Events

Registration and Call for Proposals now open!

Spring 2025 Teaching Commons Conference

The 2025 Teaching Commons Conference will be on Friday, April 25, 2025 at Paul Brest Hall. Registration for attendees is now open. We also invite you to submit a lightning talk proposal by March 25.  

 

Register or submit a conference proposal
Stanford
Teaching Commons

Teaching Commons Conference 2025 Call for Proposals

All Stanford community members are invited to submit proposals to share their work at the Teaching Commons Conference on April 25, 2025, held in person on campus at Paul Brest Hall.

Submit a conference proposal

Proposals are due on Tuesday, March 25, 2025 by 5:00 PM.

Themes

The conference theme of flourishing together examines the interdependent relationship between teaching and learning, and educators and students, to work together towards mutual thriving that can transform teaching and learning experiences at Stanford. 

  • Elevating Student Voices: Focusing on amplifying students' perspectives, empowering student contributions, and advocating for students' roles in shaping impactful learning experiences.
  • Cultivating Connections Between Teachers and Learners: Examining ways to strengthen empathy and communication between educators and students to build a collaborative educational environment.
  • Partnerships Across Campus: Promoting interdisciplinary collaborations to enrich academic communities, emphasizing the breaking down of silos and fostering campus-wide collaborations.

Who you are

We welcome all applicants involved in teaching and learning at Stanford. Faculty, course instructors, teaching assistants, staff, and student researchers are invited to apply. Community members from all Stanford schools and units, including online learning, professional programs, and so on are welcome.

Session format

All prospective facilitators should propose a Lightning Talk session. Lightning Talks will be 7 minutes each and should inspire new ideas for teaching and learning. We love short, high-impact talks that focus on asking a big question, engaging with an important idea, or sharing one specific practice. Talks should end with a prompt to stimulate conversation for a short time of reflection among conference attendees. A great talk will have a clear takeaway action that attendees can apply in their teaching. You will be grouped into a longer session with other lightning talk speakers.

Proposal guidelines

The proposal form will ask you to submit:

  1. Name(s), email(s), institution(s), and position title(s) of proposed presenters.
  2. Session Title.
  3. Session Abstract of 75-100 words. This will appear on the conference website, so write it to your intended participant audience.
  4. A list of one to three Learning Goals for your session.

Session descriptions will be evaluated according to the following: 

  • Alignment with the themes of the conference
  • Feasibility of format and length for the proposed session type
  • Opportunities for educators across disciplines to talk to each other, take away new teaching tools, or launch new collaborations.

Contact us

Questions? Problems? Requests? Email us at TeachingCommons@stanford.edu.