Registration open for the 17th Annual Teaching and Learning Conference

Elon University welcomes university and college educators to the 17th Annual Teaching & Learning Conference on Thursday, June 10, 2021. This free, fully-virtual conference is sponsored jointly by Elon’s Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) and Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT). Registration is required and will remain open until June 7, 2021 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Session Zoom links will be shared directly with registrants the week of the conference.

Conference Theme: Teaching & Learning Beyond the Pandemic

As we look beyond the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our institutions and classrooms, we envision a world that has both changed in radical ways and also still retains many longstanding challenges. Our collective and personal experiences during this past year and a half, as educators and human beings, may leave us better positioned to reimagine that future world together.

Conference sessions will explore: In what ways might we and our students cultivate meaning, purpose, and connection that reignite our passion for teaching and learning after the widespread burnout of COVID? How can we leverage the momentum of 2020 toward racial equity to continue to iterate toward more welcoming and just courses in which historically underrepresented or otherwise disadvantaged students can truly excel? And, as climate-related disruptions become increasingly frequent, how can we leverage our recent experience to create more resilient and more sustainable courses and institutions?

Conference Program

The 2021 Teaching & Learning Conference Program runs from 9:00am to 4:30pm EST, and includes the following session types:

• A 60-minute keynote address, “Teaching Distracted Minds: Old Challenges, New Contexts,” by Professor James Lang, director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College and author of five popular books about teaching in higher education. Read more about Lang below.
• 60-minute evidence-based, interactive virtual workshops that help us imagine and reinvigorate our pedagogy for the post-pandemic era
• 30-minute virtual presentations, each highlighting an innovative pedagogical strategy and evidence of its impact in a wide range of contexts
• A 45-minute networking and discussion session to close out the day identifying and sharing key takeaways and pathways forward

Plenary Speaker: Professor James Lang

James M. Lang is a Professor of English and the Director of the D’Amour Center for Teaching Excellence at Assumption College in Worcester, Massachusetts. His most recent book is “Distracted: Why Students Can’t Focus and What You Can Do About It,” published by Basic Books in October 2020. Lang is also the author of “Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning” (Jossey-Bass, 2016), ”Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty” (Harvard University Press, 2013), and ”On Course: A Week-by-Week Guide to Your First Semester of College Teaching” (Harvard UP, 2008).

Lang writes a monthly column on teaching and learning for The Chronicle of Higher Education; his work has been appearing in the Chronicle since 1999. His book reviews and public scholarship on higher education have appeared in a wide variety of newspapers and magazines, including the Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and Time. He edits a series of books on teaching and learning in higher education for West Virginia University Press; he co-edited the second book in the series, Teaching the Literature Survey Course: New Strategies for College Faculty (2018). Lang has conducted workshops on teaching for faculty at more than 100 colleges or universities in the US and abroad and consulted for the United Nations on the development of teaching materials in ethics and integrity for college faculty.

For questions about the 2021 Teaching and Learning Conference, contact Kelsey Bitting, Assistant Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.