In his talk, “From EdTech to TechEd,” Dr. Gonick will explore how recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are reshaping the digital foundations of colleges and universities — transforming not only how we teach and learn, but how we design and sustain the institutions that make it possible.

Lev Gonick is the Enterprise Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, where he leads the design and agile management of enterprise infrastructure, applications, digital learning platforms, and data systems that support the university’s academic mission. Recognized by the ORBIE Awards as Arizona’s top Large Enterprise CIO and named one of EdScoop’s Top 50 Education Technology Influencers, Dr. Gonick has been a leading voice in advancing technology’s role in higher education.

The Science of Teaching and Learning (T&L) Speaker Series invites leading thinkers and innovators to share ideas, spark dialogue, and highlight research that deepens our understanding of how students learn. Each session offers an opportunity to connect theory with practice and to reimagine teaching and learning in higher education.

This session is sponsored by the Office of the Vice-Provost (Learning, Analytics, Academic Infrastructure).

Location: Senate Chambers (Room 262), Engineering 3 @ 103 Dafoe Road W

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, Staff, Students, and non-UM participants.

Login or register to "Save My Seat" - see our FAQs for details

The printable PDF of the agenda can be downloaded from here upon login.

Start your morning off right at the UM Teaching Symposium with a light continental breakfast, networking with colleagues, and a warm welcome from university leadership to energize you for the day’s inspiring sessions. 

Please register (save your seat) and check in to claim your breakfast.

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

• 8:30 - 9:15 am - Continental Breakfast
• 9:15 - 9:30 am - Opening Remarks by Master of Ceremonies - Cintia Costa & Greetings from the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic) and Vice-Provost (Learning, Analytics, and Academic Infrastructure)

Under the seismic shift caused by large language models (LLMS) and the rapid spread of artificial intelligence use in our post-secondary communities, academic integrity is struggling to keep up with these quickly evolving times. How do we overcome the challenges of today and plan for the future of education tomorrow while under the power and pressures of an AI industry, continuing to prioritize expansion and profit over the well-being of people?

• Indigenous Futurist and academic integrity scholar Keeta Gladue invites you to travel into Indigenous pasts to learn from how Indigenous Peoples navigate, persist, and resist in times of shifting technologies and inequitable systems. She will share the key issues that concern her most about AI and the Indigenous informed wisdom practices that offer a path forward. Finally, shoot into the future and the possibilities of tech in education as imagined through the lens of a professional IndigeGeek.
• Join us as we go Back to the Future!

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join us for an engaging discussion with influential figures in academia and public service, fostering meaningful discussions around GenAI in teaching and learning. Attendees will have an opportunity to ask questions. Whether you are a faculty member, sessional instructor, or academic staff, this panel promises valuable insights and perspectives.

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Featuring the Honourable Renée Cable (Minister of Advanced Education and Training), Dr. Michael Benarroch (UM President), Dr. Heidi Marx (Dean, Faculty of Arts), Dr. Kelley Main (Dean, Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies), and Ms. Christina Penner (Instructor, Department of Computer Science)

Please register (Save my Seat) and check-in to receive your light lunch.

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle

Open to: Symposium participants

Discover a dynamic series of presentations where University of Manitoba faculty share their latest Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) initiatives and innovative projects in higher education. 

These sessions offer attendees the opportunity to explore new pedagogical approaches and gain practical insights into the evolving landscape of teaching and learning research. Whether you’re seeking inspiration, strategies for your own practice, or a deeper understanding of current teaching and learning research, these talks provide a space to learn from your colleagues. 

Details for each talk coming soon!

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join our hands-on practice lab to collaborate, learn, and share best practices with fellow educators. You will experiment with GenAI using realistic teaching scenarios and your own course tasks, explore how GenAI can support everyday workflows and activities. You will leave with a reusable prompt framework and one concrete GenAI experiment to try in your course.

Location: Room 223, The Centre, 65 Dafoe Road

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

In this hands-on practice lab, you will explore how to use generative AI to promote, rather than erode, equity in higher education. You will work with a shared teaching scenario and sample materials provided, experiment with GenAI tools, and critically analyze equity risks such as bias, accessibility, and unequal student access. You will leave with a reusable “equity-first” prompt framework and one concrete GenAI-supported activity that you can adapt to your own course.

Location: Room 325, Education, 71 Curry Place

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join us for a hands-on workshop introducing our new Extended Reality (XR) space and its potential to enhance teaching across disciplines. We'll explore practical integration opportunities, discuss technical and pedagogical limitations, and provide time for you to experience VR/AR headsets firsthand with curated educational content. Whether you're XR-curious or ready to integrate immersive technologies into your courses, this session will help you envision possibilities and understand next steps.

Location: XR Lab (Room 119), Elizabeth Dafoe Library, 25 Chancellors Ci

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Navigating AI in a Brave New World

The use of generative AI has been accelerating rapidly within the University and healthcare environments. As many embrace the technology, concerns about the potential for misuse, the impact on critical thinking skills, the environmental impact, and a lack of real accountability are growing. This presentation will examine these concerns to encourage educators to think critically about the use of artificial intelligence and their own role in preparing future healthcare providers to navigate the brave new world.

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Room 204), UMSU University Centre @ 65 Chancellors Circle

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Login or register to "Save My Seat" - see our FAQs for details

The printable PDF of the agenda can be downloaded from here upon login.

Welcome back for Day 2. 

Join us as we kick of the day with Dr. Erica Jung with greetings from the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Master of Ceremonies - Renato Bezerra, and the Director of the Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning.

This session features the award-winning policy brief developed by University of Manitoba undergraduate students for the 3rd Canadian edition of the Schuman Challenge, hosted by the EU Delegation to Canada. 

The project proposes a practical collaboration framework between Canada and the European Union for closing the AI literacy gap among high school and post-secondary students. 

Drawing on Estonia’s AI Leap program as a model, the brief outlines strategies for cultivating informed and responsible digital citizens.

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join University of Manitoba faculty as they present their latest Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and higher education projects. 

These sessions highlight innovative approaches, practical insights, and current research in teaching and learning. Attendees can gain new strategies, inspiration, and a deeper understanding of evolving educational practices. 

Talk details are coming soon!

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join other faculty and instructors in conversations about some of the biggest challenges facing today’s post-secondary educators: artificial intelligence, scaling up enrollment through large classes and remote learning, preparing students for life after university in a changing world, and teaching and learning with Gen-Z. 

Together, we will explore these challenges and brainstorm solutions that apply to our concrete contexts.    

Location: Room 223, The Centre, 65 Dafoe Road

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join us for a hands-on exploration of AI enabled research tools. In this session we will introduce a set of interdisciplinary research platforms, such as the Libraries' AI Research Assistant, Notebook LM, and Google Scholar Labs. Participants will have the opportunity to test the functions of each platform and critically discuss their suitability and potential impact on student learning. Please bring a laptop to get the most out of this session.

Location: Room 149, Elizabeth Dafoe Library, 25 Chancellors Cir

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

In his talk, “From EdTech to TechEd,” Dr. Gonick will explore how recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence are reshaping the digital foundations of colleges and universities — transforming not only how we teach and learn, but how we design and sustain the institutions that make it possible.

Lev Gonick is the Enterprise Chief Information Officer at Arizona State University, where he leads the design and agile management of enterprise infrastructure, applications, digital learning platforms, and data systems that support the university’s academic mission. Recognized by the ORBIE Awards as Arizona’s top Large Enterprise CIO and named one of EdScoop’s Top 50 Education Technology Influencers, Dr. Gonick has been a leading voice in advancing technology’s role in higher education.

The Science of Teaching and Learning (T&L) Speaker Series invites leading thinkers and innovators to share ideas, spark dialogue, and highlight research that deepens our understanding of how students learn. Each session offers an opportunity to connect theory with practice and to reimagine teaching and learning in higher education.

This session is sponsored by the Office of the Vice-Provost (Learning, Analytics, Academic Infrastructure).

Location: Senate Chambers (Room 262), Engineering 3 @ 103 Dafoe Road W

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, Staff, Students, and non-UM participants.

Join our monthly meetings to connect with colleagues involved in EL across UM and explore best practices and challenges in experiential learning. 

This session: Experiential learning is a great way to increase engagement and participation in online courses. Join us to learn how to bring an experiential lens into online courses beyond breakout rooms and Mentimeter. Our guest speaker, Iwona Gniadek, will share about her journey designing and teaching an online, project-and-team-based learning course in which students applied theory to specific real-world tasks. 

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

This short 45-min online Better Together Welcome Call will ensure you are ready for our day together. Better Together 2026 facilitators will share all the details of the day and provide required training in design thinking. We can’t wait to meet you!

To ensure you receive the full benefit of this experience, please "Save a Seat" for both the Better Together Welcome Call and Better Together 2026. We look forward to connecting with you and building a more innovative community together.

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, Staff, and Students

Join UM faculty, staff and students for this exciting MasterClass in entrepreneurial thinking. You’ll see entrepreneurial thinking in many contexts and sharpen your own practical problem-solving skills. A highlight of Better Together is an interdisciplinary Design Thinking Sprint. You’ll team up to tackle a real campus challenge—brainstorming, prototyping, and pitching creative solutions that can make a meaningful impact. 

Why participate? 

• Learn new skills to move ideas to impact. 
• Meet new people. 
• Enjoy free food. 
• Students will receive a $50 gift card to UMSU businesses for participating and an update to their Experience Record. A special treat awaits faculty and staff, too. 

To make the most of this experience, be sure to “Save a Seat” for both the Better Together Welcome Call and Better Together 2026. We can’t wait to connect with you and co-create a more innovative campus community! 

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle. 

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, Staff, and Students. 

Join our monthly meetings to connect with colleagues involved in Experiential Learning across UM and explore best practices and challenges in experiential learning. 

This session: Trying out new assessments can be tough, especially when you're aiming to make them meaningful and aligned with experiential learning and course outcomes. Join us for an engaging conversation with Christina Penner, Senior Instructor in Computer Science, as she shares how she transformed a traditional lecture-based course into an interactive, flipped classroom. Christina will walk us through how she chose her assessments, how she grades them, and why she made those choices. She’ll also share practical tips for where to start, how to choose assessments, how many to choose, and more! You don’t want to miss this exciting conversation! 

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Join our monthly meetings to connect with colleagues involved in Experiential Learning across UM and explore best practices and challenges in experiential learning. 

This session: The Experiential Learning Gathering is an annual spring tradition that brings together members of the Experiential Learning Community of Practice and others, to celebrate, connect, and reflect. Hosted by the Office of Experiential Learning each May, this event offers faculty, instructors, and staff meaningful opportunities to build relationships, share ideas, and support one another in their ongoing journeys with experiential teaching and learning.

Location: Room 223, The Centre (65 Dafoe Road)

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

This half-day workshop introduces the 4 R’s framework—Respect, Relevance, Reciprocity, and Responsibility—as guiding principles for Indigenizing and decolonizing teaching practices in higher education. Participants will explore practical strategies for integrating Indigenous perspectives into curriculum design, classroom engagement, and assessment. Through discussion and reflection, instructors will identify ways to create more inclusive, relational, and community-connected learning environments.

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

In this workshop, participants will explore how to assess learning in ways that honor; the knowledges, relationships, and contexts our that students bring. This workshop invites educators to reflect on the purposes and practices of assessment beyond the traditional rubric. Together, we will explore how rubrics can become living, relational tools—co-created with learners, grounded in respect and reciprocity, and responsive to multiple ways of knowing and expressing understanding. Participants will leave with tangible ideas and examples for re-designing evaluation processes that are more just, inclusive, and community-connected.

Location: Room 223, The Centre (65 Dafoe Road)

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

This short 45-min online Better Together Welcome Call will ensure you are ready for our day together. Better Together 2026 facilitators will share all the details of the day and provide required training in design thinking. We can’t wait to meet you!

To ensure you receive the full benefit of this experience, please "Save a Seat" for both the Better Together Welcome Call and Better Together 2026. We look forward to connecting with you and building a more innovative community together.

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, Staff, and Students

Join UM faculty, staff and students for this exciting MasterClass in entrepreneurial thinking. You’ll see entrepreneurial thinking in many contexts and sharpen your own practical problem-solving skills. A highlight of Better Together is an interdisciplinary Design Thinking Sprint. You’ll team up to tackle a real campus challenge—brainstorming, prototyping, and pitching creative solutions that can make a meaningful impact. 

Why participate? 

• Learn new skills to move ideas to impact. 
• Meet new people. 
• Enjoy free food. 
• Students will receive a $50 gift card to UMSU businesses for participating and an update to their Experience Record. A special treat awaits faculty and staff, too. 

To make the most of this experience, be sure to “Save a Seat” for both the Better Together Welcome Call and Better Together 2026. We can’t wait to connect with you and co-create a more innovative campus community! 

Location: Marshall McLuhan Hall (Rm 204), UMSU University Centre, 65 Chancellors Circle. 

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, Staff, and Students. 

Looking for ways to revitalize your teaching but don't have time for a big redesign? In Small Teaching, author James Lang argues that small changes in classroom techniques and activities can have big impacts on student learning. Hear practical teaching strategies from faculty guest speakers. Bring your questions and your lunch. Leave with ideas you can implement right away in your courses!

Lightning Presentations:

Lauren Himbeault, Computer Science

• The Curb Cut Effect in the Classroom: Flexible Deadlines for All
• When cities added sidewalk curb cuts for accessibility, everyone benefited. What if we applied this thinking to course deadlines? In this lightning talk, I’ll share how adopting flexible deadlines reduced student stress, increased equity, and simplified my workload, showing how small structural changes can create big wins for teaching and learning.

Madison Egan, Microbiology

• Gamification of a Lab Assignment with Immediate Feedback Assessment Technique (IFAT) Cards
• I converted an online quiz into a group project with IFAT cards, which operate like lottery scratch tickets. The IFAT card allows students to try again if they don’t get the answer on their first attempt. The assignment was not only popular and effective for student learning, but it didn't add significantly to the course's grading load.

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

In this panel, we will discuss the design of hybrid and blended courses that combine face-to-face and online components. The MB Hub, Instructional Design consultation service, has seen increasing interest in hybrid and blended courses, with several programs expressing a desire to design hybrid (or blended) courses, and we experienced some casual conversation at events. 

How might this delivery modality work for your course or program? Is it a stepping stone to switch some programs to an online format? Or an exploration into what’s possible? In this panel discussion, we will examine best practices for hybrid courses, explore their potential for large-classroom management, and discuss other design features that will benefit instructors. 

Location: UM Zoom

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff. MB Hub Partners

Panelists:

Looking for ways to revitalize your teaching but don't have time for a big redesign? In Small Teaching, author James Lang argues that small changes in classroom techniques and activities can have big impacts on student learning. Hear practical teaching strategies from faculty guest speakers. Bring your questions and your lunch. Leave with ideas you can implement right away in your courses!

Lightning Presentations:

Andrew Kerr, Instructor II in the College of Nursing 

• Building Classroom Connections Using Jigsaw and Whiteboard Activities
• “Flipping” a course (or even one lesson!) can appear to be both appealing and daunting for some faculty. In this session, I will provide an overview of how I apply a modified flipped classroom approach in a second-year undergraduate Nursing course. I will give special attention to how I use a variation on a jigsaw activity to increase student engagement, foster peer-to-peer collaboration, and generate real-time evidence of student learning during class.  

Heidi Marx-Wolf, Dean of Arts and Professor of Religion 

• Class notes for Everyone
• Instead of struggling to find notetakers every semester, make notetaking an assignment in the class to ensure that everyone learns good notetaking skills and has two sets of notes per class meeting.

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Looking for ways to revitalize your teaching but don't have time for a big redesign? In Small Teaching, author James Lang argues that small changes in classroom techniques and activities can have big impacts on student learning. Hear practical teaching strategies from faculty guest speakers. Bring your questions and your lunch. Leave with ideas you can implement right away in your courses!

Lightning Presentations:

Andrew Kerr, Instructor II in the College of Nursing 

• Building Classroom Connections Using Jigsaw and Whiteboard Activities
• “Flipping” a course (or even one lesson!) can appear to be both appealing and daunting for some faculty. In this session, I will provide an overview of how I apply a modified flipped classroom approach in a second-year undergraduate Nursing course. I will give special attention to how I use a variation on a jigsaw activity to increase student engagement, foster peer-to-peer collaboration, and generate real-time evidence of student learning during class.  

Heidi Marx-Wolf, Dean of Arts and Professor of Religion 

• Class notes for Everyone
• Instead of struggling to find notetakers every semester, make notetaking an assignment in the class to ensure that everyone learns good notetaking skills and has two sets of notes per class meeting.

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff

Have you ever wondered if there’s a better way to engage students on the first day of class instead of diving straight into the course material? In this workshop, you'll explore how to capture students' interest from day one with short, fun activities. Get ready to actively participate and find out which activities work best for you!

Location: Room 223, The Centre, 65 Dafoe Road

Open to: UM Faculty, Sessional Instructors, and Staff