University of Waterloo Teaching & Learning Conference

The University of Waterloo’s 17th annual Teaching and Learning Conference is scheduled for April 29 and 30, 2026, with a full day of online workshops followed by an in-person conference day. (uwaterloo.ca) The in-person sessions are set for April 30 at Science Teaching Complex and Federation Hall on the Waterloo campus. The conference is organized by the Centre for Teaching Excellence with support from the Office of the Associate Vice President, Academic. (uwaterloo.ca 1) (uwaterloo.ca 2) This year’s theme is “The Human Factor: Shaping the Role of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education.” Organizers say the program will focus on how instructors and staff decide where artificial intelligence tools belong in teaching, learning, and assessment. (uwaterloo.ca 1) (uwaterloo.ca 2) The framing is practical rather than abstract. Waterloo says the conference will ask when faculty should emphasize foundational knowledge, when they should push higher-order learning outcomes, and how they can preserve assessment integrity as tools can complete some assignments with little detection. (uwaterloo.ca) The program also ties artificial intelligence to questions beyond cheating. Waterloo says the sessions will examine student belonging, emotional and intellectual connection, and the risk that large language models can reproduce bias and exclude important voices. (uwaterloo.ca) (uwaterloo.ca) The conference arrives after a 2025 edition centered on “disruption and uncertainty” across higher education. Waterloo says more than 550 faculty members, staff, and students attended that event. (uwaterloo.ca) (uwaterloo.ca) Registration for the in-person day was set to remain open until April 15 or until lunch capacity at Federation Hall was reached, with late registrations considered until April 24 on a first-come, first-served basis. Waterloo said the lunch allotment was already 50% full as of March 6. (uwaterloo.ca) Internal participants were charged C$70 for both days, external participants C$150 plus tax, and online-only attendance C$35. The university also said limited bursaries were available for undergraduate students, graduate students, sessional instructors, and precarious instructors without unit funding. (uwaterloo.ca) Waterloo said online workshops would run through Microsoft Teams or Zoom with captioning or transcripts, while masks would be strongly recommended for in-person sessions and procedure masks available at the registration desk. (uwaterloo.ca) (uwaterloo.ca) For Waterloo, the conference is now an annual forum for turning campus-wide questions about teaching into operating choices about tools, classrooms, and assessment. This year, those choices are being organized around artificial intelligence before the conference opens on Wednesday, April 29. (uwaterloo.ca) (uwaterloo.ca)