2025 Fall Forum on Teaching and Learning

Each year the Fall Forum on Teaching and Learning brings together faculty from across DePaul's colleges and schools to connect with one another and share strategies for teaching and learning.

Keynote Address by Dr. Kevin Gannon, “Humanizing Teaching”

“Being Human in Inhumane Times”

It’s no secret that teaching in higher education feels more fraught than ever. Our current social and political moment, along with the lingering aftershocks of Covid-19 and “pandemic pedagogy,” has made our work difficult indeed. From disengaged students to expanding workloads to a precarious climate for higher ed in general, things are increasingly atomized; the work we’re doing feels transactional, as opposed to transformational. How do we (re)discover the humanity, the humane-ness, that makes teaching and learning truly meaningful—even transformative—for all of us? This talk will suggest a conceptual framework and specific strategies to do that rediscovering, and offer some ways to advocate for ourselves and our students while doing so.

Workshop: Putting Principles Into Practice

This interactive session will further explore the themes raised in the morning keynote, with a focus on specific ways we can humanize teaching and learning with our own students. In particular, we’ll use James Lang’s idea of small teaching—the use of evidence-based strategies that are easy to implement, yet pay dividends beyond that small investment—to brainstorm ideas we can take into our classes right away, should we choose to do so.

Host or Publisher Center for Teaching and Learning