The USM Kirwan Center for Academic Innovation invites faculty, staff, and faculty/staff/student teams from accredited Maryland institutions of higher education to learn about innovative approaches to incorporating Generative AI into teaching and learning practices at our Spring 2026 Generative AI Virtual Showcase. This state-wide event will provide a platform to share promising practices, critical insights, and lessons learned as we continue to navigate the evolving landscape of AI in higher education.
Location
All event activities will take place via Zoom.
Date
The Spring 2026 Generative AI Virtual Showcase will take place on Friday, April 24, 2026, with limited-enrollment, virtual pre-conference workshops taking place on Thursday, April 23, 2026.
Cost
The showcase and pre-conference workshops are free. The events are open to faculty and staff from accredited Maryland higher education institutions.
Schedule Section Header:
Thursday, April 23, 2026
- 1:00-3:00 pm ET: Pre-conference workshops (virtual, enrollment limited to 30 participants each)
Friday, April 24, 2026
- 9:00-9:15 am ET: Welcome and Opening Remarks
- 9:20-10:20 am ET: Concurrent Session 1
- 10:30-11:30 am ET: Concurrent Session 2
- 11:40 am-12:40 pm ET: Keynote Talk: Carter Moulton, PhD
- 12:55-1:55 pm ET: Concurrent Session 3
- 2:00-3:00 pm ET: Concurrent Session 4
- 3:05-3:15 pm ET: Closing Remarks and Reflection
The full event program will be available in April.
The Showcase will follow three tracks:
Track 1: Philosophical and Critical Conversations in AI
This track focuses on AI tensions and debates, ethics, and academic integrity. Proposals might address approaches to teaching responsible AI use, developing institutional or course-level AI policies, navigating plagiarism and attribution concerns, exploring ethical dimensions of AI in society and education, or engaging students in critical examination of AI’s societal impact.
Track 2: Engaging Students with AI
This track emphasizes student-centered AI integration for learning and skill development. Proposals might address students using AI tools as collaborators in the learning process (brainstorming, drafting, revision, tutoring, feedback), assignments that help students understand how AI works and evaluate AI outputs, or activities that invite students to critically examine AI’s role in their discipline and future profession.
Track 3: AI for Course Design, Accessibility, and Faculty Productivity
This track highlights faculty and staff use of AI to enhance teaching effectiveness and efficiency. Proposals might address using AI to create greater transparency and relevance in course materials, enhance accessibility for diverse learners, create or adapt open educational resources (OER), improve inclusive teaching practices, streamline feedback workflows, or support course redesign efforts.
Keynote Address: "Redesigning Our Relationships: Human-Centered Classrooms in the Age of AI" by Carter Moulton, PhD, Faculty Developer, Colorado School of Mines
Carter Moulton is an educational developer, facilitator, and media researcher. He works as a faculty developer at Colorado School of Mines and holds a PhD from Northwestern University, where he was a Graduate Teaching Fellow at the Searle Center for Advancing Teaching and Learning. He is the creator of Analog Inspiration, an educational card deck designed to help faculty discuss and reflect on how critical human values, skills, and concerns are being impacted by the age of generative AI. Since its launch in June 2025, the card deck has been adopted by educators at hundreds of universities worldwide, and has been featured by Teaching in Higher Ed, Inside Higher Ed, and OneHE, among others. A Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, Carter has designed teacher training programs in Thailand, created peer observation programs at Northwestern, and facilitated faculty development workshops in India. His research has been published in a wide range of venues like Teaching and Learning Inquiry, the American Society of Engineering Education, and the International Journal of Cultural Studies.
Register
Gen AI Virtual Pre-Conference Workshops: Thursday, April 23, 2026, 1:00-3:00 pm ET, via Zoom | Workshops are limited to 30 participants and will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis. After they are filled, expressions of interest will populate a waitlist in the order they are received. We will turn off the form if a reasonable number of people fill the waitlist.
Please complete the pre-conference workshop interest form to select a workshop. You will receive a notification as to whether you have reserved a spot in the workshop or have been added to the waitlist.
Gen AI Virtual Showcase: Friday, April 24, 2026, 9:00 am-3:00 pm ET, via Zoom
Please complete the Virtual Showcase registration if you plan to attend any part of the Showcase on Friday.
Registration questions may be directed to cai@usmd.edu
Contact the Kirwan Center at cai@usmd.edu with any questions.
