At Lancaster Bible College, faculty members consistently head back to the classroom to learn and grow in their profession. Along the way, LBC’s Center for Teaching & Learning actively educates and encourages professors about new teaching methods and how to best support their students as they live out the LBC mission to “educate Christian students to think and live a biblical worldview and proclaim Christ by serving Him in the Church and society.”
This takes shape in a variety of ways, but one avenue is through educational events such as the 2025 Lancaster Learns Conference. The Feb. 28 event at this year’s host institution, the Lancaster, Pa., location of St. Joseph’s University, will bring together educators from across the county to learn from workshop sessions that introduce evidence-based teaching practices, invite participants into active learning opportunities or facilitate open-ended discussions around a current issue in higher education pedagogy. To close out 2024, conference organizers called for proposals from area educators interested in leading these sessions.
The Lancaster Learns mission is “to promote quality teaching and learning by building capacity for evidence-based pedagogy and learner-centered instruction through collaboration across the institutions of higher education within Lancaster County.” Past conference workshop topics have included: Active Learning, Co-curricular impacts, Retention, Instructional Technology, Online Teaching, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Promoting Diversity.
The 2025 keynote speaker is Dr. Oliver Dreon, Professor and Coordinator of Master of Education Program in Assessment, Curriculum & Teaching, at Millersville University. He earned a BS (1991) and MAT (1992) from the University of Pittsburgh, as well as a PhD in Curriculum & Instruction: Science Education from Penn State University (2008). Dreon has taught at Millersville since 2007 and previously was a middle school and high school teacher of math, science and gifted classes. He has spent over 30 years working in public education and has had the pleasure of working with hundreds of students at the K-12, undergraduate and graduate levels.
For the 2025 event, two Lancaster Bible College educators will also serve as breakout session presenters:
Justin Harbin, EdD, Director of LBC’s Center for Teaching & Learning/Associate Professor of Education: “Exploring the Potential of Ungrading for Higher Education”
Robin Jeffers, MEd, LBC Instructional Designer/Adjunct Faculty: “Oscar, Oscar, OSCQR: Online Course Improvement”
As Harbin helps equip LBC faculty and staff to live out the college’s mission and teach students to the best of their ability, he is also active in the planning of the annual Lancaster Learns Conferences.
“There are so many deep benefits to participating in Lancaster Learns,” Harbin said. “First and foremost, many attendees in the past have identified the collaboration and camaraderie experienced learning alongside colleagues at area institutions of higher education. The conference has always strived to be a place where faculty can find tangible next steps to grow their own teaching practice in an environment of mutual support and exploration. Since the founding of the conference in 2014, I have both experienced and heard consistently from faculty that attendees always walk away with multiple ideas for their classroom that they can immediately consider implementing.”
Additionally, Harbin added, educators can trust that the ideas shared at Lancaster Learns are not simply fads in pedagogy, but carefully vetted concepts for consideration currently emerging from the scholarship on teaching and learning.
“Beyond this,” he said, “I believe the collaborative nature of the conference provides a truly unique experience for faculty to get to know and grow alongside counterparts at a wide variety of higher education institutions within and outside the county.”
Academic Sponsor Institutions for the 2025 Lancaster Learns Conference include: Central Penn College, Elizabethtown College, Eastern Mennonite University | Lancaster, Franklin & Marshall University, Harrisburg Area Community College, Lancaster Bible College, Messiah University, Millersville University, Pennsylvania College of Art & Design, Penn State Harrisburg, St. Joseph’s University and Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology.
Registration for the conference is now open at LancasterLearns.com; contact info@LancasterLearns.com for further information.