At a time when AI is challenging how faculty teach and how students learn, and when technology can create a sense of distance in the classroom, “What Works: Belonging, Motivation and Agency for Meaningful Learning” will focus on how inclusive teaching practices can help foster community and agency for student learning.

Hosted by the Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI), the annual fall symposium will take place from 1:30-4 p.m. on Sept. 30 in the Computing and Communications Center Multipurpose Room, 2nd floor. “What Works” invites Cornell faculty to share ideas, inspirations, challenges and experiences about how to build a classroom where students feel connected and empowered.   

This year’s “What Works” will feature four faculty presentations oriented around three themes: Building community and belonging; motivation and agency; and inclusive design. 

Credit: Provided

• 1:30 p.m. – Building community and belonging:  Marianella Casasola, professor and senior associate dean for undergraduate affairs in the College of Human Ecology. 

Credit: Provided

• 2 p.m. – Motivation and agency:  Sara Warner, associate professor of performing and media arts in the College of Arts & Sciences (A&S) and director of Cornell’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Studies Program. 

Credit: Provided

• 3 p.m. – Inclusive design: Alexandra Coso Strong, director of the Duffield Engineering Education Research Institute and associate professor in the R.F. Smith School of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Systems Engineering program in Duffield Engineering; and Landon Schnabel, associate professor of sociology (A&S). 

Credit: Provided

Faculty presenters will share teaching strategies and experiences related to each theme. Presentations will be interspersed with facilitated, collegial teaching conversations, where attendees can be active participants in sharing their own teaching stories, trials and strategies. 

“There is so much we can learn from and with one another when it comes to creating experiences that are impactful to our students as people and learners,” said Coso Strong, who will address how course design can engage and support learning for all students with a wide variety of needs. 

Trying a new teaching approach often involves trial and error and sometimes means facing challenges before finding success. Organizers hope these conversations will lead to faculty finding encouragement, support, and a sense of resilience about their teaching and the spaces they create for students to learn and grow. 

“Our classrooms are so diverse. Educators and students are facing so many particular and unusual challenges, and yet, we know so much more now about how learning and inclusion work. How are student motivation, agency and belonging affected by the challenges we face, including the disruptions caused by AI?” said Melina Ivanchikova, CTI associate director and one of the event’s organizers. 

“This event is an opportunity to hear stories of creative, thoughtful teaching that holds students at the center of learning while still attending to educator needs. It's a chance to connect with each other, reflect, and have genuine conversations about what calls us to teaching and why we aim to ready ourselves for the next set of challenges coming our way,” Ivanchikova added. 

“What Works” also gives students a voice by recognizing the Spring 2026 Canvas Course Spotlight honorees – faculty who have designed courses that Cornell students themselves have highlighted as being uniquely helpful to their learning. The Canvas Course Spotlight student survey program solicits feedback each semester to learn firsthand from students what elements of Canvas course design best help them learn.

“What Works” is open to Cornell faculty, teaching staff and postdoctoral scholars.