Conference on Learning and Student Success
Developing a Strong Proposal
Ask Yourself...
What does it take to initiate, lead, and sustain institutional change and transformation? How can the silos that prevent effective collaboration within and among institutions be broken down? How can research-based, high-impact practices be brought to scale so they benefit all students? What approaches to measuring student learning and success also yield evidence that can be used to demonstrate the value of the college degree? Which practices and strategies truly value student diversity, lead to the elimination of inequities in student outcomes, and successfully promote student belonging? Where can you discover the latest curricular, pedagogical, and digital innovations? Help shape the community-generated program, which will explore answers to these and other urgent questions.
Seeking CLASS proposals from AAC&U's vibrant community of scholar-practitioners from across the higher education landscape by November 1, 2024.
Elements of a Proposal:
Presenter contact information.
Session Title, Modality (in-person or virtual), Track, Session Type, and Level of Session Expertise (beginner, intermediate, or advanced).
Proposal Summary (4500 character limit).
Proposal Abstract:
- Brief description (250 words)
- Expected learning outcomes (100 words)
- Background and evidence (250 words)
- Plan for participant interaction (100 words)
- Session takeaways (250 words)
Description for Program (150 words). The description should provide a short description to be used in promotional materials. Please remember that—should your proposal be accepted—a participant’s decision to attend your session will be based, in large part, on this description. It should be accurate and as compelling as possible.
Conference Tracks
This track will explore innovative approaches to and emerging trends in (re)imagining general education and designing high-impact practices, with an explicit focus on how curricular and co-curricular opportunities can be enhanced to promote the relevance and vitality of a college degree for work, life, and citizenship.
This track will feature research and praxis sessions that leverage empirically validated, student-centered, and culturally responsive approaches to teaching that foster deep learning, challenge ourselves and our students in the classroom.
Featuring sessions that showcase evidence-based truth-telling through assessment and evaluation, this track will address how assessment endeavors can and must be designed to ensure all students are represented in the data used to tell the complete story of student success and learning at our institutions.
Featuring examples of leadership and partnership within and across institutions, this track will showcase sessions that demonstrate how to lead change guided by data-informed decision-making and strategic implementation, as well as how institutions identify, recognize, and reward emerging leaders who engage in the real work of reimagining undergraduate education.
This track focuses on sessions designed to showcase models and strategies to authentically connect students’ curricular learning with developing the skills and sense of purpose needed for workforce preparedness and vocational exploration. Through leveraging general education, the majors, and high-impact practices, sessions will emphasize how innovative pedagogies and intentional collaborations, within and beyond campus, can facilitate students’ professional success across a breadth of career pathways.
This track will showcase exemplars of academic and student support programs at institutions that have engaged students as co-designers of their educational environments and learning experiences.
This track will feature sessions reframing and reimagining traditional definitions of and approaches to student success across the curriculum and co-curriculum.
This track will showcase research and praxis sessions that not only document but seek to understand and honor students' and educators' diverse experiences and identities through models centered on care, empathy, and community-building.
We encourage proposals that:
- explicitly connect to the twin pillars of "learning" and/or "student success";
- present solutions developed by educators bridging institutional siloes (e.g., student affairs and academic affairs);
- showcase evidence-based theory-to-practice models that have proven effective in creating coherent, purposeful undergraduate experiences for all students, or
- represent models that emerged rapidly over the past year and for which a case can be made that the models are likely to prove effective through empirical inquiry over time;
- offer creative, novel, and transformative mechanisms for designing the undergraduate experience;
- showcase models that connect research and scholarship with effective, equity-focused courses, curricula, co-curricula, pedagogies, assessment practices, and campus cultures that engage all students in high-quality learning experiences;
- highlight collaborative projects involving more than one author/presenter;
- showcase models for campus-based innovation and change that connect research and scholarship with effective, equity-focused courses, curricula, pedagogies, assessment practices, and campus cultures that engage all students in high-quality learning experiences to promote and student learning, engagement, and success;
- meaningfully include student voices and perspectives, including but not limited to students as co-presenters and co-designers of their educational experiences;
- include explicit plans for involving participants in reflection, discussion, exercises, and other activities that will help them understand and apply the material; and
- reflect diverse perspectives, innovations, disciplines, and strategies for change.
Session Types
Session length varies; please see individual session type descriptions for more information.
Engage participants in cultivating new skills, identifying alternative approaches to their work, and connecting with resources, such as new practices, theories, frameworks, and/or research. (3 hours)
Share visual models of research findings; general education course, program, and curricular or cocurricular designs; concept maps; assessment rubrics and feedback loops; faculty development, support, and reward programs and policies; frameworks for design thinking and strategic planning; and high-impact practices. The poster session provides an opportunity for presenters to talk with attendees about how to apply findings to their work. (60 minutes)
Pecha Kucha (“chit chat” in Japanese) sessions combine visual and oral presentations to convey a creative endeavor, research finding, or other interesting activity related to a particular conference track. A Pecha Kucha presentation, which consists of 20 slides running for 20 seconds each, is carefully orchestrated to articulate key elements featured in each slide. Three Pecha Kucha presentations will be combined with 30 minutes of discussion time to create one 60-minute session. The following link provides an overview and guidelines for designing a Pecha Kucha presentation: http://avoision.com/pechakucha.
These moderated sessions will feature cutting-edge advances in curricular, pedagogical, and/or digital innovation; assessment and evaluation; high-impact educational practices; and diversity, equity, and student success that are still exploratory in nature. Presentations with promising, yet minimal, outcomes data are encouraged. Sessions should describe the institutional context and guiding theories, and they should offer the opportunity for audience questions and discussion. Three sessions will be included in each 60-minute time slot. (15 minutes)
Provide opportunities for participants to bridge theory and practice. Facilitators should guide participants in examining critical theories and scholarly evidence that support the mechanics of how to develop purposeful general education courses, curricula, pedagogies, practices, pathways, or strategies that integrate learning with the majors in the context of real-world issues. Facilitators should provide scholarship and evidence related to the topic and engage participants in reflection, discussion, and design work. (75 minutes)
Provide time for colleagues to examine timely and potentially provocative topics of similar interest through the iterative sharing of expertise and experiences. They provide an opportunity to work through issues, ideas, and challenges from multiple perspectives. The facilitators’ role is to kickstart small group conversations through a brief presentation based upon their own work/research/praxis that then feeds into a collective discussion of the question at hand, dedicating at least 20–25 minutes to discussion. Proposals for discussion sessions should briefly set the context for the conversation related to one of the conference tracks and should clearly articulate the intended audience in terms of institutional type, position, or area of practice. Facilitators assist the group in examining new ways of thinking about the topic and strategies for moving forward given the professional reality and expertise of everyone in the room. (60 minutes)
Facilitate an informal discussion around your effective practices or programs and provide opportunities for attendees to share their successful strategies, questions, and concerns. For these discussions, attendees are welcome to rotate among several discussion topics or to focus on one only. Please Note: For Roundtable Discussions, there will be no A/V provided. (60 minutes)
Follow a traditional format that allows for conversation with up to five panelists on a topic relevant to a conference track; panelists should offer different perspectives on the topic—e.g., institutional, professional role, programmatic, curricular, cocurricular, and disciplinary. (60 minutes)
All session presenters listed in the program should be registered for the conference.
In-person and virtual presentations will be scheduled from Thursday, April 3, through Saturday, April 5, 2025. In-person registration includes access to all virtual programming; virtual registration only is also an option. See the Schedule-at-a-Glance for details. Presenters should plan to be available at the date and time their sessions are scheduled.
Questions about #AACUCLASS?
If you have questions about the 2025 AAC&U Conference on Learning and Student Success or would like additional information, please email us at [email protected].