Career & Tools

The Engaging Teaching Symposium provides a space to reflect on teaching over the past year: what you tried, what “worked” or “didn’t work,” and how it might inform your teaching in the upcoming quarters. The symposium will take place on Wednesdays and Fridays from October 6-11, 2021. Submissions are now being accepted for roundtables, 30-minute workshops, and poster sessions. Submit an abstract by June 30. Read on to learn more!

By Graduate Division Staff
Thursday, June 24th, 2021 - 8:00am


During the past year, instructors and TAs have implemented new strategies for reaching learners, cultivating community, redesigning assessments, and more. The Engaging Teaching Symposium provides a space to reflect on these activities: what we tried, what "worked" or "didn't work," and how it might inform your teaching in the upcoming quarters.

The symposium will take place on Wednesdays and Fridays from October 6-11, 2021 (via Zoom with some in-person components). The symposium is co-sponsored by the Mellon Engaging Humanities Initiative; Instructional Development; the Center for Innovative Teaching, Research, and Learning; the Office of Undergraduate Education, and the Graduate Division.

The symposium welcomes research-based contributions as well as case-studies that make use of available evidence to discuss improved teaching, student learning and engagement, or professional development as teachers.

Possible topics include lessons from, reflections on, and long-term impacts for teaching and learning from "the long 2020":

  1. The challenges and successes of remote teaching or learning

  2. Incorporating effective elements of remote teaching or learning long term

  3. Calls for racial justice and how they affected teaching or learning

  4. Sustainable models for equitable and anti-racist teaching

  5. Assessment and designing for learning, not grades, during the pandemic

  6. Using new assessment strategies for in-person classes

  7. Pedagogies of care during the pandemic

  8. Student experiences of remote learning

  9. Supporting students as they return to campus

  10. Supporting instructors as they return to campus

The goal of the symposium is for UCSB community members (instructors, graduate students, staff, and undergraduate students) to exchange ideas and learn from each other to advance learning and teaching across the campus. Interactive contributions that encourage fruitful sharing of experiences, resources, and advice are encouraged.

The symposium will have three presentation formats:

Roundtables: 60-minute focused discussions about a teaching-related topic, question, or idea with 3-6 presenters. Roundtable presenters should provide a small number (e.g., 2-5) of questions or provocations for a discussion based on teaching. The questions should spark lively conversation among participants and attendees. Please include the names of all roundtable presenter(s) in your proposal.

Bite-sized workshops: 30-minute interactive presentations that facilitate activities around a topic. These can be led by one person or a small group of people.

Digital artifact/poster session: Visual presentations of ideas, findings, pedagogical innovations, or activities. Posters or links to digital materials will be posted on a symposium website. There will also be a synchronous session, during which symposium participants can discuss the digital artifacts/posters with the presenters.

The symposium will be divided into half-day sessions over the course of three weeks. Submit an abstract no longer than 300 words by June 30 using this form for best consideration; there is some flexibility to this deadline. The abstract will be included in the symposium program, so you are encouraged to write it with the symposium audience in mind. For questions, contact Dr. Elina Salminen at salminen@ucsb.edu.