Beyond the Tricks of the Trade:
Inquiry, Adaptation, and the Art of Pedagogical Reinvention
Conference Theme
Higher education continues to shift beneath our feet. The rapid utilization and normalization of AI, ongoing enrollment fluctuations, new pressures on academic freedom, and the persistent aftershocks of the pandemic have reshaped our classrooms in ways both invigorating and disorienting. Many of us are teaching in environments where attention is fragmented, resources are stretched, and the pace of change feels relentless. And yet—these “interesting times” also invite us to reimagine what teaching can be.
Last year, this conference explored the playful, crafty, and sometimes subversive “tricks” that help us spark learning when the usual approaches fall flat. This year, we extend that conversation. What happens after the trick works? How do we build sustainable, inquiry-driven pedagogies that adapt to shifting student needs, technological landscapes, and institutional realities? How do we move from clever hacks to intentional reinvention?
This conference invites faculty, staff, and administrators from Marshall University and all regionally accredited colleges and universities to examine the evolving art of teaching with curiosity, creativity, and intellectual generosity. We welcome proposals that explore how pedagogical inquiry—formal or informal, playful or rigorous—can help us navigate uncertainty, deepen engagement, and cultivate resilient learning communities across modalities (asynchronous, virtual, hybrid, HyFlex, and traditional classroom environments).
We welcome proposals that address themes such as:
- Pedagogies of Inquiry and Reinvention: How are you rethinking your teaching in response to new challenges? What questions are guiding your evolution as an educator?
- From Hacks to Habits: How have last year’s “teaching tricks” matured into sustainable practices? What once-experimental approaches have become part of your pedagogical identity?
- AI, Automation, and the Reimagined Classroom: How are you integrating, resisting, adapting to, or critically interrogating AI in your teaching? What new forms of inquiry does AI make possible—or necessary?
- Re-engaging the Disengaged: What strategies help students reconnect with curiosity, presence, and intellectual risk-taking in an era of distraction and burnout?
- Pedagogies of Care, Belonging, and Community: How do we design learning environments that support well-being and authentic participation?
- Time, Labor, and Sustainability in Teaching: What practices help you teach well without burning out? How do you balance innovation with feasibility?
- Play, Experimentation, and Productive Failure: How do you use play, improvisation, or creative risk-taking to spark inquiry—for students or for yourself?
Topics of interest include (bur are not limited to):
- Innovative classroom practices across all modalities – face-to-face, virtual, and online
- Approaches that strengthen campus belonging and community engagement
- High-impact practices that cultivate imagination, reflection, and growth mindset
- Tools, apps, and technologies that meaningfully enhance learning and/or support best practices in teaching
- AI literacy, critical digital pedagogy, and emerging tech integration
- Transformative classroom structures, projects, and/or initiatives (again face-to-face, virtual, and online) that allow for flexibility and innovation in teaching and learning
- Approaches to identifying and mitigating non-academic barriers that inhibit growth
- Impact of curricular and co-curricular community engagement opportunities on openness and flexibility
Session Formats and Proposal Submission Types
Submission Types:
- Interactive Presentation: 75 minutes; one or more facilitators; audience interaction, author selected co-facilitators
- Panel Presentation: 75 minutes; three co-panelists for approximately 20 minutes each with Q&A (panels arranged by conference organizers based on topic)
- Workshop/Tutorial: 2 hours; one or more facilitators; participants work on some element of their own teaching practice (e.g., syllabus development, high-impact practices)
- Teaching Clinic: 30-minute time slots for demonstrations of particularly fruitful teaching practices and brief discussion; single facilitator
- Facilitated Roundtable Discussion: 30-minute time slots for open discussions of initiatives either inside the classroom or at the Institutional level; one or more facilitators; audience participation expected
Session Formats:
- Traditional: Face-to-face with an audience (session may be recorded and posted for viewing after the conference)
- HyFlex: Face-to-face with some audience members, others join virtually via Microsoft Teams; live recording posted after the conference
- Virtual: Live audience on Microsoft Teams (session may be recorded and posted for viewing after the conference)
- Simulive: Pre-recorded presentation posted ahead of the conference; Live Q & A occurs virtually on Microsoft Teams while your recording is being played during a presentation slot
Submit a proposal by using the link below. Please complete the submission form by 5:00 p.m. on March 6, 2026.
For questions, contact Jamie Warner, Ph.D. (warnerj@marshall.edu), April Fugett, Ph.D. (fugett5@marshall.edu), or Cody Sharp (sharpc@marshall.edu