ABSTRACT. This pre-conference workshop will simulate our successful retreat model, which leverages storytelling and collective reflection through an intentionally designed retreat space that promotes agency and fosters professional growth. By sharing their teaching stories, educators reclaim their professional voices, affirm their expertise, and see themselves as knowledge creators. Listening to colleagues' narratives provides fresh perspectives and serves as a mirror for reflection, prompting educators to examine their own practices, beliefs, and challenges through new lenses. The model incorporates time for rest and reflection alongside dialogue and collaboration, acknowledging that deep learning requires spaciousness and allowing instructors to return with renewed energy and clarity. Participants in the pre-conference workshop will experience a condensed version of this model, reflect on its effectiveness and create a preliminary plan for how a similar retreat could be offered in their own institution.

ABSTRACT. Effective course design is known to improve student learning, engagement, and educational equity. Course Design Institutes (CDIs) are an emergent academic development tactic. This session supports the field of academic and educational development by encouraging the use of evidence-based practices for developing and implementing course design experiences. Crucially, this session highlights the evolution of educational/academic development by providing new ways to measure programming impact on instructors, students, and institutions. It also enables developers at all career levels and institution types to design context-sensitive, high-impact course design programming. During this pre-conference session, participants will use a data-informed CDI model (2025) to design or redesign a CDI for their context. Presenters will facilitate the session using the model's elements through short presentations, individual work, and small group interactions. Participants will apply change principles from the CDI model, identify meaningful outcomes and impacts, and develop a day-to-day CDI structure for their context with a focus on CDI content and engagement strategies. Participants will leave the session with concrete and valuable ideas on not just the “what” of CDIs, but the “how” and “why” of a CDI.

ABSTRACT. When teachers design and implement lessons, whether consciously or unconsciously, their own beliefs on teaching and learning, based on their own beliefs on education, contribute in some way to the classroom environment (Weimer, 2013). Sometimes, without recognizing that these differences in educational beliefs lead to distinct ways teachers manage their lessons, discussions tend to focus only on superficial teaching strategies. Knowledge regarding these beliefs on education, teaching, and learning has been accumulated in primary and secondary education rather than higher education (Yamada & Sekita, 2022). Behavior analysis reveals that not only educational beliefs but also the various values we unconsciously acquire since birth are the result of interactions with various human and material environments (Mitachi, 2019). This Life-History Mandala workshop aims to support teachers in reflecting on their life histories to understand the formation of their educational beliefs. By mindfully listening to others’ narratives, participants deepen their understanding of differing beliefs through the lens of lived experience.

ABSTRACT. How do you make decisions about the programs you offer in your center? Do you fall back on conventional topics (something on course design, something on technology, diversity and inclusion, assessment and evaluation, Artificial intelligence)? Do you follow institutional priorities? While it makes good sense to align our work with current trends and institutional priorities, this approach does not necessarily nurture our faculty as full persons. In this workshop, you will learn about a holistic theoretical framework from yoga philosophy, the chakra system, and explore its seven elements. Armed with this understanding, you will take inventory of your offerings and determine areas of strengths and growth for your programs. Participants will leave with resources to embed this framework in their planning process. This workshop has several opportunities for interactions planned, so come ready to engage!

ABSTRACT. Transform your course design and teaching by participating in this immersive session designed to empower academic developers and instructors with actionable strategies for inclusive online and blended learning. Moving beyond theory, participants will actively construct a personalized course design and teaching action plan by integrating research-based best practices with the strategic application of Generative AI. This highly participant-centered workshop grounds itself in Universal Design for Learning, Culturally Responsive Teaching, and the Community of Inquiry to help you create flexible, inclusive environments. Guided by a comprehensive working guide, attendees will master five core strategies: sharing a compelling vision, creating the experience through aligned activities, facilitating substantive interaction, establishing a supportive environment for belonging, and presenting your vision through intuitive and welcoming navigation. Join us to translate inclusive design theory into practical application, leaving with a plan to design and teach an inclusive online or blended course.

ABSTRACT. Academic developers (ADs) face a paradoxical task: they seek to promote student learning while working primarily with faculty members rather than directly with students. This distance between ADs’ professional discourse and students’ lived learning experiences is reflected in the often-overlooked role of academic development in institutional internationalisation strategies. Approaches such as the internationalisation of the curriculum at home (IoCaH) aim to transform the student experience, for example through virtual mobility or virtual exchange. However, sustainable internationalisation requires attention to the interplay between studying, teaching, and academic development. Academic developers play an essential role in this process, yet there remains a need for comprehensive institutional approaches that recognise professional learning as a continuous, active, social, and practice-based endeavour. ADs therefore need to be aware of their own roles and agency in internationalisation efforts, as do their partners across the institution. This pre-conference workshop aims to foster such awareness and to highlight the importance of ADs’ involvement in internationalisation processes that align with institutional commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

ABSTRACT. When we ask people about trust, there is universal agreement that it is important in teaching and learning, yet trust-building strategies seem rarely to be made explicit in educational development contexts. The recent IJAD special issue on Trust in and Through Academic Development showed the appetite among academic developers for talking about this topic and considering its variations in different disciplinary, institutional, and cultural settings. In this workshop, we will explore practical applications for building trust in higher education teaching, as well as ideas for implementing trust-building moves in our own practices. The workshop is based on our research with university teachers and students on three continents about how they build and demonstrate trust in higher education classrooms. We will provide multiple opportunities to engage with the research and to consider how trust is expressed in different cultural and academic contexts. You will leave the session with practical ideas for your own work, and with a community of colleagues thinking, talking, and inquiring into trust together.

ABSTRACT. This workshop introduces a participant-centered approach for integrating ethical decision-making into academic development. As geopolitical tensions, technological change, and institutional pressures shape higher education, educators increasingly encounter ethically ambiguous situations that demand clarity, justified judgment, and professional agency. Drawing on Kohlberg’s model of moral development and Bandura’s social cognitive theory of agency, the workshop offers practical methods to strengthen ethical reasoning and responsible action in complex environments.

Participants engage with three authentic cases from Technische Universität Berlin that illustrate conflicting values and stages of ethical judgment. TU Berlin’s trajectory—from a former site of weapons research to an institution guided by a Zivilklausel during Germany’s Zeitenwende—provides a meaningful backdrop for examining dual-use research, security considerations, institutional responsibility, and ethical challenges in engineering and technology education.

Through structured dilemma discussions, reflection, and peer dialogue, participants experience ethical decision-making as a teachable and transferable skill. A reusable dilemma template and facilitation strategies support adaptation across disciplines and institutional settings.

Aligned with the ICED26 theme “Agency and Academic Development,” the workshop helps academic developers and teaching staff navigate institutional constraints, articulate ethical positions, and foster student and teacher agency. By emphasizing reflective judgment and responsible decision-making, the workshop equips participants with concrete tools for embedding ethical reasoning into teaching qualifications, leadership programs, and professional development initiatives.

Participants leave prepared to contribute to institutional cultures where ethical clarity, value-based dialogue, and principled action are integral to academic practice.

ABSTRACT. Effective communication is foundational to navigating higher education, yet knowing how to communicate and communicating effectively are not the same. Do we ask questions that probe deeply into understanding? Do we listen with genuine openness? Do we attend to marginalized voices or only the loudest? Do we examine underlying assumptions? Do we create welcoming climates for meaningful exchange? This interactive workshop introduces Reflective Dialogue (RD), an intentional framework for thinking about one's own experiences through dialogue with others. Whether facilitating classroom discussions, collaborating with instructors on teaching and learning, or participating in administrative meetings, how we communicate is as important as what we communicate. In these challenging times, building stronger relationships with students and colleagues through humanistic pedagogy is essential to the success and resilience of higher education. Participants will explore the key foundations of Reflective Dialogue and consider practical applications across their professional contexts. Through collaborative activities, attendees will develop skills in: • Creating environments that facilitate trust and inclusivity • Asking questions that invite critical thinking • Listening with an intention to understand and be influenced • Thinking together to reflect on challenges and co-create solutions Participants will leave with concrete strategies for engaging in more effective dialogue that promotes agency among learners and leaders alike. RD offers a practical approach to strengthening communication, fostering collaboration, and supporting the health of our educational communities.

ABSTRACT. In the face of rapid technological advances, academic professionals must develop not only technical familiarity with AI tools, but also the reflective capacity to integrate them meaningfully into their scholarly and educational practices. This hands-on workshop empowers participants to build and expand their AI literacy as a foundation for academic agency in a time of increasing automation and complexity.

Participants will engage with a structured four-step workflow designed to support the critical exploration and integration of generative AI into everyday academic routines – including research, writing, and teaching. The workflow fosters a reflective approach that allows individual creativity and professional judgment to remain central. Rather than replacing human input, the structured use of AI becomes a way to maintain quality, personal voice, and academic integrity in AI-supported work.

Instead of focusing on specific tools, the workshop emphasizes transferable principles and adaptable workflows suited for evolving AI ecosystems. Participants will have ample opportunity to work on their own academic tasks and to experiment with tool combinations that reflect their contexts and priorities. Collaborative peer exchange will further deepen insights into sustainable and responsible AI use. This workshop is open to academic staff, developers, and educational leaders seeking to strengthen their professional practice in a rapidly changing digital landscape.

ABSTRACT. Academic development units face pressure to demonstrate value to institutional leaders, accreditation bodies, and stakeholders. Many Centers for Teaching and Learning rely primarily on participation metrics—attendance rates—as impact proxies, obscuring contributions to teaching culture, curriculum enhancement, and systemic change. This workshop introduces a holistic, multi-level evaluation model combining the 4M Framework and Kirkpatrick Model, supporting academic developers in articulating strategic, organizational, and policy-relevant work. Attendees will explore practical methods for capturing and communicating impact evidence and receive a replicable, multi-level assessment plan and strategies for communicating value to leadership, informing policy, shaping teaching cultures, and strengthening evidence-based practices

ABSTRACT. Structure is everywhere around us, shaping our experience of the world: in the soaring arches of a cathedral, the whirling waves of a symphony, the gossamer strands of a spider’s web. It’s everywhere in our writing, too, from the syntax of our sentences to the arc of our arguments. Yet many academic writers — from undergraduate students to distinguished faculty — have never learned to speak the intricate language of structural design. Constrained by disciplinary conventions, they remain passive inhabitants of received forms rather than confident agents of change. This 3-hour pre-conference workshop, led by international writing expert Helen Sword, invites educational developers to rethink structure both in their own practice and in their work with faculty and students. Through a series of playful “Structure Studio” exercises, participants will explore eight dimensions of structural design in academic writing — from foundational principles to generative processes to published products to future possibilities — and experiment with a variety of structural paradigms and forms. By the end of the session, you will have developed a rich new vocabulary of structural design and a practical toolbox of strategies applicable to any task that requires wrangling multiple parts into a coherent whole: writing a book or article, planning a seminar or syllabus, leading a collaborative research project, balancing a complex workload, or empowering your colleagues and students to do any of the above.