Conference on Teaching and Learning
16th Annual South Alabama Conference on Teaching and Learning
Monday, May 11 | 6pm - 8pm (CST)
Dinner and performance by the South Alabama Indian Music Ensemble
Tuesday, May 12 - Wednesday, May 13
Two day conference on Teaching and Learning.
May 11 - 13, 2026
Humans, Humanity, and the Humanities: Shaping Our Teaching and Learning Environments
A quick search of articles related to Gen AI in The Chronicle for Higher Education reveals a variety of reactions, solutions, and big questions about the future of higher education and our current students. Top hits from the article list include: "AI is Making the College Experience Lonelier" (September 22, 2025), "Can Generative AI Promote Student Success?" (September 26, 2025), and the tough question: "Can the Humanities Survive AI?" (January 23, 2025). The expansive use of AI is changing both how and what we teach. Is AI really the new calculator? Will it really boost our intelligence (Mollick, 2024)? As we wait for history to answer these questions, we, as humans, continue to be key in shaping our teaching and learning environments.
This year鈥檚 theme, Humans, Humanity, and the Humanities: Shaping Our Teaching and Learning Environments, invites participants to focus on the unique role of human thought, creativity, and moral reasoning, as AI changes the higher education landscape. We envision presentations that explore how we are maintaining the integral social learning environment in the age of AI and centralizing the importance of critical thinking, self-reflection, and the ethical application (and implications) of AI usage.
Through a variety of presentation formats, CoTL is a space to share your scholarly work in an inviting, supportive, yet peer-reviewed conference tailored to the needs of instructors along the Gulf Coast. Through a partnership between several area colleges and universities, this conference reaches a diverse audience, all of whom are engaged in a variety of ways of supporting students.
Keynote Speakers
Kevin Yee, Ph.D.
Special Assistant to the Provost for Artificial Intelligence
Director | Faculty Center for Teaching & Learning
University of Central Florida
Not only is AI a permanent addition to the fabric of life, it鈥檚 not even a static concept. The specific tools and implementations of AI continue to evolve. Newer agentic browsers and wearables like AI-glasses with undetectable heads-up displays have, for example, offered completely new affordances and challenges than early generative AI tools like large language models. Things will change yet again as robotics and AI merge, humans implant computer chips in their brains, or 鈥淎rtificial General Intelligence鈥� (AGI) tools all but pass the Turing test and mimic sentience. What will humans do as AI proliferates? Will humans still work jobs? What will it mean, exactly, to even be human when technology becomes even more integrated in our experiences? We鈥檒l take our best shot at reading the tea leaves in the hopes of preparing for such a dizzying future, including the future of learning at our institutions.
Brie Tripp, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Teaching | Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior
UC Davis
As undergraduate classrooms become increasingly shaped by technology, intentionally restoring the human dimensions of learning has become essential. Dr. Brie Tripp examines how purposeful course design situates scientific content within meaningful social and personal contexts, strengthening students鈥� engagement and well-being. Grounded in her empirical research, she highlights the Scientist Spotlight initiative, a metacognitive intervention featuring diverse, counter-stereotypical scientists that has been shown to significantly increase students鈥� sense of relatability to science. Dr. Tripp's scholarship also empirically investigates alternative grading practices, including quiz retakes and other low-stakes assessments. When paired with contextualized learning, these approaches shift the focus away from rigid content coverage and toward deeper, more durable learning. Collectively, this body of work reframes STEM classrooms as spaces where scientific inquiry and student well-being are mutually reinforced, where every learner can recognize their story as part of science.
Presentation Types
Interactive Workshops | Panels | Research Talks | Roundtables
Points of Contact
Dr. S. Raj Chaudhury, Innovation in Learning Center, schaudhury@southalabama.edu
Dr. Lisa LaCross, Innovation in Learning Center, lacross@southalabama.edu
Conference Partners
