The 2025 Virtual Gathering site is ready! Click the button that says "Leading With Our Values" for this year's gathering details.
All times listed in Eastern.
Please note that Zoom links to individual sessions will be shared with all registered attendees about 24 hours in advance.
Lightning talks will take place back-to-back in the same Zoom meeting.
Presenter: Mary Ann Tobin
Key Takeaways
We will learn to make space for accessibility in faculty development offerings by forging highly productive partnerships between centers for teaching excellence and student service units.
Presenter: Carl Schottmiller
Key Takeaways
Identify how accessible instructional materials are key to a University's diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives.
Discuss the unique role that faculty developers and Centers for Effective Teaching and Learning (CETL) can play as leaders in large-scale, campus-wide accessibility initiatives.
Discuss how collaboration with stakeholders across campus is crucial for large-scale accessibility.
Demonstrate how Cal State LA's CETL played a central role in launching an Accessible Instructional Materials for Student Success Initiative that supports faculty, and saves them time, in making their instructional materials accessible.
Provide suggestions for how similar approaches to accessibility might be used at other campuses.
Presenter: Anna Donnell
Key Takeaways
Often faculty/staff only find out they can facilitate a workshop through our Center for Teaching & Learning (CTL) through “word of mouth.” This project’s aim was to increase transparency around how faculty/staff can collaborate with our CTL as well as provide a variety of levels of support in the design, development, and facilitation of such workshops. By the end of the session participants will be able to:
Explain the value of creating a more formalized and transparent faculty/staff collaboration process to increase equity and inclusion.
Explore examples of how to provide multiple options for collaboration with a CTL.
Explore examples of providing multiple options for support to meet varying needs of faculty/staff collaborators.
Presenter: Rachel Ryan
Key Takeaways
Explore the four foundational ideals of the EAST Framework
Discuss application of EAST framework in addressing various digital accessibility challenges encountered in higher education settings.
Facilitator: Anna Santucci
Key Takeaways
Participants might increase their confidence and/or ability to:
Define educational development.
Access POD Network resources available to members and non-members, and describe POD's governance structure.
Reflect on the role of professional connections and relationships in their own pathways as educational developers.
Articulate salient elements of their identity and lived experiences as educational developers.
Envision future ways they might shape and serve the field of educational development.
Planned Activities
Thick introductions, individual time to write and reflect, co-creating guideposts for engagement, breakout rooms by topics of interest selection aligned with session goals (with option of quiet room), whole group debrief and takeaways, closing with facilitated opportunity to stay in touch.
Workshops will take place concurrently in different Zoom meetings. Select one:
Facilitator: Cate Denial
This session has been cancelled.
Facilitators: Liam Aiello, Rachel Weiher, and Melissa Ko
Key Takeaways
Surface how our colleagues make sense of “failure” in their professional contexts, and learn what resources, frameworks, or methods inform how we process these “failures”.
Describe and apply strategies for exercising empathy towards self and others, especially our colleagues at POD.
Commit to moving beyond coping with failures to growing and thriving.
Consider approaches for norming discussions of failure in our educational development contexts.
Planned Activities
This will be a discussion-oriented session, grounded in shared norms for supporting others as they share professional challenges. It will offer participants a chance to reflect on, process, and share things they tried that did NOT go well. Depending on participants’ needs, there may be space to help them diagnose what went wrong, reframe it as a learning or growth opportunity…or just space to vent!
Whole-group introduction to the topic: Presenters will share why this session matters and the goals of holding this space. Presenters will also present what psychology and professional/research literature say about “failure” and “resilience.”
Individual reflection on Padlet: Participants will have a chance to reply to prompts identifying what helps to open up space to discuss failure in our workplace vs. what closes down space. Participants can then review and reply to these anonymized responses.
Whole-group norm setting: With presenter facilitation, participants will be asked to surface boundaries and expectations for whole-group conversations vs. breakout room conversations. Presenters will draw attention to confidentiality and privacy concerns.
Small-group breakout discussion: Participants will have space to share about educational development failures if they so choose. Participants can also choose to remain in the main room to engage in individual writing and reflection about these experiences.
Whole-group synthesis activity: Participants will be invited to revisit anonymous reflection prior to a whole-group discussion. Then folks will collectively share any themes that emerged in breakout discussions, reflect on what it was like to name/make space for failure in a professional setting, and identify barriers/opportunities exist to normalize failure in our CTLs.
Workshops will take place concurrently in different Zoom meetings. Select one:
Facilitator: Josh Eyler
Key Takeaways
Think holistically about the broad landscape of educational development careers.
Consider their personal goals for wellbeing, work/life balance, teaching, their professional selves, and their scholarly selves.
Align these goals with potential career paths and center types.
Planned Activities
After sharing a bit about my background leading several teaching centers, we'll briefly explore different kinds of CTL structures and the possible career paths within these structures. Then, we'll walk through an activity that helps participants map out their personal goals for their educational development career using the familiar model of backward design. We'll then move to an alignment activity that maps those goals onto the structural elements we discussed at the beginning of the session, and we'll conclude with substantial time for Q&A.
Facilitator: Monique Dufour
Key Takeaways
Understand current dominant approaches to faculty writing support.
Analyze inherent values and norms in faculty writing support.
Through facilitated discussion, contribute to a vision and practices of accessible faculty writing support.
Network with other professional development colleagues interested in faculty writing support and the social systems in which they function. Facilitator is willing to commit to organizing a community of practice/affinity group following this conference.
Planned Activities
A brief overview of current trends and dominant practices in faculty writing support.
Discussion of inherent values and norms in faculty writing support. Facilitator will ask questions that invite participants to consider and share their own contexts and experiences.
Collaborate on a vision of accessible faculty writing support. Facilitator will provide multimodal opportunities for participants to share ideas and practices.
Following the session, facilitator will compile and share the ideas developed during the discussion, and invite participants to continue in a community of practice.
At the end of each day during the virtual gathering, we invite you to join us for a capstone session that will be guided by one of the conference volunteers. Attendees will have the opportunity to reflect on the day’s talks and workshops alongside their colleagues. We will use the community note taking documents from each session as a starting point for the conversation. Participants can expect these capstone sessions to include:
Time for silent reflection on ideas and questions from the day’s presentations
The chance to share their thoughts either in writing or verbally with the group
Brainstorming as a community about emerging topics and questions
Synthesizing primary takeaways from the day
Discussions about possible next steps
The goal of these capstone sessions is that everyone can come away with one or two specific actions they could take to implement what they’ve learned during the gathering in their professional and personal lives. We hope you’ll join us!
Ready to join us?