The accelerating pace of AI and emerging technologies introduces unprecedented volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) to our learning environment. Relying solely on established practices can feel deeply unsettling. This session will demonstrate why Futures Literacy, the ability to understand why and how to use the future, is a critical capacity for every faculty member, staff professional, and student to develop. We’ll explore how practicing Adaptive Leadership enables individuals at all levels to engage in the work of change. Learn practical, hands-on tools to embrace experimentation, challenge outdated assumptions (“unlearning” our past mental models), and move from simply reacting to future shocks to actively shaping a thriving future for our entire university community.

In this interactive plenary session, participants will have opportunities to reflect on how we can nurture socially just care ecosystems in education. We will discuss, explore and apply the Equity/Care matrix, Compassionate Learning Design, the Roumy Cheese analogy, and the practice of Intentionally Equitable Hospitality. Participants will have a choice to dig deeper on a topic of their choice, either an exploration of building compassionate community online, a compassionate approach to AI in education, an exploration of the relationship between oppression and AI, or systemic reasons leading to moral injury.

Almost overnight, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a topic of conversation and is being implemented in most higher education settings. However, many faculty members and administrators expect aggressive AI-driven changes in the next five years, they believe their institutions are not ready to support those changes, with serious concerns about the ethical issues that will arise from AI implementation. The purpose of this interactive forum is to discuss contemporary ethical and social issues on how AI is currently being used, experienced, and integrated into higher education. Participants will be surveyed on four categories of AI-adoption profiles (Mah & Groß, 2024) and will be provided with a profile description for future reference and professional growth. The Forum will continue discussing how AI was used to create a systematic literature review that isolated eight common AI themes, with a significant overload of ethical themes over perceptions, experiences, assimilation, literacy, challenges, opportunities, and future applications of AI. Data showed ethical issues and concerns related to the AI paradox, academic and digital information integrity, institutional governance, curriculum considerations, professional development, and teaching and learning. This forum will also integrate anecdotal information on current AI-classroom dilemmas and will provide recommendations to approach ethical issues in teaching and learning. Participants will be continually engaged in interactive activities throughout the forum, including engaging in an AI-adoption survey, quick polls, anticipating research findings through different digital games, and discussing their unique institutional experiences in AI adoption and implementation.

Custom AI chatbots built by faculty and staff are increasingly common, supporting learning, feedback, motivation, and more. This same technology takes on a new dimension when students are put in the driver’s seat. The EduBot-a-thon is a teaching artifact developed over two years, in which students progress from exploring custom bots to identifying an educational problem, ideating and designing their own custom bot, and implementing it. In the latest iteration, inspired by NASA Space Apps and coding communities, teams assume cross-functional roles, work in time-boxed sprints, and deliver short pitches that clarify a bot’s purpose, boundaries, and intended users. Research findings from student evaluations and reflections will be shared, highlighting how “building AI” and “getting under the hood” cultivates critical AI literacy and purposeful creativity.

How can we teach with AI while keeping learning human by design? This plenary introduces the “Three Ps of Teaching with AI”: Partnership, Practice, and Principles. Drawing from Bowen and Watson’s framework in Teaching with AI and the Generative AI techniques (GAIT) project, the session explores how AI can be integrated into instructional design in ways that sustain creativity and efficiency. Partnership highlights how AI serves as a collaborator that augments human work. Practice emphasizes transparency and the importance of modelling responsible and purposeful use. Principles anchor the conversation in ethics, equity, and human values. Using the GAIT project as a case study, the session demonstrates how “mini sprints” allow educators to reduce repetitive tasks while preserving creativity and purpose. Attendees will engage in reflection and collaborative visioning to imagine sustainable, human-centred practices. By the end, participants will leave with clear strategies for applying the Three Ps in their own design contexts.

Nearly every major organization is currently grappling with how to integrate artificial intelligence within its own sphere of influence, from business and industry to education and the community. Questions surrounding use, creativity, and potential are considered equally with concerns about misuse, policy, and ethics. Many institutions may focus on issues with a global impact in mind. However, while the promise of AI may have far reaching effects globally, it will also result in significant consequences locally. With that in mind, this session will present AI considerations for practice in academia with particular focus on scholarly and cultural impact in the Pacific region. Finally, the presentation will allow for audience questions and discussion.

Education systems are navigating unprecedented challenges, from rapid technological change and growing inequities to increasing uncertainty about the future of work and learning. In response, creativity is often named as a critical competency; yet it is frequently treated as an add-on and narrowly framed as innovation, artistic expression, or isolated classroom activities, rather than as a core pedagogical approach. This space will invite practitioners and academic leaders to rethink creativity as a foundational capacity for navigating complexity and designing meaningful learning experiences. It proposes creativity as the basis for creative pedagogy, a way of teaching creatively, teaching about creativity, and fostering creative learning across educational contexts. Through this lens, creativity becomes a human-centered and strategic response to educational challenges, supporting learners and educators in developing self-awareness, adaptability, and purpose. Participants will leave with new ways of understanding creativity as an ethical and human response to the challenges shaping the future of learning, along with a renewed sense of agency to design education for what comes next.

Education in emergencies plays a critical role in sustaining learning, psychosocial well-being, and hope for displaced children. In Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, Rohingya refugee children face severe educational barriers due to restrictions on formal schooling, under-resourced Temporary Learning Centers (TLCs), and limited instructional time. This qualitative study explores how smart learning technologies, interactive resources, and innovative pedagogies can enhance access, engagement, and inclusivity in emergency-designed schools.

Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Rohingya university students who previously studied in refugee camps, the study examines lived experiences with technology, perceived benefits of digital and experiential learning, and barriers to implementation. Thematic analysis reveals that offline digital tools, visual and audio-based resources, and culturally grounded storytelling can serve as alternative learning pathways and significantly improve learner engagement, particularly for low-literacy contexts.

Findings also highlight critical challenges, including unstable electricity, limited internet access, gender norms, and teacher preparedness. Participants emphasize the importance of teacher mediation, shared device use, solar-powered solutions, and environmentally responsible approaches to technology integration. The study argues that technology should complement, not replace, teachers and community structures. By centering refugee voices, this research contributes practical, community-informed insights for designing culturally relevant, sustainable educational technology interventions in humanitarian settings.

Digital literacy has become essential for academic participation, information access, and employability in higher education. Yet quantitative evidence on digital literacy and awareness of generative artificial intelligence (AI) remains limited in marginalized and conflict-affected regions such as Afghanistan. This quantitative cross-sectional study investigates digital literacy, mobile-based learning practices, and knowledge of generative AI among 21 undergraduate students at Bamyan University. Using descriptive statistics, ANOVA, correlation, and regression analysis, the study identifies patterns of technology use and examines predictors of effective information evaluation. Findings show that students rely heavily on mobile phones for learning, while their knowledge of generative AI remains extremely low. No significant differences were found across academic years in digital literacy acquisition. Regression analysis reveals that digital platform use is a strong predictor of students’ ability to evaluate information reliably (p = .010), whereas variables related to AI knowledge and year of study did not predict critical literacy. As one of the first quantitative inquiries in this context, the study highlights urgent needs for curriculum reform, improved technological infrastructure, and the integration of AI literacy into Afghan higher education.

Pedagogical agents (PAs) are embodied on-screen characters designed to guide learners through computer-based educational environments. Despite decades of research, questions remain about their effectiveness and optimal design. This descriptive literature review, a work-in-progress, synthesizes over twenty-five years of pedagogical agent research (2000–2025) to identify influential studies and examine how they have shaped the field’s trajectory. A systematic search across ten databases and six educational technology journals yielded 4,137 initial records. After screening and applying exclusion criteria, 459 reports were identified for data extraction and assessed for publication source, theoretical foundation, research method, and findings. Publication trends identified Computers and Education as the leading journal. Analysis revealed Social Agency Theory as the dominant theoretical foundation, followed by Cognitive Load Theory. Methodological patterns showed the predominance of experimental designs in highly cited work, though many lacked a no-agent control group. Limitations across studies included overrepresentation of adult samples, short intervention durations, and limited use of delayed posttests. This review highlights critical gaps in K-12 research and long-term learning assessment. Implications for researchers and practitioners emphasize the need for rigorous experimental designs, extended interventions, and context-specific design guidelines for effective implementation.