Dr. Christina Katopodis’ Keynote

Connecting Learners to Their Internal Motivations for Success

For deep and meaningful learning to happen, students need to feel that they have a stake in learning, some skin in the game. How do we make the transition from the top-down, hierarchical, inequitable, output-driven academy and workforce we inherited from the nineteenth century to models that empower all learners to be their own best selves, building a more democratic, flourishing, and just society? How do we make this transition in our own classrooms and offices? In this interactive keynote, Dr. Christina Katopodis, coauthor with Cathy N. Davidson of the award-winning book The New College Classroom (Harvard University Press, 2022), presents what the latest science of learning tells us about inclusive learning. She shares teaching strategies that anyone can adapt easily and effectively into their classes and office meetings to make structural changes as well as grab-and-go activities that educators around the world are using successfully every day to ensure learners’ lifelong success--and to revitalize their own commitment to a better world. 

About Dr. Christina Katopodis

Dr. Christina Katopodis has delivered more than 50 talks and workshops on teaching and learning topics at colleges and universities and regional, national, and international conferences across Australia, Canada, Sweden, and the U.S. She is a Senior Postdoctoral Research Associate at the City University of New York’s Humanities Alliance, pursuing research on the indispensable role of a humanities education in a just society. She is also the former Associate Director of Transformative Learning in the Humanities and founder of Engaged & Ready, a project that empowers faculty with antiracist active learning tools to democratize their classrooms. Dr. Katopodis was the winner of the 2019 Diana Colbert Innovative Teaching Prize and the 2018 Dewey Digital Teaching Award and has authored or co-authored articles published in Chronicle of Higher Ed, English Language Notes, ESQ, Hybrid Pedagogy, Inside Higher Ed, ISLE, MLA’s Profession, Times Higher Ed, and Zeal: A Journal for the Liberal Arts. With Cathy N. Davidson, Dr. Katopodis is author of The New College Classroom (Harvard University Press, 2022), winner of the AAC&U 2023 Frederic W. Ness Book Award.

As a result of years in academic programs devoted to structuring equity into college classrooms, she discovered that others are struggling to make their classrooms more democratic and student-centered without burning themselves out in the process. Combined with her first-hand teaching experiences, years of research in the learning sciences, and desire to help, she took to the stage with the goal of reaching as many people as possible to transform higher ed from the inside out. 

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