite it as a source and complete an Artificial Intelligence Disclosure (AID) checklist. By December, I marvelled at the effects of inviting students to pull out pens and notebooks (and put away digital devices); in class, we had eye contact! We felt connected enough to share ‘aha’ moments! The “Unboxing Video” resonated with students as a meaningful way to show their learning!

Spark Talk 10 min

• Bonita Bohnet Faculty of Native Studies / Community Service Learning — U of A
• Jay Friesen Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Community Service Learning — U of A

Walls to Bridges (W2B) is a post-secondary education model that brings incarcerated (“Inside”) and non-incarcerated (“Outside”) students together to take university courses inside correctional institutions. Rather than separating learners by status or background, W2B courses are built around shared inquiry, dialogue, and collective responsibility, with learning emerging through relationship rather than hierarchy.

This session reflects on a specific W2B course, CSL 370/550: From Communities of Convenience to Communities of Care, which takes the model seriously at the level of everyday interaction. The course begins from the premise that communities do not start fully formed. They begin with small, provisional moments: conversation, humour, shared curiosity, and routine collaboration. Over time, and through repeated return, those moments can deepen into something more durable.

Graduate student instructors and a teaching assistant held the structure of the course, while Inside students and Outside undergraduate students shaped its meaning through discussion, writing, and shared planning. Assignments were designed less as individual performances and more as shared occasions, including a collaboratively produced prison newsletter. Planning the end-of-term celebration became a collective project that required negotiation, care, and trust across roles.

In this talk, we reflect on how a learning community took shape through these everyday interactions and how shared projects helped moments of convenience grow into practices of care. The session brings together organizers, instructors, graduate students, and participants to discuss what it meant to build community together, how responsibilities were shared, and how the course theme was realized through the act of gathering and celebrating together.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Ida John Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pediatrics — U of A
• Marghalara Rashid Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pediatrics — U of A

Gender and racial discrimination continue to remain prevalent in occupational settings, including healthcare, with many physicians reporting experiences of lack of institutional support, misidentification of their role and patients refusing care [1,2]. Residents hold a unique position within the healthcare system, serving simultaneously as trainees and practitioners who deliver patient care under supervision. Despite this unique role, existing literature has focused primarily on physician experiences, creating a notable knowledge gap regarding the perspectives and specific challenges faced by residents. Consequently, this project aimed to explore the intersectional impact of gender and racial discrimination on the experiences of residents during their residency program. Transcendental phenomenology was used to conduct this study, which aims to describe phenomena as how participants have experienced them by focusing on what and how it was experienced. Data was collected through one-on-one semi-structured interviews with participants, and then transcribed and analyzed using the Stevick-Colaizzi-Keen method as outlined in Moustakas’ book [3]. Our data revealed four themes: (1) Different forms of racism and its impact on residents; (2) Impact of intersecting relations; (3) Response from staff/leadership regarding discrimination; and (4) Impact of visible minority status on reaching leadership positions.

The goal of this session will be to raise awareness and promote strategies that could strengthen access, community and belonging within residency programs. A part of this session will allow attendees to share their experiences and allow for discussion regarding strategies they follow to ensure they are providing inclusive environments for their trainees.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Lisa Prins Faculty of Arts, Dept. of Women and Gender Studies / Adult and Community Education— U of A
• Allison Sivak Libraries and Museums — U of A

A strengths-based, collaborative, hands-on session that highlights the complexity of each of our lives and work. We will showcase several ways we foster generosity and care in a classroom, allowing complexity and celebrating the messiness of learning.

Welcoming and belonging is to allow someone to be a full person with complications and conflict – which is also difficult as we try to make change in the world. Community isn't a checklist of best behaviours where we speak and behave perfectly – community is a place where people can be their 3-dimensional selves.

Panel 60 min

• Tim Konoval Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry — U of A
• Ken Cor Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences — U of A
• Mark Hall Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine — U of A
• Rojin Adabdokht Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry — U of A
• Fatima Mraiche Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry — U of A
• Taniya Nagpal Faculty of Kinesiology, Sport, and Recreation — U of A

This interactive panel discussion brings together health educators from pharmacy, physiotherapy, kinesiology, and interprofessional health sciences to share authentic learning experiences that strategically integrate generative AI tools into professional training. Panellists will present diverse case examples, including using ChatGPT to answer drug information questions about transdermal patches, employing AI tools to synthesize clinical research for evidence-based practice, fostering interprofessional collaboration through AI coaching, and challenging students to critically evaluate AI's impact on health literacy.

The session aims to demonstrate practical strategies for embedding generative AI into health curricula while maintaining academic rigour and professional standards. Attendees will gain insights into designing learning activities that develop both discipline-specific competencies and AI literacy, understand approaches to teaching safe and effective AI use, and explore preliminary research findings showing significant improvements in student self-efficacy and critical evaluation skills.

We will create an inclusive learning environment through structured panel presentations followed by facilitated Q&A that encourages diverse perspectives on AI integration challenges and successes. Discussions will enable participants to reflect on applications within their own teaching contexts, while shared polling will draw out common concerns and innovative ideas from the audience. This collaborative approach honours varied levels of AI familiarity and teaching experience, creating space for both skepticism and enthusiasm about AI's role in health professional education.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Sofia Elgueta Duplancic Faculty of Education, English Language School — U of A

Generative AI is no longer a future possibility—it is already shaping how students read, write, translate, and revise their work. At the English Language School, we see students using AI in ways that are sometimes effective, but often prevent them from developing essential language skills. Many instructors respond by banning AI or designing “AI-proof” tasks, but we have chosen a different path. We have created customized Writing Coaches that show students how to use AI as a companion for learning—ethically, pedagogically, and in alignment with institutional values.

This SPARK Talk shares how a series of custom AI Writing Coaches were designed and implemented across multiple English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and Interdisciplinary (INT D) courses at the University of Alberta’s English Language School.

Rather than using AI to generate content, the Writing Coaches were intentionally designed as formative feedback tools aligned with course rubrics, CLB-informed language expectations, and academic integrity principles. They provide targeted, in-line feedback using established error-correction conventions, prioritize high-impact language issues, and encourage student revision and reflection. Ethical design choices — including transparency, data privacy guidance, and alignment with University of Alberta policies — were embedded from the start.

The talk will briefly outline the design approach, share key lessons from student and instructor feedback, and highlight what worked, what did not, and what we are changing. Participants will leave with practical ideas for using AI to complement teaching, rather than replace it.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Melissa Tremblay Faculty of Education, School and Clinical Child Psychology Program — U of A
• Gwendolyn Villebrun Faculty of Education, Counselling Psychology Program — U of A

In this session, we share insights from the co-development and co-instruction of Indigenous Approaches to Mental Health and Wellness (EDPY 597), a graduate-level course in professional psychology grounded in Indigenous pedagogies and relational teaching.

Developed and taught by two Indigenous faculty members and registered psychologists, the course challenged conventional Euro-Western models of graduate education by centering relationality, ceremony, critical self-reflexivity, and community-engaged learning. Students participated in immersive experiences with Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and community members, alongside structured opportunities for reflection on colonial histories, cultural safety, and professional identity.

As presenters, we will draw on our experiences as co-instructors and those of students, gathered through course surveys and post-course interviews. Through this session, we will invite participants to reflect on what it means to teach with Indigenous knowledge rather than merely about it. We will explore the ways in which we embedded Indigenous pedagogies into our graduate professional programs in ways that prioritized ethical, relational practices while also attending to instructor vulnerability, institutional constraints, and the labour of reconciliation-focused teaching.

Participants will leave with concrete examples, reflective prompts, and questions that can inform their own teaching across disciplines.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Myron Zwozdesky Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A
• Ramana Vaka Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A
• Thaisa Sandini Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A

The Department of Pharmacology has developed a scalable website suite of apps ("The PMCOLympics") that provides students with study questions to enhance their engagement with lecture slide content and course achievement. This session will demonstrate that suite of apps from the perspective of a course coordinator (i.e. building the games) and student (i.e. playing the games). We will upload PDF lecture slides and briefly play AI-generated Q&A-style, crossword, hangman or Wheel of Fortune-style (called Wheel of Jubilation) games.

The goal of this session is to successfully engage audience members in a multiplayer round of Q&A or Wheel of Jubilation. The second goal will be to discuss the utility of this type of platform in didactic undergraduate courses as they relate to Festival Threads, including:

• Dreaming big - Envisioning the use of AI for teaching in undergraduate education. Can educators provide students with effective self-directed learning activities en masse?
• Bridging the gap - Recognizing educators as agents for empowering academic journeys of students. Is there a link between course design, instructional approach and instilling confidence in all types of learners?
• Access, community and belonging - Give students a way to discuss the course outside of studying. Would students discuss their performance on the website outside of class?
• Collaborating for change - Let’s start a dialogue between students and teachers. Can we begin collecting feedback from students to enhance the teaching community on how course design, student achievement and course engagement are related i.e. creating a website like the PMCOL-ympics?
• Challenges - Discuss website administration and AI costs.

Panel 60 min

• Bonnie Stelmach Faculty of Education/Studies in Educational Leadership — U of A
• Leah Peters Faculty of Education, Secondary Education — U of A
• Ashley Vankleek Faculty of Education, Secondary Education — U of A
• Evan Asmussen Faculty of Education, Secondary Education — U of A

How do you know if your pedagogical innovations work? Ask your students! This panel privileges student voice and experience as insight into their engagement, transformation, and knowledge transfer. The session will feature Faculty of Education undergraduate and graduate students who completed EDU 595: Integrating Agriculture into Curriculum: Field-based Learning, which was taught at the UofA South Campus farm and simultaneously offered as a professional learning conference for K-12 teachers called “Beyond Four Walls”.

The panel will launch conversations about how innovations that extend learning beyond conventional classrooms can support theory-practice connections and applications. Specifically, the session will highlight (1) how place-based, land-based, and hands-on learning create powerful conditions for reflecting on and applying research to support professional practice, and (2) how disrupting the notion of “classroom” in favor of “relational, embodied” (van Tol & Wals, 2025) learning engages students not only in curriculum, but in ontological agency necessary for achieving sustainability, more-than-human connections, and socio-ecological hope.

Guided by the touchstones of Wild Pedagogies (Jickling et al., 2024), the panel will explore the importance of relational learning with others and the more-than-human world, and how a “wild” approach invites curiosity, wonder, imagination, caring, and community, elements central to learning impact and promising futures. Panellists will reflect on how the course shaped their learning and professional practice in various contexts (e.g. rural, urban). The instructor will moderate the discussion, drawing concrete connections to Wild Pedagogies as a way to think about innovation and the future of teaching and learning.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Jay Friesen Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies / Community Service Learning — U of A
• Jerry Gan Faculty of Education — U of A
• Amir Shamsi Ardekani Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine — U of A
• Frank Asah Akuffo Faculty of Education — U of A
• Sumaira Niazi Faculty of Science, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences — U of A
• Megan LaRocque Faculty of Science, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences — U of A

What happens when a learning space stops sorting people by role? Community learners, graduate scholars, facilitators, and attendees gather in the same room to explore how curiosity, connection, and belonging take shape through shared activities and conversation.

At the centre of this experience is Science 101, a free, barrier-minimized university course for non-traditional community learners. The course brings community members, university students, graduate scholars, and facilitators into a shared space built around participation rather than expertise. The fact that the course is free matters: it opens access to university learning for people who have often been excluded because of poverty, colonialism, or accessibility barriers. Learning happens through doing things together. People arrive with different relationships to the university and formal education. This past year marked the first time GTL 4 scholars joined as an embedded cohort, invited to develop their teaching not by acting as instructors, but by learning alongside others. Rather than flattening differences, Science 101 designs learning that builds on shared strengths, curiosity, and mutual engagement.

This session brings members of this learning community together to model how Science 101 works in practice. Community learners, facilitators, and Graduate Teaching and Learning (GTL) Level 4 scholars co-lead the experience, mirroring a Friday afternoon class. The session is designed as an interactive knowledge fair, similar in spirit to a science fair. Attendees move through the space in small groups, rotating between stations hosted by community learners and GTL 4 scholars, where brief conversations highlight learning activities, relationships, curriculum connections, and projects.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Ramana Vaka Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A
• Thaisa Sandini Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A
• Myron Zwozdesky Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A

In this session, our goal is to share the process and outcomes of a new microlearning strategy we implemented in one of our courses during the last fall semester. Microlearning has emerged as an effective pedagogical approach for enhancing student engagement and comprehension, particularly in science education, where complex concepts can pose significant cognitive challenges. During the Fall 2025 term, in partnership with Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE), we developed a collection of videographics for integration into undergraduate pharmacology course (PMCOL 343). Guided by the PMCOL 343 syllabus and learning objectives, we developed 150 animated videographics, which were uploaded to Canvas and made accessible to students from the outset of the course.

This enabled students to access the videos at their own time and pace. Pharmacology concepts presented as short, animated videos provided greater flexibility and accommodated students with different learning paces. Specifically, our videos served multiple instructional purposes such as pre-class preparation, in-class reinforcement, and post-class review. In the course feedback, students indicated that videos became a core part of their studying for exams as they clarified concepts they initially struggled to grasp. For some students, the videos were particularly beneficial in developing a clear understanding of complex pharmacological concepts (e.g., receptor activation and pharmacology of glaucoma), making learning more memorable. Based on the positive student feedback, we hope to expand this strategy to other PMCOL courses. We anticipate that sharing our experience at FoTL may benefit other faculty in adopting similar instructional strategy in their respective courses.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Ravina Sanghera Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences — U of A
• Pawan Gill Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences — U of A
• Damion Barnes Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences — U of A

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes a mainstay in clinical decision support, pharmacy educators must bridge the gap between traditional evidence-based practice and the realities of modern, tech-integrated healthcare. This 30-minute interactive session introduces a scaffolded learning activity where first-year pharmacy students critique AI-generated patient care plans, grounded in social constructivist theory. Participants will explore how to move students beyond passive consumption of AI tools toward an evaluation of AI-generated content that prioritizes patient care.

We will detail the three-stage scaffolded learning approach:

• The Critique: How students verify AI-generated drug-therapeutic problems and therapeutic recommendations against evidence-based standards.
• The Peer Feedback Loop: A collaborative process where groups refine clinical rationales, mirroring real-world professional consultation.
• The Revision: The synthesis of literature-supported justifications for final clinical decision-making.

Attendees will review the implementation framework, including performance-based assessment rubrics for peer feedback and final submissions to demonstrate measurable skill. Finally, we will share pre- and post-assignment surveys to highlight perception-based data, specifically regarding student confidence and their evolving approach to AI-generated clinical content.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Renzo Garcia Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine, Dept. of Communication Sciences and Disorders — U of A

Objective structured clinical examinations (OSCEs) are a common assessment tool in health professions education that aim to evaluate students’ clinical and communication skills within a simulated environment. They are frequently designed for summative use as a high-stakes exam involving multiple scenarios with standardized patients that are trained to act in the same way for each examinee (1). While examiners value OSCEs as a comprehensive assessment tool, students have also reported that OSCEs engender greater motivation to learn, better ability to link theory to practice, and increased self-confidence (2, 3). However, there are barriers to realizing these benefits - most prominently, the highly anxiety-provoking nature of the exam (4).

In this session, I will describe the development, implementation, and learning outcomes of a non-traditional OSCE that was designed to amplify the reported benefits of OSCEs while simultaneously diminishing student anxiety. Specific elements of this OSCE that I will describe include:

1. Destandardizing the standardized patient;
2. Providing all possible exam scenarios ahead of time;
3. Unrestricted access to course materials during the exam.

Together, these components create a psychological safety net that allows OSCEs to evaluate learning rather than a student’s ability to handle stress. Learning outcomes will be illustrated through student questionnaire responses and reflections.

Several elements described in this talk can be applied more widely to other assessment formats that are not clinically oriented. Attendees will be invited to consider and discuss how these elements may be applied to the assessments in their own courses.

Interactive Paper 30 min

• Catherine Dobler Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A
• Fatima Mraiche Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, Dept. of Pharmacology — U of A

Undergraduate research experiences (UREs) are a high-impact practice in higher education, enabling students to integrate theoretical knowledge with authentic research while developing academic, professional, and workforce-relevant competencies. We systematically reviewed recent literature to examine how diverse UREs cultivate knowledge, skills, and attributes (KSAs), outcomes, and workforce-preparedness, including alignment with National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) competencies and technology-related skill development.

Systematic searches identified English-language studies from Canada and the United States, published between 2019 and 2023. Only two (of 38) studies leveraged UREs to develop technology-related skills, highlighting a missed opportunity to utilize UREs as a structured pathway for fostering competent and ethical engagement with emerging technologies, such as genAI. Although interest in using genAI in standard undergraduate laboratory courses is emerging, the literature gives limited attention to its instruction in UREs. Given genAI’s growing role in research and diverse work fields, UREs offer an important opportunity to support students in developing ethical practices.

To extend the review findings, we developed and piloted a faculty survey and interview protocol for URE mentors within the University of Alberta's Department of Pharmacology. In preliminary findings, mentors identified persistent challenges in students’ critical thinking, professionalism, and ability to give and receive constructive feedback. Notably, student self-reflection was not formally embedded into the UREs. These findings highlight UREs as a powerful, yet underutilized opportunity to intentionally integrate genAI literacy and structured self-reflection to address these challenges and better prepare students for future professional environments. This presentation will encourage audience insights through interactive feedback tools.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Hilal Gul Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Biomedical Engineering — U of A

Engineering students often perform well on content-based assessments yet struggle to apply their knowledge in authentic, real-world contexts that involve uncertainty, competing constraints, and professional judgment. This SPARK Talk shares an assessment redesign implemented in upper-level biomedical engineering courses aimed at shifting student learning from content mastery toward real-world competence.

The session will briefly describe the instructional context and motivation for change, followed by an overview of a practice-oriented assessment strategy that required students to define a biomedical problem, identify stakeholders, justify design decisions, and consider ethical and translational constraints. The intended outcomes included deeper critical thinking, improved transfer of theoretical knowledge, and increased student ownership of learning.

Rather than focusing only on success, this talk will highlight what actually happened in the classroom. While students demonstrated stronger engagement and richer reasoning, many also experienced discomfort with ambiguity and uncertainty, and the assessment required more active facilitation and calibration by the instructor. Key challenges, adjustments, and lessons learned through iteration will be shared.

By presenting both strengths and limitations of the approach, this SPARK Talk aims to spark conversation about how assessment design can better prepare engineering students for the realities of professional practice while remaining feasible and inclusive for instructors.

Spark Talk 10 min

• Ahmed Mowafy Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering — U of A
• Mohamed Elgammal Faculty of Engineering, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering — U of A

This SPARK Talk uses Centroid Tetris, a Tetris-inspired learning game, to demonstrate how intuition-building interactive tools can transform conceptual learning in engineering. By allowing students to manipulate shapes and observe real-time centroid movement, the game helps learners develop spatial and physical intuition before formal equations are introduced.

Beyond the game itself, the talk introduces vibe coding as a broader pedagogical shift. With AI-assisted development, educators—and increasingly students—can rapidly create parametric, interactive learning tools without deep programming expertise. These tools can adapt problem parameters, visualize system behaviour, and provide immediate feedback based on student interaction rather than final answers alone.

A key insight from this work is that vibe coding not only supports learning activities. It opens new possibilities for assessment. Instead of asking students to solve a static problem, instructors can ask students to build something: a small interactive model, a visualization, or a simplified game mechanic that demonstrates understanding. The resulting artifact becomes evidence of learning, reasoning, and conceptual clarity.

The session reflects on how this approach shifts assessment from correctness-focused outputs to demonstrations of understanding, creativity, and sense-making. The talk concludes by envisioning how AI-enabled vibe coding can support scalable, inclusive, and authentic assessment practices across engineering and other disciplines.

Panel 60 min

• Tracy Raivio Faculty of Science, Dept. of Biological Sciences / Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies — U of A
• Jessica Butts Scott Online & Continuing Education — U of A
• Matina Kalcounis-Rueppell College of Natural and Applied Sciences, Dean's Office — U of A
• Janice Causgrove-Dunn Office of the Provost & Vice-President Academic — U of A

In an era defined by “wicked problems"—from climate instability and food insecurity to shifting geopolitical landscapes, skepticism and declining public investment—post-secondary institutions must move beyond traditional silos to remain resilient and relevant. At the University of Alberta, this necessity has catalyzed a transformative approach to graduate education. This panel presentation explores how a large, research-intensive university has intentionally restructured its internal ecosystem to build a new generation of interdisciplinary graduate programming designed for scale, access, and societal impact.

Guided by the SHAPE strategic plan and the Integrated Enrolment Growth Plan (IEGP), the University of Alberta is evolving to leverage the potential of its recent reorganization into a One University structure that fosters cross-disciplinary research and education. Central to this transformation is the newly created Office of Online and Continuing Education (OCE), together with a renewed mandate for the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS), which now operates on an axis of " partnership and leadership.” A primary outcome of this partnership is the “Core + Concentration" model, an institutional programming framework that utilizes scalable, 12-credit interdisciplinary “Core” certificates that ladder into diverse Course-Based Master's (CBM) programs. Through unique collaboration between university-wide service units and academic units, the university launched a strategic “Call for Proposals” to seed flexible, modular graduate credentials. The call was aligned with the creation of a new Decision Advisory Team on Programs to intentionally coordinate program development across the institution with strategy and resourcing.

The panel will highlight the inaugural success of this model: the launch of a new Graduate Certificate and Course-Based Master's in Sustainability, with several additional interdisciplinary programs in health, advanced digital technology, and community resilience currently in the pipeline.

Choose Your Own Adventure 30 min

• Tim Ira Access, Community and Belonging, PROV Equity Diversity & Inclusion — U of A

This session invites instructors and academic staff to engage with the third Access, Community and Belonging (ACB) module that explores how collectively cultivating a vibrant and interconnected university community requires consistent practice of your values-based skills.

At its core, this module recognizes a central tension in university life. We are asked to hold space for difference while sustaining connection. We are called to support freedom, creativity, and critique while remaining accountable to one another as members of a shared academic community. Rather than offering a checklist of techniques, this workshop introduces module 3 as a set of values-based skills that can be practiced, strengthened, and adapted for your context. Together, we will explore skills related to relational awareness, shared responsibility, navigating discomfort, and sustaining connection across difference. We will reflect on how these skills already show up in your work and where they feel strained, unfinished, or emergent.

Through our discussion, we will not work toward agreement but values-based coherence. Each one of us holds and moves through spaces that require these skills. As an introduction to module 3, our goal will be not to move toward perfection, but intentional practice.

Workshop 60 min

• Lisa Lozanski Organizational Development and Talent Management, Human Resources, Health, Safety and Environment — U of A

What makes learning resonate long after the exam is written or the degree is issued? In this one-hour workshop, participants will share what they think makes for resonant learning. As a group, we will both experience and analyze a step-by-step approach to learning design that can make content more relevant, meaningful and memorable for students. Expect to walk away with new connections and ideas that you can start to incorporate into your teaching practice!

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Distinguish between resonant learning and information transfer;
• Identify strategies to increase interactivity, relevance of content and student buy-in;
• Evaluate their current practice against a step-by-step approach to learning design.

Workshop 120 min

• Carrie Smith Office of the Vice-Provost (Access Community and Belonging)
• Remonia Stoddart-Morrison Student Services, Office of the Student Ombuds — U of A

A student suddenly makes a challenging comment; a group discussion unexpectedly leads to a personal disclosure; a heavy silence follows a sensitive topic. These confronting, emotionally charged, or disruptive shifts can be turning points in a semester. Left unaddressed, trust and learning can be eroded; handled with care, these moments can become powerful opportunities for critical thinking, growth, and classroom community.

This interactive online workshop equips instructors with practical strategies for navigating "moments of stuckness" as they arise. Participants will work through anonymized classroom scenarios to explore paths available to lead themselves and their students through feelings of uncertainty.

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Name moments of stuckness as an anticipated part of teaching in our times;
• Develop responses that set boundaries, support the dignity of the students, and continue learning for all involved;
• Weigh response timing (in-the-moment vs. later intervention) and identify available university supports and consultation options.

Workshop 60 min

• Olivia Murray Centre for Teaching and Learning — U of A
• Lia Daniels Faculty of Education, Department of Educational Psychology — U of A

Student Perspectives of Teaching (SPOT) evaluations often bring a mix of helpful insights and discouraging hurdles. When feedback feels personal or contradictory, it can be difficult to find a clear path forward. This tension often leads to evaluation fatigue, in which the emotional weight of student comments overshadows opportunities for pedagogical growth.

To address these challenges, the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CTL) invites you to an interactive session introducing our new SPOT Reflection Gem. This custom AI tool acts as a neutral buffer and supportive coaching partner. By uploading your syllabus and SPOT data, you can transform a wall of comments into a structured, care-centred roadmap for your teaching practice. We will discuss the psychological hurdles of student feedback and demonstrate how the Gem filters out unprofessional rhetoric to help you stay focused on actionable growth.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Use the SPOT Reflection Gem to quickly identify strengths and opportunities in your student feedback;
• Assess the limitations and opportunities of using AI as a reflective partner in your professional development;
• Integrate this tool into your regular workflow to turn end-of-term evaluations into a consistent, low-stress resource for enhancing your teaching.

Workshop 60 min

• Richard Li Centre for Teaching and Learning — U of A
• Stephanie Dickie Student Experience Action Plan — U of A

While the rise in higher education enrolment can negatively affect student engagement, teaching effectiveness, and institutional resource allocation (Kerr, 2011), large enrolments also offer unique pedagogical affordances. Evidence shows that implementing active learning at scale not only mitigates surface learning but also increases student performance and retention (Freeman et al, 2014). With a learner-centred approach in course design and delivery, instructors can intentionally and meaningfully scale learning activities and assessments by leveraging strategies such as peer-based learning, resource optimization, and digital innovation.

Aligned with the University of Alberta’s Student Experience Action Plan (SEAP) and Integrated Enrolment Growth Plan (IEGP), this workshop provides a collaborative space for instructors to explore the balance between fulfilling the institutional priority in enrolment growth and upholding our ongoing commitment to a positive student experience. Building on responses to the recent SEAP 2.0 instructor survey, participants will engage in a dialogue with peers about teaching large classes and co-create strategies to address common challenges in student engagement, instructor agency, assessment, and accessibility.

By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

• Identify pedagogical opportunities associated with large enrolment teaching;
• Discuss learner-centred strategies for scaling learning activities and assessments in meaningful and sustainable ways;
• Generate practical strategies for balancing enrolment growth with a positive and accessible student experience.

Workshop 30 min

• Dominic Palazzolo FeedbackFruits

Most students view feedback as a "post-mortem"—a final judgment received after the learning has already stopped. But what if feedback were the engine of the learning process itself?

In this session, we move beyond the gradebook to explore how to design high-impact feedback cycles that foster critical thinking and self-regulation. Instead of focusing on tool features, we will dive into the pedagogical frameworks that transform students from passive consumers of grades into proactive partners in their own academic development. We will explore how to:

• Cultivate feedback literacy: Use Peer Review to help students internalize assessment criteria, allowing them to see their own work through a more objective, evaluative lens.
• Enhance collaborative dynamics: Leverage Peer Evaluation not just to "check in" on teammates, but to teach the professional skills of constructive accountability and supportive growth.
• Scaffold the process: Design multi-stage workflows where feedback is delivered early enough to be implemented, turning "corrections" into "meaningful iterations."

Join us to discuss how to shift the heavy lifting of assessment from the instructor to the learner, creating a sustainable ecosystem of peer-to-peer mentorship and collective success.

Workshop 60 min

• Jay Summach Centre for Teaching and Learning — U of A
• Laura L. Velazquez Centre for Teaching and Learning — U of A

In this in-person, hands-on workshop (bring your laptop!) you will build a custom “Gem” chatbot to help your students think through and begin planning for an assignment in your course.

Once you have built one Gem, you'll be ready to build and experiment with other Gems, suited to other uses. In the workshop, we will discuss some opportunities, risks, and limitations in using of AI — as well as things to think about before bringing AI into your teaching.

No prior AI experience is required. Just bring your laptop, course syllabus, and the prompt for one assignment. Our team will coach you through the rest!

This is a special festival encore of CTL’s popular spring workshop series, offered at FoTL to accommodate the high level of interest from our campus community (and beyond!).

Opening Keynote

AI isn’t just another classroom tool—it’s a new literacy. This talk explores how educator-guided, outcome-aligned AI experiences inside the LMS can shift learning from “produce an answer” to “show your thinking,” building the judgment, communication, and problem-solving skills employers now expect.

We’ll look at how conversational, adaptive tasks cultivate AI fluency and ethical use, and how authentic assessment can emerge from the learning process itself—capturing evidence through the questions students ask, the sources they engage with, and the way their thinking develops over time. When thoughtfully designed, AI-supported assignments can make student thinking more visible to educators, not less.

Finally, we’ll consider how the LMS can evolve into a platform where educators, researchers, and developers bring new AI-enabled learning experiences into the classroom—expanding what’s possible while keeping teaching, trust, and student learning at the center.

Narine Hall, PhD is the Principle AI Product Manager at Instructure where she leads the AI product strategy. She is passionate about designing the next gen AI native learning experiences. Previously she was the Founder and CEO at InSpace, a human centric, neuroscience based video collaboration platform for online learning. Narine was also a professor of data science and created one of the first undergraduate data science programs in the country. She started the Machine Learning for All (ML4ALL) movement to democratize machine learning for all and was awarded grants from Google and the National Science Foundation (NSF). She has worked at IBM Watson and Wolfram Research among other places. As a data scientist, Narine is passionate about automating everything, including all her jobs before InSpace, and creating time and space for more important things, like human connection and enriching hands-on experiences through collaboration.

Workshop 60 min

• Izzy Laurin Centre for Teaching and Learning — U of A

Higher education is evolving, and so are our students. What worked in the classroom five years ago might not resonate with students today. However, many busy university instructors rely on and even stick to their tried-and-true approaches and strategies in teaching, if they haven't the time or the expertise to adapt to current realities, for instance.

Join us for an interactive workshop exploring the latest research on the students in higher education these days. We will examine which key trends are (increasingly) appearing in your courses and strategize on teaching approaches that address students' needs and expectations. Walk away with practical strategies to enhance student engagement and impact on learning.

By the end of this workshops, participants will be able to:

• Identify key characteristics of today’s higher education students through evidence and case studies
• Develop strategies to adapt teaching practices to meet the complex learning needs of our students

This session is limited to University of Alberta instructors and staff.

Time: 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m. (full-day)

• Karsten Mündel
  Vice Provost, Learning Initiatives — U of A
• Lia Daniels
  Professor, Educational Psychology
  Fellow of the Canadian Psychological Association, and CTL Scholar — U of A
• Carrie Demmans Epp
  Associate Professor, Computing Science, Killam Fellow, and CTL Scholar — U of A
• Logan Mardhani-Bayne
  Strategic Development Manager, Office of the Provost — U of A
• Narine Hall
  Principle AI Product Manager, Instructure

AI in Practice: An AI Teaching & Learning Lab is a full-day, hands-on experience in practical engagement with artificial intelligence in teaching and learning.

In the morning, participants will come together to discuss developing and supporting AI literacy across the U of A and begin to develop ideas for assessment redesign and for using AI to build custom apps for the learning environment.

In the afternoon, participants break into groups to apply what they learned in the morning by working on one of the following:

• Assessment Redesign: Examine and redesign assessments and courses in response to AI's impact.

• Vibe Coding for the Learning Environment: Explore instructional challenges and develop AI-driven prototype solutions to enhance the learning environment.

The day concludes with a showcase, where participants present their work and reflect on key insights with peers and senior university leaders.

Lunch will be provided.

Seats are limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.