The Office for the Advancement of Teaching & Learning at the University of Rhode Island is proud to announce our 2025 Innovative Education Conference!

2025 Conference Theme: Navigating Wicked Problems Through Higher Education

As a global society, we face “wicked problems”. These deeply interconnected and complex issues – climate change, poverty, etc. – require interdisciplinary answers. In fact, a key skill for students in our world is to be able to talk across their differences; bring together multiple perspectives; and work towards common solutions. Yet, at a time when genuine collaboration is needed, we also face crises of loneliness, isolation, and polarization despite technological advances that make us more accessible than ever before. How can we reconcile a society in need of connection with the realities of polarization in our world?

To participate in this conference, you don’t have to solve climate change, poverty, or any other wicked problem. Rather, we invite instructors and faculty developers to share strategies that cultivate democratic engagement in ways large and small. How do you:

• Foster dialogue across differences?
• Develop collaborative problem-solving skills?
• Bridge diverse perspectives?
• Engage students with real-world community issues?

This conference is for you if you engage students in working together. Because together, we will build a wicked good democratic future.

2025 Conference Tracks:

• Online and blended learning
  How have you been successful in getting students to collaborate in online or blended classes?
• Lessons learned using generative artificial intelligence in the classroom
  Generative AI holds a lot of promise for changing how we work, teach, and address complex problems. Yet, it is also hard to find the time to learn how to use it. What have you tried and what have you learned about using AI in your teaching?
• Inclusive and accessible teaching
  How do you support the success of all students?
• Amplifying evidence-based teaching through assessment and/or Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
  For innovative teaching approaches to gain wider traction, it helps to gather evidence of their effectiveness. How are you assessing and studying the effectiveness of innovative approaches in the classroom or within your program?
• Supporting faculty vitality and well-being
  Often, the people who are the most committed are the most in danger of burning out. How do you support your hard-working instructors?

Date: Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Location: Virtual

Cost: Free for anyone to register and attend

Keynote Speakers: TBD

Registration Information: Coming Soon

Call for Proposals: Open through January 6, 2025. Learn more here.

The purpose of the Innovative Education Conference (IEC) is to bring together URI faculty with other faculty and practitioners from across Rhode Island, the New England region, and beyond to share and discuss best practice approaches to teaching, learning, faculty development and support in a higher education context. The IEC is a virtual conference, allowing for greater accessibility and flexibility for presenters and attendees. The IEC offers workshops, presentations, poster sessions, and roundtable/panel discussions focused on a theme and organized through various pre-planned conference tracks. The conference also includes a keynote speaker that brings forth relevant and timely research-based information to benefit attendees in their approach to teaching, learning, and faculty success.