Learning Resources

Abstract: Institutions are adapting their strategic plans, layering the impacts of technology, and thinking towards the future during the COVID-19 pandemic. In order to provide students with a quality education, institutions must learn, test, and implement changes quickly. This session will explore the core issues, challenges, and opportunities that are shaping higher education and uncover the breadth of adaptation that institutions must undertake in this time of disruption. Come learn how to better prepare to meet your institution’s current needs and future challenges by sharing implementable ideas and insights with your peers.

Abstract: Higher ed's apocalypse is entirely avoidable. Reframing four of higher education's greatest challenges—demographics, defaults, disillusionment, disruption—can help you ask the right questions and create learner-centered experiences while fulfilling your institution's mission. This session will show how Innovation Theory can help institutions thrive in learning's new golden age rather than falling under the scythe of the industry's most daunting challenges, the most urgent of which is COVID-19. The theory-based framework we discuss will give you a new lens through which to analyze your challenges and guide your strategic decision making.

Abstract: The traditional workplace culture shifted overnight when the COVID-19 pandemic pushed our workforces into work-from-home models. Never-ending videoconferences haven't helped you and your colleagues be more efficient—they're just wasting your time. Join Your Nerdy Best Friend, aka Beth Z, for proven techniques to help you focus and improve your productivity along with the tools to lead your team to be more efficient and effective.

Abstract: Until recently, the campus and the institution were the same organisms, as shell and snail. The campus was an analog reflection of the institution's mission and scale. Mission was linked to place and size of place linked to scale. The institution required physical places for all its students, faculty, and staff. This link began to fray in the last decade of the 20th century, as the placeless, non-physical potential of a digital world became more obvious and increasingly functional. What are the physical consequences of these fraying relationships? How must campuses adapt? What remains after the environmental forces of a digital world?

Abstract: Higher education disruption takes many forms and its origins can range from local to international. Integrated planning is something all institutions need to confront disruption, but few institutions understand or practice. This session will discuss sources of disruption and how integrated planning can help institutions prepare for all different types as well as acculturate change conversation on campus. We will work through several exercises that will show you how to develop two to three competencies to address common challenges, allowing you to apply, tailor, and communicate a robust integrated planning value proposition at your institution.

Abstract: FLEXSpace—The Flexible Learning Environments eXchange—and the Learning Space Rating System (LSRS) are tools that can help you plan, design, assess, and improve learning spaces on your campus. In this session, you will learn about the newly released FLEXspace 2.0 along with the LSRS. We'll cover the features and benefits of both tools and how they can be incorporated into the planning process. Come learn how to use these tools to inform designs and support end users from planning through post occupancy.

Abstract: FLEXSpace—The Flexible Learning Environments eXchange—and the Learning Space Rating System (LSRS) are tools that can help you plan, design, assess, and improve learning spaces on your campus. In this session, you will learn about the newly released FLEXspace 2.0 along with the LSRS. We'll cover the features and benefits of both tools and how they can be incorporated into the planning process. Come learn how to use these tools to inform designs and support end users from planning through post occupancy.

Abstract: We are all invited to take the stage in some form in our lives, whether that be in an interview for work, a speech at a wedding, or simply asking a question in a business meeting or classroom setting. We all have ideas, questions or explorations which we hold back from sharing because our brains are hardwired to prioritize acceptance by our peers and avoid rejection and ridicule. Sometimes, this keeps us safe—but more often than not—it keeps us from truly stepping into a life of opportunity.

The first major theme of the presentation is the psychology of fear. What makes so many of our hands shake, our body’s fidget and our minds forget our words once so perfectly rehearsed? It is an evolutionary response, developed eons ago, designed to protect us. Public speaking asks us to do the one thing we are hard-wired not to do – step outside of the tribe and ask to be invited back in. As relatively weak and slow planetary beings, we survived only in community. Public speaking is the most vulnerable and scary thing that we can do. We will explore the role of this response and how it “shows up” for us in our modern-day world and body and four scientifically-proven ways to shift out of fear and into action using both science and story to address the “hack”.

The second major presentation theme is the role of nonverbal communication. Research shows that over 93% of communication is nonverbal, demonstrating that our brains are wired to prioritize nonverbal over verbal communication. But as presenters, we focus on what we say – rather than how we say it. We engage in fun-partner work to learn how our brains are specifically attuned to body language – and the signals that we are unintentionally demonstrating while speaking from a place of fear or anxiety.

The presentation is concluded with a challenge: to invite each audience member to make one commitment to themselves to lean in towards one area of fear in their life, whether that’s practicing a strategy at home or stepping onto the stage to share their message with the world.