Professional & Instructional Development

OPID’s Annual Spring Conference on Zoom

Friday, April 22 & 29, 2022
9 am to 3 pm + Fireside chats

Call for proposals

Cultivating community is one of the objectives, challenges, and joys of teaching and learning. It results from intentional and sometimes not-so-intentional practices. It may be guided by faculty and instructors, but also emerges organically among students. How do we cultivate environments and relationships that result in a sense of belonging among our students? How do we extend teaching and learning beyond four walls of a classroom? What are some innovative ways to cultivate community online? How do we cultivate community with our partners in non-profit organizations, businesses, K-12 schools, in prisons?

We invite you to participate in The Joys of Teaching & Learning / Cultivating community by sharing your experiences, ideas, questions, failures, and accomplishments. We welcome innovative and interactive proposals that strengthen a sense of community among UW faculty, instructors, and students. We encourage proposals that cross university and disciplinary lines, and that are grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning. We invite Wisconsin Teaching Fellows & Scholars alumni to reengage with SoTL. We challenge faculty and instructors to open up new spaces for approaching and understanding teaching and learning in the UW System. Let’s re-imagine, re-define, and re-vision new possibilities for cultivating community.

presenters will receive response letters in early march.

Proposals are anonymously reviewed by faculty and instructors in OPID’s Advisory Council.

suggested formats:

Break-out sessions – 30- or 60-minute presentations, panels, or roundtables
Posters or papers
Lightning rounds – 5-7-minute talks

suggested focal points:

Equity-minded pedagogies
Digital pedagogies
Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
Grading, ungrading, and alternative assessments
High-impact experiential teaching and learning practices : First-year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, diversity/global learning, ePortfolios, service- and community-based learning, internships, capstone courses.
Proposed new HIPs
Mental health and wellness for students and instructors
Mindfulness and burnout
Activism and resistance
Online STEM labs
Professional development for educators

we welcome:

Pre-recorded and live sessions.
Multi-speaker presentations and panels, ideally from more than one university.
Multi-media and performative presentations.
Inclusion of student voices.

proposal submission deadline: monday, february 7, 2022 Via the online form.

Conference speakers

Our 2022 Conference plenary speakers are seasoned educators who have, over time, put into practice theories and concepts of teaching that challenge and disrupt traditional hierarchies of education for the good of all students. We welcome their expertise at our conference.

Dr. Carl Wieman
Nobel Laureate in Physics
Professor of Physics, and Education
Stanford University

Dr. Gloria Ladson-Billings
Professor Emerita of Education
University of Wisconsin – Madison

Signature Program Committee

Chair, Sylvia Tiala (UW-Stout); Members – Verda Blythe (UW-Madison), Abhimanyu Goush (UW-Stout), Veronica Justen (UW-River Falls), Bryan Kopp (UW-La Crosse), Mary-Beth Leibham (UW-Eau Claire), Heather Pelzel (UW-Whitewater), Erin Speetzen (UW-Stevens Point), Jamie White-Farnham (UW-Superior).