May 11-15, 2026 , 11:45am-1:00pm
Daggett Lounge, Thorne Dining Hall (*Thursday is in Main Lounge, Moulton)
Lunch is provided
Monday, May 11
- Improve Your Research Impact in 30 Minutes with Kate Wing
So many factors contribute to the impact of your research, and some of them you can control yourself! This 15 minute session will walk you through simple steps you can take to improve the visibility of your research and of yourself as a researcher. They are all little things, and you probably already know all of them — you just haven’t carved out the time to actually do them. This session compiles all of those small but impactful tasks into one actionable resourceso you can work through them on your own time.
- Improve Your Powerpoint Presentations in 30 minutes with Juli Haugen and Katy Stern
In just 30 minutes, learn how to turn crowded, boring slides into dynamic visual stories that engage your audience. Accessibility tips and ideas for structure, content and visual will be shared.
Tuesday, May 12
- Reimagine Learning with the Library with Beth Hoppe, Linnea Minich, Sue O’Dell
At the Bowdoin College Library, our goal is for information literacy to be shared, community work. We partner with students, faculty, and staff to build inclusive, discipline‑aware research learning that strengthens belonging and critical engagement with information in all formats. Our intention is to develop agency and joy in research by engaging critically and ethically with a complex information ecosystem—including AI where appropriate.
In this session we will share a draft of the learning goals we have been developing over the past 10 months. There will be an opportunity for discussion and feedback as we continue to refine our goals and think about how to implement these changes and integrate information literacy across the curriculum.
- Teaching with Tangibles with Tina Chong
We’ll explore quick, practical ways to use physical objects—focusing on LEGO bricks—to spark engagement, deepen understanding, and support diverse learners. After a brief overview of the benefits and research behind tangible learning, we’ll dive into a hands-on activity using LEGOs in response to a teaching prompt you can adapt for your own courses. No experience needed—just curiosity.
Wednesday, May 13
- Einstein AI with Michael Cato
- AI Faculty Show and Tell organized by Juli Haugen
Curious how your colleagues are navigating AI in their teaching and research or how they’re choosing not to use it at all? Join us for an informal AI Show & Tell.
Faculty will share a 10‑minute lightning presentation highlighting one way they’ve engaged with AI this semester. This might include:
- Using AI with students as part of a class activity
- Creating teaching materials, examples, or assessments with AI
- Using AI in research or scholarly workflows
- Redesigning assignments to be more AI ‑resistant
- Choosing not to use AI and explaining why
- Sharing an AI policy or how they talked with students about AI in your course
This session is about practical experiences, questions, and honest reflections. Come to listen or come to get ideas.
*Thursday, May 14 (Main Lounge, Moulton)
- How Does Assessment Design Shape Students’ Engagement with AI? With Brandon Tate
Generative AI is changing the ways students learn, study, and communicate, introducing new challenges and opportunities in the college classroom. Assessment design has the potential to shape how students exercise agency in deciding whether, when, and how to engage with AI tools such as LLM chatbots, and how they understand the role of AI tools in supporting or constraining their learning. In a mastery-based chemistry course at Bowdoin, students report using AI selectively and with restraint, most often during the revision process as a source of explanation, feedback, and problem-solving support. Student feedback suggests assessments with a built-in revision process may support reflective, purposeful, and judicious engagement with AI learning aids.
- The Emotional Labor of Teaching in an Age of AI with the BCLT
BCLT staff will facilitate a reflection and discussion focusing on how we practice a culture of care (including allowing space for a range of emotions) and engage in constructive critique of ideas. For background reading review the following article- “INVESTIGATING THE “FEELING RULES” OF GENERATIVE AI AND IMAGINING ALTERNATIVE FUTURES
Friday, May 15
- What’s Now, What’s Next? Learning, Assessment, and Being Human in the Age of Bots with Dr. Lance Eaton, Northeastern University
This interactive session will provide some opportunities to see where things stand with artificial intelligence in this moment and what is on the horizon. The session will then ask participants to consider what, why, and how we are asking students to demonstrate learning at a time when many traditional forms are replicable by AI. Participants will engage in reflection and conversation as we examine what might be different ways to assess across different possibilities, from assignments that do not engage with AI at all to those that use it partially to those that use it substantially.
Bio
Dr. Lance Eaton is the Senior Associate Director of AI in Teaching and Learning at Northeastern University. He has earned a Master’s in American Studies (UMASS Boston), Public Administration (Suffolk University), and Instructional Design (UMASS Boston). He completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education (UMASS Boston) with a focus on academic piracy and how scholars navigate the privatization of research literature in the 21st century.
His work engages with the possibility of digital tools for expanding teaching and learning communities while considering the profound issues and questions that educational technologies open up for students, faculty, and higher ed as a whole. He has engaged with scores of higher education institutions about navigating the complexities and possibilities that generative AI represents for us at this moment. His musings, reflections, and ramblings on AI and Education can be found on his blog: https://aiedusimplified.substack.com/