CETLI Events Calendar

Planning a course by focusing on what you want students to learn allows instructors to use their time efficiently. This session will give new faculty a set of questions to use as they plan out the weeks of the semester and tie assignments and class activities to what they hope students will learn.  Although all […]

This beginner-friendly workshop will help you start the semester with a clear understanding of Penn’s AI tools and policies. We’ll explore ways to determine whether AI is the right tool for a given task and discuss considerations for AI-related course policies, helping you make informed decisions about AI’s role in your classroom.   Although all faculty are welcome, this workshop […]

This workshop will introduce Penn’s suite of teaching technology tools, including Gradescope, Poll Everywhere, and Perusall. Instructors will be encouraged to consider how these different tools may or may not support their individual classes while protecting student’s privacy and grades.   Although all faculty are welcome, this workshop is most appropriate for newer instructors and is offered as part of Penn’s […]

This workshop will lead instructors through a structured set of questions to consider as they prepare for the first week of class. Participants will discuss essential syllabus policies, the basics of opening your course Canvas site, and tips for a successful first week that establishes norms and gets students excited for your course.   Although all faculty are […]

Participants will consider how to design in-class activities that use generative AI in productive ways. The group will explore ideas for AI-based activities that expose students to new material, promote critical thinking, and provide timely feedback on their learning. 

Participants will discuss how to motivate students to read for class on their own by setting clear expectations for how students should be reading as well as accountability (by using quizzes or online tools like Perusall) so that students value the process of reading as part of learning. 

Teaching a Penn Global Seminar (PGS) allows instructors to integrate an international travel component into a course to enhance students’ learning. In this session Lisa Britton of FIGS and Donovan Shaefer of Religious Studies will talk about how they designed a PGS to incorporate their global research and networks. Members of the PGS team will […]

Using AI for problem-solving can enable students to learn to complete more challenging and rigorous work, if students use the tools appropriately. In this session, Enrique Pallares of Economics and Corlett Wood of Biology will open this discussion about helping students determine when and how to use AI while students also develop their own intuition. 

In this session, participants will explore ways that generative AI can speed up the Canvas Quiz building process, including question generation, file formatting and conversion, and Canvas imports. You’ll leave with a Canvas Quiz that’s ready to use in your course. Please bring a laptop to participate in this hands-on session.  

In this session, participants will talk about ways to create small group work that effectively uses class time to engage students with the material and each other. Aaron Clark of Chemistry and Karen Lasater of Nursing will kick off the conversation by talking about how they structure small group work to promote student learning. 

Creating an organized class session allows students to feel confident interacting with each other and ensures those interactions encourage students to understand your subject in more complicated ways.  Mary Ellen Kelly of Neuroscience and Ana Ozaki from History of Art will start this conversation by talking about how they plan class sessions to support student learning. 

Limiting electronic devices in class has become an increasingly popular way to improve student focus and create community. Michele Margolis of Political Science and Dominique Ruggieri from Public Health will begin this conversation by talking about how they have limited device use in class, what the results have been and how they have responded to student pushback […]

Getting students off of Penn’s campus is a powerful way to help them see a much wider perspective on class materials, but to get students to learn from these outings, instructors have to plan carefully. In this session Emily Stiener of English and Caroline Jones of Anthropology will talk about their experiences leading first-year seminar field trips and […]

To use AI effectively, students must use their own judgment and discernment to evaluate results and develop effective prompting strategies. Ben Sirolly of Law and Jennifer Valerio of GSE will start this conversation by talking about how they help students develop those skills through reflection assignments. 

Many generative AI platforms now enable users to create custom chatbots without computer programming experience. Custom bots are useful for repeatable tasks or interactions that depend on a specific knowledge base or behavior. Participants will learn how to build, test, and modify a custom bot to assist with a teaching-related task using a Penn-licensed AI tool.  Please bring a laptop to participate in this hands-on session. 

In-class collaborations allow students to learn from each other, but students often turn to AI for answers rather than one another. Sudeep Bhatia from Psychology and Bob Johnson of Physics will kick off this conversation about how student interaction can include AI without shutting down the peer-to-peer learning process. 

Students pursuing professional degrees in the health sciences will use AI in their professional life. Yet clinical instructors are anxious that overreliance on AI in their clinical education will result in students’ inability to use their own judgement. In this conversation, clinical instructors from Nursing and PSOM will talk about their own strategies as well […]

In the contentious climate of 2026, students often avoid discussing material which they perceive as controversial. Dennis Culhane of SP2 and Hannah Feldman of History of Art will start this conversation by sharing their own strategies for getting students to discuss topics on which students might disagree. 

Feedback is crucial to improving student writing, but students often don’t seem to take advantage of it.  Herman Beavers from English and Jessica Simon of Law will begin the discussion by talking about how they craft feedback so that students are motivated and able to improve. 

Encouraging students to work together across several class sessions can be challenging but, under the right conditions, allows students to learn from each other in ways that bring academic work to life.  In this conversation, Fritz Breithaupt of FIGS and Heather Sharkey of MELC will begin by describing how they have structured and encouraged these multi-session projects to […]