2026 Call for Proposals
All Stanford community members are invited to submit proposals to share their work at the Teaching Commons Conference on April 10, 2026, held in person on campus at Paul Brest Hall.
Proposals are due by Friday, March 13, 5:00 pm.
Themes
The conference theme in 2026 is courageous curiosity, a bold, hopeful, and inquiring response to current challenges in higher education.
- Inquiry with Courage: elevating a sense of openness, curiosity, and exploration at the core of our mission as instructors and learners.
- Hopefulness and Compassion: meeting the future together as instructors and students, encouraging and supporting a culture of shared understanding and discovery.
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:
- Name(s), email(s), institution(s), and position title(s) of proposed presenters.
- Session Title.
- Session Abstract of 75-100 words. This will appear on the conference website, so write it to your intended participant audience.
- 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.