TEACHx 2026

As generative AI tools increasingly shape how students approach writing, instructors face a key pedagogical question: how do we preserve the cognitive processes essential to learning while still preparing students to use emerging technologies responsibly? This session explores a teaching approach that intentionally balances AI-assisted ideation with handwritten in-class journaling to cultivate deeper thinking, ownership, and academic voice. Rather than banning AI or fully embracing automation, this model sequences technology alongside deliberate moments of cognitive pause. Participants will examine how structured notebook journals—where students sit with an empty page before drafting—can foster metacognition, reduce performance anxiety, and strengthen confidence. The session will also demonstrate how AI can be productively integrated for brainstorming, outlining, and idea generation without replacing critical thinking. Attendees will engage in a brief reflective activity that mirrors the journaling practice and leave with adaptable prompts, timing strategies, and classroom frameworks that can be applied across disciplines. This presentation reframes uncertainty not as a barrier to learning, but as a skill that can be intentionally taught through pacing, structure, and pedagogical design.

The claim that "crisis" and "opportunity" share a common root in Chinese is widely repeated but factually incorrect. Even so, crises carry a dual character: capable of genuine destruction while simultaneously compelling a reexamination of prevailing assumptions.


This webinar takes that duality as its premise. Rather than treating the so-called "reading crisis" in the age of AI as cause for alarm, the session approaches it as an invitation to more rigorous thinking. Drawing on current evidence about reading performance and evolving literacy practices, it redirects attention toward the fundamental question of what reading is for, a reframing that, in turn, opens more productive avenues for response.


The session concludes with concrete, classroom-ready strategies for higher education practitioners, offering substantive approaches to deepening comprehension and sustaining meaningful engagement with texts, as well as a demonstration of how AI, when thoughtfully integrated, may function as a resource in support of reading rather than an obstacle to it.

As generative AI becomes embedded in students' creative and analytical workflows, traditional assessment models must evolve. This lightning talk showcases how StratCom 310 was redesigned into an “AI‑first” learning environment that embraces student use of AI while safeguarding authenticity and deep learning. Working from a real client brief for YSL’s Le Vestiaire des Parfums, students used AI transparently to brainstorm, critique, and prototype campaign concepts. Assessment shifted from polished outputs to reasoning, transfer, and evidence‑based decision‑making. The session illustrates how AI‑supported processes can strengthen digital literacy, algorithmic transparency, and critical engagement across creative and marketing courses.

This interactive 45-minute session invites educators to actively build accessible learning materials using AI. Participants will follow along as we use tools like Claude and other AI platforms to create accessible PDFs, documents, and simple accessibility-focused apps that can be freely shared. Drawing from ongoing research and real-world consulting, the session emphasizes practical workflows grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and core accessibility principles. Attendees will leave with concrete examples, reusable prompts, and a clearer understanding of how AI can support while not replacing ethical, inclusive teaching practices focused on human-centered critical thinking.

Graduate students in AI courses face a paradox: the very technology they are studying is generating an overwhelming flood of learning materials, making it harder, not easier, to learn. For working professionals balancing demanding careers, families, and graduate coursework, "overwhelm fatigue" is real — and it is undermining engagement with one of the most important topics of our time.
This session introduces a structured solution: a Claude-powered learning repository designed to give time-constrained graduate students a navigable, personalized entry point into generative AI concepts. Rather than confronting students with an undifferentiated mass of videos, blogposts, and references, the repository uses carefully designed prompts to help each student find their own path through the material.
The session includes a live demonstration — attendees will watch an actual interaction between the presenter and Claude in real time — and participants are invited to engage directly during the session. Attendees will leave with a replicable framework, available as a downloadable PDF, that faculty across disciplines can adapt to build their own Claude-powered course repositories.

As generative AI increasingly automates the "final product," higher education faces a crisis of cognitive atrophy. When AI provides solutions instantly, it skips the "earned struggle" essential for long-term retention. This session introduces Somagraphic Learning™: a human-first visual cognitive framework designed to bridge the Clarity Gap between AI data volume and human sense-making capacity.


Moving beyond traditional "AI-first" workflows, this interactive presentation demonstrates how to reposition AI as a "Follower" rather than a "Leader". Participants will engage with the Shape-Emotion Grammar™, a pre-verbal language that uses perceptual cues like circles for safety, boxes for structure, and arrows for movement to anchor understanding before a single prompt is typed.


We will workshop a virtual "Attempt → Map → Refine" process, where learners externalize ideas through hand-drawn motion (on paper or digital whiteboards) before utilizing AI for optimization. By the end of this session, educators will possess a replicable strategy to protect the "Human Edge", ensure academic integrity through somatic principles, and foster a "soul-made" environment where technology supports, rather than replaces, the human mind.