# 2025 Concurrent Breakout Sessions ## Breakout Session Details *"Learning Now: Strategies for a Changing Landscape"* *Presented by the Office of the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning* *Friday, October 3, 2025* *Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University* Our breakout sessions offer various formats and tracks to meet the diverse needs of faculty, students, and staff — offering space to reflect, connect, and return to your work with new insights and concrete strategies. Below are descriptions for each track. - **Mindsets:** This track explores ways for educators to foster classroom cultures in which students feel seen, heard, and empowered to participate in open and respectful dialogue. - **Methods:** This track highlights intentional learning design strategies that support engaging learning experiences for our students. - **Innovations:** This track showcases the platforms, technologies, and university resources that make innovative teaching possible. - **What’s Next:** This track considers what’s possible as we reimagine teaching and learning for a new era. [**Breakout session room locations**](/2025-conference-event-logistics "2025 Conference Event Logistics") [**Speaker and facilitator bios**](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1O5cD4qGM29y4XEmTyQS0yhBOswp99BZCYoxqScOfbr0/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.b89m81bls53a) ## Mindsets ### Fostering Community Across Learning Modalities (10:15am to 11:15am) In today’s evolving learning landscape, fostering genuine community in hybrid and online environments requires intentional design and creative strategies. This interactive session will explore the challenges students face in feeling connected and “seen” when learning remotely or asynchronously—and highlight practical approaches to overcome them. Participants will engage with approaches that promote psychological safety, peer connection, and social presence. The session will close with an opportunity to draft a plan for integrating at least one community-building element into their own course design. Goals: Identify common barriers to building community in hybrid and online learning environments. Describe low-lift strategies that promote social presence, inclusion, and student connection. Evaluate digital tools and practices that enhance collaboration and student visibility. Draw inspiration from faculty examples of effective community-building rituals. Draft a concrete plan to implement a new community-building tactic in their own course. **Organizers**: Victoria Quamme Rhoden, Associate Director, Online Learning and Education (GSD); Adrienne Phelps-Coco, Director of the Program in General Education (FAS) **Speakers**: Alexandra Sedlovskaya, Associate Director, Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning (HBS); Natalie Slopen, Associate Professor of Social and Behavioral Sciences (HSPH) ### Discovery and Discomfort: Facilitating Productive Disagreement (11:30am to 12:30pm) How do we move from principles to practice when it comes to civil discourse? In this hands-on session, participants will engage with real classroom scenarios and explore strategies for designing productive, respectful dialogue across differences. Through small-group activities, we’ll explore how to create classroom norms that foster open inquiry and inclusion and how to respond when conversations become tense or emotionally charged. Whether you're preparing students for controversial topics, managing unexpected tension, or rethinking participation norms, this session offers practical tools to make dialogue a more intentional—and sustainable—part of your teaching. **Organizers:** Erin Baumann, Senior Associate Director of Professional Pedagogy (HKS); Matthew Sohm, Assistant Director, Civil Discourse and Classroom Culture, Lecturer on History and Literature (FAS); Hannah Waits, Postdoctoral Fellow in Civil Discourse (FAS) **Speakers**: Anthony Foxx, Emma Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership and Director, Center for Public Leadership, (HKS); Ned Hall, Norman E. Vuilleumier Professor of Philosophy and Director of Undergraduate Studies (FAS); Rachel Viscomi, Clinical Professor of Law and Director, Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinic (HLS) ## Methods ### Engaged, Not Exhausted: Active Learning That Galvanizes Attention and Energy (10:15am to 11:15am) In a time when both students and educators are navigating stress, distraction, and burnout, how can we use active learning to become more engaged and inspired in our teaching? This session explores strategies for designing learning experiences that prioritize learner agency —while respecting educator energy, cognitive load, and well-being. Presenters will share approaches to learning design, facilitation, and active listening that help both students and instructors stay grounded and energized throughout the semester. Attendees will leave with tangible ideas for making active learning feel manageable, restorative, and inspiring. **Organizers**: Chloe Chapin, Assistant Director, Course Development at the Derek Bok Center for Teaching and Learning (FAS); David Ginnings, Associate Director of Learning Design; Instructor (HSPH) **Speakers:** Bonnie Blanchfield, Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management (HSPH); Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, Professor of History (FAS); Gregg Meyer, Professor of Medicine (HMS); Matthew Miller, Senior Lecturer on Education and Senior Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching (HGSE) ### Beyond Checking the Box: From Participation to Engagement (11:30am to 12:30pm) What do “participation grades” signal to our students? How do our participation methods align with our learning goals, and with what students themselves want to get out of the class? This interactive session will tackle these questions and more, showcasing the strengths and biases of common participation methods, the purposes participation can serve in our courses, and options for giving students more agency in how they engage in our courses. **Organizers:** Sejal Vashi, Director of Learning Design and Instructional Support; Instructor (HSPH); Allison Pingree, Associate Director, Instructional Support and Development (HGSE) **Speakers**: Luke Miratrix, Professor of Education (HGSE); Aisha Yousafzai, Professor of Child Development and Health (HSPH) ## Innovations ### Behind the Screens: Technology in Just-In-Time Online Learning (10:15am to 11:15am) This session explores how tools and technologies can help deliver high-quality online and blended learning while balancing speed, scale, and cost. Engaging use cases will highlight innovative solutions—leveraging LXP platform-native features, evaluating and implementing new tools, and exploring cutting edge multimedia development approaches. With capabilities and challenges evolving at a rapid pace, this session offers practical insights and inspiration for creating impactful learning experiences at scale and at speed. **Organizers**: Mary Clarke, Managing Director, Content Production (HBS Online); Ian Tosh, Director of Academic Technology Services and Operations (HUIT) **Speakers:** Jen Dee, Digital Accessibility Officer (FAS); Chris Linnane, Senior Creative Director (HBS Online); Alyshia Keys-Harris, Learning Designer (HGSE) ### Redesigning Assignments in the Age of AI (11:30am to 12:30pm) In this session, we’ll discuss how faculty can integrate Generative AI tools thoughtfully and meaningfully into the classroom. This may include an assignment-by-assignment evaluation based on your learning goals for the course. Faculty presenters will reflect on their assignment design process, to determine which assignments develop core skills for the discipline and should be completed without AI, which assignments are enhanced by AI, and where they should transform assignments completely. In each scenario, you will explore practical steps to analyze assignment policies, language, and assessment. Through concrete examples, you’ll discover how to integrate AI meaningfully into assignments while preserving academic integrity and student agency. Participants will have the chance to revise or reimagine one of their own course activities with support from peers and facilitators. **Organizers:** Esther Kotecha, Associate Director for Teaching and Learning Technologies (HMS); Mae Klinger, Associate Director of Teaching and Learning Innovation (HKS) **Speakers**: Teddy Svoronos, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy(HKS); Tari Tan, Assistant Dean for Educational Innovation and Scholarship; Lecturer on Neurobiology (HMS) ## What's Next ### Beyond Information: Empowering Students and Educators in an Age of Knowledge Abundance (10:15am to 11:15am) In an age where knowledge is instantly accessible, the role of the educator is shifting. This session invites participants to explore how we can teach not just content, but the deeper capacities that matter most in today's complex world. We'll consider how educators can foster discernment, contextualized agency, experiential learning, and creativity through approaches that empower students to navigate, understand, and contribute meaningfully in an information-rich landscape. Through faculty reflections and facilitated dialogue, we’ll explore what it truly means to prepare students to not just know, but to understand, imagine, and act. **Organizers**: Gloria Tam, Instructor (DCE); Sarah Grafman, Director of Short-Form Content (VPAL) **Speakers**: Edward Clapp, Research Associate (HGSE); Gloria Tam, Instructor (DCE); Jeff Wilson, Director of the Harvard Law School Writing Center (HLS) ### Debating the Future of Learning (11:30am to 12:30pm) This session will describe and demonstrate how to use debate and debate exercises as models of active learning in the classroom. Indeed, debate is foundational to almost all learning and that training in debate can assist both instructors and students. The moderators (debate coaches at the College) will introduce the basic elements of argumentation and explore how they can be used in a classroom, after which undergraduate debaters from the college debate team will participate in a demonstration debate. Participants will then be invited to comment on the debate and ask questions of the students and moderators. **Organizers:** Tripp Rebrovick, Coach of Debate; Director of the Harvard Debate Council (FAS); Jazmine Pickens, Assistant Director of the Harvard Debate Council (FAS); LaTonya Starks, Assistant Director of Administration and Assistant Coach at the Harvard Debate Council (FAS) **Speakers**: Members of the Harvard Debate Council, Michi Synn, Student at Harvard College (FAS), and Dora Chen, Student at Harvard College (FAS)