In addition to courses and certificate programs that you can find in our calendar, we also host several annual events. These serve to bring the community together surrounding important topics in teaching and learning in higher education. This includes our intensives, yearly Teaching in Focus (TiF) conference, and other special events!
Intensives
This is a three-day intensive and interactive workshop for course directors who would like to enhance an existing course or create a new course design. The first two days are in-person for community building through face-to-face collegial interactions and hands-on activities that are creative and practical to assist you with inclusive course design and developing skills (e.g., planning your course, identify and explore a [new] approach to teaching, complete your course outline, design an assessment, lesson plan, or activity). The third day will be fully online with synchronous and asynchronous activities, where you will select the specific resources and modules that will help you to complete your goal(s) for the workshop. Throughout the workshop, there will be moments of reflection and opportunities for support from peers and facilitators, as well as resources to apply what you gain from the workshop into your future course design.
The course design intensive is an annual summer event (July or August). When scheduled, find it in our calendar!
Theme for 2026: AI and Assessment
Dates: April 14, 15, & 16, 2026
Location: Fully Online via Zoom. Links will be provided to registrants via email the week before the Intensive.
Designed to take participants through a process of making deep, substantive, robust changes to assessment practices in light of the challenges and affordances of AI, this flexible intensive invites you to join us for a single session or for three full days of engagement and learning. Whether you are an AI enthusiast or a skeptic, you will find insights, resources, and strategies to help you respond to AI in an individual assessment, throughout a course or courses, or at the level of program curricula.
Each day invites you to engage with a specific theme regarding AI and assessment: AI Literacy, Integrating AI, and Limiting AI. Across the Intensive, you will also find four series of offerings: Perspectives, Tidbits, Hack-a-thons, and Resource Spotlights. Explore by day or by series in the drop-down menus below.
Registration: To join us, simply register for all sessions you would like to attend by expanding the drop-down menu and clicking on the linked session titles below. Registration is free and open to all who teach in higher education contexts.
Credit towards our Certificates in AI Pedagogies: To have your participation in the AI Intensive count towards completion of the Certificates in AI Pedagogies, you must attend a minimum of any two Hack-a-thons and any two other sessions during the Intensive, for a total of 5-6 hours. Confirmation will be provided in the week following the Intensive.
Each day invites you to engage with a specific theme regarding AI and assessment: AI Literacy, Integrating AI, and Limiting AI.
All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UCT-4).
April 14th: AI Literacy and Assessment
- 10:00-11:00 Welcome and
- 11:00-11:30 Break
- 11:30-12:00
- 12:00-1:00 Break
- 1:00-3:00
- 3:00-3:15 Break
- 3:15-4:00
April 15th: Integrating AI into Assessment
- 10:00-11:00
- 11:00-11:30 Break
- 11:30-12:00
- 12:00-1:00 Break
- 1:00-3:00
- 3:00-3:15 Break
- 3:15-4:00
April 16th: Limiting AI in Assessment
- 10:00-11:00
- 11:00-11:30 Break
- 11:30-12:00
- 12:00-1:00 Break
- 1:00-3:00
- 3:00-3:15 Break
- 3:15-4:00
Across the Intensive, you will also find four series of offerings: Perspectives, Tidbits, Hack-a-thons, and Resource Spotlights.
All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UCT-4).
Perspectives on AI & Assessment
The Perspectives on AI & Assessment Series features a guest speaker or moderated panel discussion with time for audience Q&A.
10:00-11:00
- April 14th: Welcome and
- April 15th:
- This panel discussion features faculty who approach AI in assessment from a variety of perspectives: as educators, as scholars, and as peer leaders in teaching development.
- Hosted by Tanveer Bhimani, Instructional and Learning Designer, Lassonde School of Engineering (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ)
- Panelists:
- Alisa Cunnington, Instructor, Digital Humanities (Brock University): Integrating AI using designed writing labs
- Moshe Mikanovsky, Instructor, Schulich School of Business (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ): Conducting oral assessments with AI assistance
- Andrew Reszitnyk, Professor and Teaching and Learning Consultant - Artificial Intelligence, Department of Communications and Global Studies (Mohawk College): Integrating AI with the AI Ready Process
- Jennifer Szende, Instructor, Arts and Contemporary Studies (Toronto Metropolitan University): Using AI to embrace "wrong" answers
- April 16th:
- Hosted by Mary Chaktsiris, Associate Director, Teaching Innovation & Academic Honesty, Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ)
- Panelists:
- Aimi Hamraie, Canada Research Chair in Technology, Society, and Disability and Associate professor, Department of Social Science (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ): Reflecting in class and resisting AI
- Amanda Paxton, Assistant Professor, Department of English Literature (Trent University): Redesigning the research essay
- Patrick Walls, Associate Professor of Teaching, Department of Mathematics (University of British Columbia): Making oral assessment manageable in project-based learning
AI & Assessment Tidbits
The AI & Assessment Tidbits Series provides quick 30-minute learning opportunities on three specific elements essential to responding to AI in our assessment practices.
11:30-12:00
- April 14th:
- April 15th:
- April 16th:
AI & Assessment Hack-a-thons
The AI & Assessment Hack-a-thons Series is an opportunity for guided hands-on time for participants to work on existing assessments, whether at the level of a specific assessment, a whole course, or across a degree curriculum. Each Hack-a-thon focusses on a distinct but complementary approach to assessment (re)design in the age of AI.
1:00-3:00
- April 14th:
- April 15th:
- April 16th:
Resource Spotlight: Insights into AI & Assessment
The Resource Spotlight Series invites you to join staff experts who are deeply engaged in the postsecondary response to AI to learn more about what they are seeing in this evolving landscape and what resources and supports they can provide to educators. More session details coming soon!
3:15-4:00
- April 14th:
- Ted Belke, Digital Engagement Librarian, Assistant Librarian - Markham (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ)
- Sophie Bury, Teaching & Learning Librarian, Associate Librarian (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ)
- In this session, two librarians who run student-focused AI programming at ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ Libraries, will share key library resources and services available to instructors to support students’ development of AI literacies in course-based research and assignments. They will share insights, along with concrete strategies and practical tips, grounded in their own teaching practice, to help instructors thoughtfully integrate generative AI into the design of research-based assignments or in-class activities to foster student learning. A central focus will be on illustrating the potential benefits of integrating AI chatbots, like ChatGPT, as a component in the research process, while maintaining awareness of associated risks and the need to maintain academic rigour. The presenters will share examples including teaching students when AI can be used to augment library tools, leveraging generative AI as a starting point for inquiry in tandem with other strategies, and approaches to teaching comparative evaluation of AI-generated outputs versus scholarly sources.
- April 15th:
- Angela Clark, Associate Director, Program Development and Academic Integrity (¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ)
- Title: AI and Academic Integrity: Supporting Student Learning
- As generative AI tools raise ongoing questions about academic work and assessment, academic integrity expectations are being interpreted in new ways, and confusion is growing. This session explores how instructors can respond by identifying common areas where students struggle, clarifying expectations, and designing assessments that better support academic integrity in an AI-enabled learning environment. Drawing on common questions and challenges related to AI and academic integrity, the session will highlight practical approaches and resources instructors can adapt within their own teaching contexts.
- April 16th:
- Centres for Teaching and Learning sit at the crossroads of disciplinary contexts, pedagogical expertise, implementation challenges, and evolving policy and norms. Join us for a panel discussion and Q&A that brings together educational development staff from across Ontario universities to share their perspectives on the evolving landscape of AI's impacton higher education assessment. Each panelist will share a resource, framework, or strategy they are currently recommending to faculty looking to redesign assessment in light of AI. Further conversation will touch on trends in assessment practice and emergent challenges and concerns.
- Panelists:
- Dani Dilkes (Educational Developer, Digital Learning, Centre for Teaching and Learning, Univeristy of Western Ontario)
- Devon Mordell (Educational Developer, Digital Pedagogies, MacPherson Institute, McMaster University)
- Megan De Roover (Educational Developer, Office of Teaching and Learning, University of Guelph)
- Victoria Sheldon (Educational Developer, Teaching, Learning, and Technology, Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation, University of Toronto
- Robin Sutherland-Harris (Teaching Development Associate, Teaching Commons, ¿ì²¥ÊÓƵ)
Community conversations: The opposite of cheating
A dialogue on academic integrity, trust, and GenAI in teaching and learning, co-hosted by the and the Academic Integrity Community of Practice. All who teach at York are welcome to join us for one session or all six in a facilitated space for inquiry, reflection, and rethinking assessments and integrity.
We will be drawing on chapters from Bertram Gallant, T. & Rettinger, D. A. (2025). The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for integrity in the age of AI. University of Oklahoma Press.
Teaching in Focus (TiF) conference
Teaching in Focus is a pan-university conference that strives to provide a fertile terrain for informed conversations about teaching and learning while highlighting the practical benefits and conundrums in implementing these ideas wherever we teach.
