Autumn 25-26 Teaching Commons Symposium
The 2025 Autumn Teaching Commons Symposium aims to provide you with practical, actionable, just-in-time teaching and learning ideas that can be incorporated into autumn quarter courses.
Register to attend
All Stanford faculty, instructors, staff, TAs, and students interested in teaching and learning are encouraged to attend. This event is limited to Stanford affiliates only. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with the Zoom link for the symposium.
Schedule
| Workshop Title | Presenter(s) | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Learning to Learn With AI: Evolving Student Perspectives | John Mitchell & Glenn Fajardo | 9:00–10:00 a.m. |
| Lecturer Award for Teaching and Undergraduate Education Panel: Wisdom for Autumn Quarter 2025 | Marcelo Clerici-Arias, Ross Venook, and Julie Zelenski | 10:00–10:45 a.m. |
| Learning With Students About Generative AI | Grace Huckins | 10:45–11:30 a.m. |
| Make Your Canvas Pages Accessible With The Instructor Accessibility Guide | Auston Stamm | 11:30-12:00 noon |
| A Classroom Technology Checklist For A Successful Class | The Introductory Seminars Learning Experience and Technology Support Students (LETS) | 12 noon–12:30 p.m. |
| Top Priorities and Resources for Autumn Teaching | Cassandra Volpe Horii | 12:30–1:00 p.m. |
Friday, September 26, 2025
9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m.
On Zoom (Please register above for the link.)
Session Descriptions
Learning to Learn With AI: Evolving Student Perspectives
John Mitchell & Glenn Fajardo
Description:
Over the past two years, we have run a sequence of seminars and design classes asking student groups to design ways to use AI effectively for learning. Simple examples include summarization, creation of study guides, time management, and asking Ai to critique their work, while remaining concerned about potential learning loss from such use. More complex examples navigate contrasting perspectives on historical events, address cultural differences in group collaboration, or use standardized personality tests to help AI tailor responses to the personality of the user.
Learning Outcome:
We hope attendees will be able to list three ways that students use AI, explain two concerns that students have about detrimental impact of AI, and formulate one experiment they can try in their class.
Lecturer Award for Teaching and Undergraduate Education Panel: Wisdom for Autumn Quarter 2025
Marcelo Clerici-Arias, Ross Venook, & Julie Zelenski
Description:
Learn from a thoughtful panel of this year's recipients of the Lecturer Award for Teaching and Undergraduate Education.
Learning Outcome:
Attendees will reflect on wisdom gained through teaching from each panelist and consider how to apply in their class.
Learning With Students About Generative AI
Grace Huckins
Description:
Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, can be a source of discomfort, suspicion, and conflict in the classroom. This session will challenge that perception by considering how students and instructors can work together to better understand and make use of generative AI tools—and, in particular, the benefits of centering student expertise in working with these tools.
Learning Outcome:
Design a short activity or assignment that targets one of your course's learning goals and makes use of student expertise with generative AI tools.
Make Your Canvas Pages Accessible With The Instructor Accessibility Guide
Auston Stamm
Description:
This session will highlight how to use the Instructor Accessibility Guide plugin to make Canvas pages accessible. I will demonstrate how to identify hard-to-read text, skipped heading levels, missing alternative text for images, generic links, and inaccessible tables. I will remediate each accessibility issue using the guide, and audience members will be encouraged to try the tool on their Canvas pages.
Learning Outcome:
Learners can integrate the Instructor Accessibility Guide into their workflow and fix common accessibility errors on their Canvas pages.
A Classroom Technology Checklist For A Successful Class
The Introductory Seminars Learning Experience and Technology Support Students (LETS)
Description:
Have you ever walked into your classroom and struggled to connect your laptop to share your slides? What do you do if your classroom is locked? How can you plan for smooth, successful classroom experiences? The Introductory Seminars Learning Experience and Technology Support Students (LETS) have a helpful checklist for just these scenarios, and more.
Learning Outcome:
Learn preventative strategies and troubleshooting tools to support successful classroom learning experiences.
Top Priorities and Resources for Autumn Teaching
Cassandra Volpe Horii
Description:
Contemplate current important matters as we launch Autumn Quarter 2025.
Learning Outcome:
Reflect on shared priorities and ponder a possible action for at least one during this current quarter of teaching.
Contact us
Questions? Problems? Requests? Email us at TeachingCommons@stanford.edu.