Spark
Program
Day 1
| TIME | DETAILS | |
| 9:30-9:45 | Welcome and Introductions | |
| 9:45-11:00 | Workshop: You As a Teacher | One of the most important and inescapable things you bring to your teaching is you. How does your unique perspective show up in the classroom? And how can you intentionally align your teaching strategies to your unique perspective, for both expected and unexpected situations? This session will invite you to explore how to bring your strengths and values into your teaching to support student learning and your own wellbeing. |
| 11:10-12:30 | Panel: Meeting Students Where They Are | The ability to understand and connect with students is critical for the work of any teacher. But who are your learners? What characterizes the current generation of traditionally aged students? What perspectives, aspirations, challenges and needs do they bring into the classroom? What institutional resources are in place to support them when life outside the classroom impacts their ability to learn? This panel discussion will help you consider the wide range of student experiences, the resources in place to support them, and how you can effectively leverage these resources for your own and your students’ wellbeing. |
| 12:30-1:45 | Lunch Panel: Relationship-Rich Experiences | |
| 1:45-2:10 | Presentation: Mead Endowment | Inspired by longtime UVA Professor Ernest "Boots" Mead and his unwavering dedication to teaching and student engagement, the Mead Endowment seeks to create long standing connections between faculty and students both inside and outside of the classroom. The Mead Endowment supports student-faculty engagement initiatives for both new and seasoned faculty. This brief presentation will introduce you to some of the opportunities and resources the Meade Endowment offers to support student-faculty engagement activities for both new and seasoned faculty. |
| 2:15-3:30 | Workshop: Equity-Minded Approaches to Common Teaching Challenges | Equity-minded teaching is a commitment to dismantling systemic barriers to ensure that all students have access to learning and feel supported in the classroom. Equity-minded teaching is also more easily said than done, so what does it mean in everyday practice? This workshop will introduce you to frameworks for thinking about equitable teaching and provide you with practical strategies that you can adapt to your particular teaching context. You will also have the opportunity to explore practical applications of these frameworks to develop equity-minded strategies to address common teaching challenges. |
| 3:30-3:45 | Day 1 Wrap-Up | |
Day 2
| TIME | DETAILS | |
| 9:30-10:45 | Workshop: Principles of Effective Assessment | Assessment, when done well, not only evaluates students’ learning, but also drives it. In this session, you will explore different types of assessments and practice scaffolding and aligning assessments with your learning objectives to support student success. Together, we will also consider the evolving role of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in assessment and its potential to support and challenge our current practices. |
| 10:50-12:20 | Workshop: Leveraging the Science of Learning for Effective Teaching | Building on the evidence of how learning works, this interactive session will help you anchor instructional choices in how humans learn. You will learn about the intertwined nature of cognitive and affective learning through principles and strategies that can foster effective student learning and enrich your teaching. You will depart with ideas for integrating learning science into your course design and teaching practice. |
| 12:20-1:10 | Lunch | |
| 1:10-2:25 | Workshop: Promoting Learning and Belonging in your Syllabus | Your syllabus is your course’s first impression. It is your first opportunity to excite students about what they’ll learn and to transparently provide key information they will need to succeed in the course. In this session, you will learn how to craft syllabus elements such as course descriptions, assignment descriptions, and course policies that set the tone for the semester, support students’ learning and sense of belonging, and foster positive relationships between you and your students. |
| 3:00-3:30 | Day 2 Wrap-Up |
View more information on our 2025 event.