Pedagogy Day
March 13, 2025
"Pedagogy for All Learners"
Welcome to Pedagogy Day 2025, a one-day conference hosted at Eastern Illinois University. The purpose of this event is to cultivate a space where faculty and instructors can explore, share, and engage with proven effective practices for teaching and learning at the university level.
The new digital accessibility rules under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) implemented this past year have sparked significant discussions on college campuses about their impact on faculty and learners across all modalities. These rules formalize what educational developers and instructional designers have long advocated: accommodating the needs and abilities of all learners removes unnecessary barriers to learning.
The theme for Pedagogy Day 2025 is "Pedagogy for All Learners," which embraces the unique and shared needs and abilities of every student. Our keynote speaker, Dr. Sarah Silverman, notes, “we can accept and embrace different ways of communicating and thinking while also acknowledging that developing mutual understanding between people can be quite challenging.”
Keynote Speaker: Dr. Sarah Silverman, Ph.D.
Lecturer on Disability Studies, University of Michigan-Dearborn; Adjunct Faculty in Human Services and Communications, Goodwin University; and Independent Instructional Designer.
Dr. Sarah Silverman is a distinguished educator and independent faculty developer specializing in neurodiversity, disability studies, and inclusive instructional design. She currently holds teaching positions at both the University of Michigan, Dearborn and Goodwin University. Her extensive faculty development experience includes work at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, UW Madison, and UC Davis.
An accomplished author, Dr. Silverman is currently writing "An Introduction to Neurodiversity for Educators," forthcoming from the University of Oklahoma Press as part of their Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed series. She regularly conducts workshops and presentations on disability, neurodiversity, and inclusive pedagogy, and shares her expertise through her newsletter "Beyond the Scope," which explores advanced topics in teaching and learning.
Dr. Silverman's research interests focus on the intersection of feminist and disability-informed pedagogies, the ableist biases in educational technologies, and neurodiversity history and theory. She has emerged as a leading voice in the movement against academic surveillance technologies, notably co-authoring influential work on alternatives to remote proctoring during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her commitment to inclusive education extends beyond theory into practice through her development of an innovative asynchronous short-course on neurodiversity for higher education professionals.
Call for Proposals:
Under this overarching theme, we invite proposals that address both foundational and innovative pedagogical practices targeting the challenges of inclusive teaching and highlighting proven methods that embrace diverse ways of thinking and learning. Proposals should demonstrate innovative teaching approaches supported by evidence of positive impact on student learning outcomes. Download a PDF version of this CFP.
Proposals for presentations will be accepted until 11:59 PM, January 17, 2025. Please submit proposals to fdic@eiu.edu. The primary contact person will receive a decision via email no later than February 1, 2025.
While we welcome proposals on various aspects of pedagogical innovation and excellence, our specific areas of focus include, but are not limited to:
- Assessment strategies that foster learner engagement and knowledge generation.
- Active learning practices that boost learner engagement and interaction with course materials and peers.
- Original or reconceptualized instructional materials that promote learning.
- Technology-enhanced teaching and learning.
- Accessibility concerns and Universal Design for Learning principles.
- Inclusive instructional design for teaching and learning.
These areas of focus can be considered from various institutional perspectives, including faculty and instructors, the Library, Writing Center, and other academic resources, learner support services, learners themselves, and instructional technology support.
Proposal Information
The proposal form includes the following fields:
- Name, title, department and institution name, and email address of each facilitator.
- Session format (see below).
- Session title.
- Keywords related to the selected areas of focus for the session (assessment strategies, active learning, learner engagement, instructional materials, technology-enhanced teaching, Universal Design for Learning, inclusive instructional design, or other).
- Description of session, including background and evidence of effectiveness of work being presented (400-word limit) and participant learning outcomes and/or engagement (100-word limit), submitted as a single document.
Successful proposals will address many of the following criteria:
- Inform pedagogical approaches with concrete examples.
- Highlight the impacts on learning outcomes.
- Define how engagement will take place for session attendees.
- Provide physical and/or digital access to key takeaway resources.
Session Formats
- Paper Presentation (10-12 minutes): Papers may report the results of completed research, describe research in progress, or present a position on a compelling problem or issue relevant to one or more of the conference areas. Research papers should highlight the problem, results, and conclusions while very briefly touching on method. Papers will be grouped into sessions with similarly themed projects.
- Panel Presentation (45 minutes, 2-4 panelists): Panel sessions offer two to four presenters the opportunity to weave together innovative ideas, practical experiences, fresh approaches and perspectives, and critical reflection on a theme or topic related to the conference theme of Small Changes with Big Impacts. Lasting a total of 45 minutes for all speakers and Q&A, these sessions are intended to inspire participants to consider multiple, diverse perspectives on a particular topic and their potential impact.
- Facilitated Roundtable Discussion (45 minutes): Facilitated roundtable discussions provide time for colleagues to examine topics of similar interest through a sharing of expertise and experiences. They provide an opportunity to work through concepts, engage in problem-solving, and explore new ideas—all from multiple perspectives. Facilitators should be prepared to share 3-4 questions and related materials in advance for interested participants to consider prior to attending the session.
- Poster Session: Poster presenters share visual models of curricular and cocurricular innovations and novel approaches, strategies for institutional transformation and/or new project development, findings and data from research projects, or novel designs for supporting high-impact practices.
- “Lightning Talk” Innovation Sessions (new tool, technology or approach) (7 minutes): "Lightning talks" are brief innovation sharing sessions during with a new tool, idea or approach is discussed. These sessions should build in time for inspiring participants to engage in dialogue and collaborative problem-solving and trying something new.
