Teaching Professor Online Conference

Concurrent Sessions

Conference Track: Assessment and Feedback

AI Can Do the Work. Can Students? Authentic Competence Verification in Higher Education

Davon Miles
Faculty Fellow, Belmont University

Generative AI has made one uncomfortable reality harder to dodge: polished student products no longer prove student competence. This session introduces Authentic Competence Verification (ACV), a practical assessment design lens that helps instructors move beyond essays, quizzes, and final submissions as the only evidence of learning. Participants will examine how to verify judgment, reasoning, and transfer through process evidence such as planning, checkpoints, revision, performance, defense, and reflection. Attendees will leave with a clear ACV framework, examples of assessment checkpoints that reduce AI-simulated competence, and a practical way to redesign one existing assignment without turning the course into an academic security checkpoint.

Beyond Points: Constructivist Evaluation for Deeper Learning

Kelly Russell
Assistant Professor of Early Childhood Education, Troy University

Traditional grading systems often prioritize point accumulation over intellectual growth, shifting attention from meaning-making to performance. This session introduces the Constructivist Classroom Response Model (CCRM), a practical, theory-informed framework that reframes assessment as an iterative feedback process rather than score aggregation. Through transparent criteria, narrative feedback, structured reflection, and revision cycles, CCRM strengthens conceptual understanding, student agency, and epistemic ownership. Participants will leave with adaptable tools to redesign rubrics and feedback systems that promote deeper learning across disciplines and modalities.

Designing AI-Resistant Assignments

Christine Monnier
Professor, College of DuPage

This session will examine assignment-design strategies that are more resistant to AI and large language model (LLM) submissions, either by making AI more difficult to use effectively or by making AI-generated work easier to identify. While traditional blue book exams may be considered AI-proof, they can create accessibility challenges and are not practical for online courses. Likewise, online proctoring tools can raise privacy and accessibility concerns. This session will focus on designing assignments around specificity and primary sources, emphasizing process over product, and using nontraditional formats such as mind maps.

Low-Stakes, No-Stakes, Real Gains: Assessment That Drives Learning

Lauren Pinkerton
Professor of English and Humanities, Jefferson Community and Technical College

This session invites educators to rethink assessment as a relational and motivational tool rather than a source of stress. Designed specifically for professors who teach online, it addresses the unique challenges of developing engagement and emotional connection in virtual learning environments. Drawing from educational psychology, neuroscience, and classroom-tested strategies, this session emphasizes how assessment design can shape student motivation and emotional resilience, even in asynchronous formats where interpersonal cues are limited. Educators will learn to implement no-stakes assessments multiple times per unit and strategically layer low-stakes and medium-measure assessments to scaffold confidence and prepare students for summative tasks. The course also explores how language and framing (e.g., replacing “quiz” with “check-in”) can shift student perceptions and improve learning outcomes.

Student Self-Assessment with Character Growth Sheets

Lucas Anderson
Specialist in Education, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Co-presenter: Ava Wolf

Borrowed from tabletop roleplaying games, a character growth sheet lists core attributes and skills that align with course content. Attributes are broad abilities students develop, such as persistence, teamwork, creativity, and leadership, while skills reflect areas where students are working to increase proficiency. When a learning unit is complete, students assess their growth, assign scores, and reflect on how they improved and what they will work on next. This fun, non-graded activity encourages self-reflection, helps students see how they are thinking, feeling, and growing in the course, and builds self-efficacy. For faculty, growth sheets can reveal student challenges and interests, identify impactful activities, and provide an important window into students’ thinking and learning processes.

The Facilitative Assessment Approach: Transforming Feedback into Learning

Nichole Moore
Assistantt Professor; Graduate Program Director, Grand Valley State University

Too often, assessment is treated as the endpoint of learning: assigning grades and delivering feedback. The Facilitative Assessment Approach reframes assessment as an opportunity for reflection, dialogue, growth, and continuous learning. By integrating facilitative questioning and reflective dialogue into assessment practices, educators can strengthen student metacognition, ownership, and engagement while creating more meaningful learning experiences.

Transforming Graduate Online Learning Through Formative Feedback and Rubrics

Belinda Karge
Professor of Doctoral Programs; Concordia University Irvine
Co-presenter: Rebecca Spady

Formative assessment is an opportunity for faculty to assess real-time learning and provide immediate feedback to students to enhance their depth of knowledge. Participants will learn how to transform graduate online learning through formative feedback and rubrics. This session will share findings from a research study and provide ideas for using formative assessment in the university classroom. Participants will explore effective teacher-student partnership strategies that support deeper learning and student self-efficacy, view rubrics used in graduate online courses, and discuss potential barriers to implementation.

Conference Track: Beyond the Classroom

Beyond the Degree: Engineering Lifelong Resilience and Career Readiness

Magesh Rajan, Ph.D., P.E., MBA
VP of Research and Innovation, Prairie View A&M University

Higher education faces an existential challenge: proving value in an AI-saturated labor market. Traditional instruction often ends at the classroom door, but modern student success requires a bridge to real-world innovation ecosystems. This session is vital because it moves beyond pedagogical theory to provide a tested framework for “Human ROI.” Drawing on data-driven success, this session explores how to move teaching and mentoring beyond the traditional course structure. We will examine the impact of the RISE (Research & Innovation for Scholarly Excellence) and RITI (Research & Innovation Training Institute) programs, which have scaled inclusive undergraduate discovery and significantly improved retention by bridging the gap between theory and industry impact.

Making the Invisible Visible: Breaking Down Barriers to Student Success

Annie Jacobs
Associate Professor, Nightingale College

This session addresses a critical but often overlooked issue in higher education: the “invisible walls” that hinder student engagement and persistence, particularly for online and nontraditional learners. Drawing on educator experience and research, this session highlights how caregiving duties, financial strain, limited preparation, and emotional demands create “invisible walls” that hinder engagement and completion. Reframing learners as “ANDERS” (students balancing multiple roles), the session emphasizes the need for human-centered, responsive teaching. Grounded in emotional intelligence and engagement research, it demonstrates how connection, instructor presence, and support improve persistence.

Turning Learning into Careers: A Replicable Experiential Learning Model

Maribeth Kuzmeski
Associate Professor of Practice, Marketing, Oklahoma State University

Some of the most transformational learning happens beyond the classroom. This session introduces The Brand Squad, a replicable experiential learning model in which students apply classroom knowledge by helping university student-athletes build their personal brands through real-world marketing, content creation, sponsorship, and branding projects. Through authentic experiences, faculty mentoring, peer leadership, and interdisciplinary collaboration, students develop career-ready skills while making meaningful contributions to their campus community.

Conference Track: Educational Technology and AI

Back to Basics in the Age of AI

Juanita (JJ) Wallace
Associate Professor of Health and Exercise Science, Transylvania University

This session offers an honest, classroom-based look at using AI as a teaching tool rather than a shortcut around learning. Grounded in recent scholarship and real implementation examples, this session explores practical ways faculty can integrate AI into everyday pedagogy while preserving critical thinking, reflection, and authentic student work. Participants will examine what worked, what failed, and what changed in one instructor’s approach to assignment design, feedback, and student engagement. The session addresses both the promise and the problems of AI, including academic integrity, overreliance, inaccurate outputs, and instructor workload.

Bots with Purpose: Instructional Design Principles for AI-Powered Course Assistants

Dana Friedman
AI Specialist, The Pennsylvania University
Co-presenter: Cheryl Horten

Students hesitate to ask about deadlines, policies, and expectations, creating friction that disproportionately affects students navigating barriers. AI course assistants help, but only when designed with intentionality and pedagogical grounding. This session presents a framework for building LMS-integrated course bots as purposeful instructional tools, not automated responders, drawing on real implementation experience with a custom-built assistant trained on syllabus content, policies, and FAQs.

Co-Creating Ethical AI Use Guidelines: A Hands-on Approach

Zoë Taylor-Hayden
Faculty Instructor/Presidential Fellow, Central New Mexico Community College

Generative AI is reshaping classrooms across every discipline, yet most conversations about it default to two camps: uncritical adoption or blanket dismissal. This session offers a third path. Rather than starting with policy or platforms, we’ll start with values—guiding faculty through a structured, values-clarification process to determine where AI use aligns (or conflicts) with their personal and professional ethics. Designed explicitly to welcome skeptics, critics, enthusiasts, and everyone in between, this session models a collaborative approach to ethical guideline-building that participants can adapt for their own courses, departments, or disciplines. Attendees will leave not with a mandate to love or reject AI, but with a clearer sense of their own values and a practical framework for turning that clarity into classroom practice.

Designing AI-Resilient Assessments That Students Actually Want to Complete

Spencer Willis
Associate Professor of Practice, University of Arizona

Generative AI has challenged long-held assumptions about assessment, leaving many instructors wondering how to evaluate learning when students have access to increasingly capable AI tools. Rather than focusing on AI detection or restriction, this session introduces the REAL Framework, a practical instructional design model that synthesizes research on authentic assessment, active learning, and transparent AI use into a four-step redesign process: Reflect on learning outcomes, Engage students in authentic work, Amplify learning through transparent AI use, and Leverage process and reflection.

Designing With AI, Not Against It: Making Thinking Visible

Jennifer Bobo
Assistant Professor, Term, University of Louisville, Kent School of Social Work and Family Science

As generative AI continues to reshape higher education, faculty are increasingly asking how to move beyond detection and enforcement toward meaningful learning. This session explores how AI can be used to make student thinking visible throughout the learning process. Participants will examine practical assignment models that position AI as a comparison partner, simulated client, and reflective coach. Examples include comparing student-generated work with AI outputs, using AI for skill rehearsal and role-play, and engaging students in structured reflection that documents reasoning and decision-making.

Making AI Work for Learning: A Science-Informed Approach

Beth Schwartz
Senior Director of Teaching and Learning, American Psychological Association

AI is reshaping faculty practices and student behavior in the classroom. As it evolves, critical questions remain about its impact on student learning. Although the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is still emerging in this area, we argue that educators need not wait for new data to act. Instead, we can draw on established principles from psychology and the learning sciences (e.g., cognitive load, desirable difficulties) to guide pedagogical decisions in an AI-enabled environment. In this session, we will demonstrate how to leverage AI in ways that align with evidence-based teaching practices, supporting meaningful learning while maintaining rigor.

Rediscovering Purpose Together: Human Inquiry, AI & Asking Why?

Stacey MacKinnon
Professor of Psychology, University of Prince Edward Island
Co-presenters: Noah Striker, Ryan Drew

As AI reshapes the edges of teaching and learning, this session returns to the essential question: Why? Drawing on two decades of practice, it reframes AI not as a threat but as a clarifying force that helps educators protect human judgment, creativity, belonging, and ethical reasoning. Participants will explore a practical “Three Horizons” model—AI as assistant, thinking partner, and co-creator—along with strategies for redesigning assignments, strengthening provenance, and fostering interdependence. The focus is on aligning purpose, practice, and AI use so learning becomes more meaningful, not more mechanized.

Scaffolding AI Literacy across a Program of Study

Kristine Mickelson
Professor of Education, Morningside University
Co-presenters: Marwa Elshafie, Nicole Soriano, Kim Hawkins

Preparing graduate students to move from passive users to critical evaluators of AI requires a deliberate approach. This session presents a scaffolded AI literacy framework integrated into a three-course research sequence for initial licensure graduate students. AI literacy includes using the tools themselves, but extends beyond to include understanding how AI works, critically assessing AI-generated content, and evaluating the personal and social ethics that accompany AI’s use. Participants will gain access to a curricular map illustrating how AI literacy is scaffolded across three courses, examples of specific assignments where students learned and practiced different AI skills while developing capstone action research projects, and research findings examining how AI literacy instruction shaped students’ perceptions as learners and their practices as K-12 teachers.

Teaching Students How to Think by Teaching Prompting

Shannon Scott
Associate Dean of Academic Affairs, College of Arts and Sciences, Texas Woman’s University

What if prompt engineering were a thinking skill, not a tech skill? This session reframes AI prompting as applied cognitive psychology and as a vehicle for teaching students metacognition and critical thinking. Because an effective prompt requires defining a purpose, specifying an audience, sequencing reasoning, and detecting bias in one’s own framing, the prompt becomes a visible, assessable artifact of student thinking. Participants will practice transforming vague prompts using techniques grounded in schema theory, mental models, metacognition, and framing research.

Using VR to Improve Presentation Confidence and Competence

Sarah Egan Warren
Asst Teaching Professor & DELTA Faculty Fellow, North Carolina State University
Co-presenters: Dan Spencer, Cammie Justus-Smith

This session will showcase VR PRESENT, a 360-degree virtual reality experience designed to simulate audiences in different classroom settings in order to support students’ presentation confidence and competence. Participants will engage with PRCA-24 (Personal Report of Communication Apprehension), the pre-assessment tool used in the research about VR PRESENT outcomes to quantify presentation anxiety. In addition, results from the research about the use of VR PRESENT will be shared, including details about the pilot phase, focus groups, reflections, assessments, and outcomes. The session will end with brainstorming ways to develop and integrate VR experiences into teaching.

What Institutional AI Policies Reveal About Teaching in Higher Education

Caroline Fitzpatrick
Professor of Communication & Digital Media, Alvernia University
Co-presenter: Elena Lawrick

Higher education has embraced AI faster than it has learned to govern it. Nearly two-thirds of higher education institutions worldwide already have or are developing AI guidance (UNESCO, 2025), yet faculty rarely have an opportunity to compare their institution’s guidance with broader institutional practices. Drawing on a qualitative document analysis of publicly available AI policies from Mid-Atlantic colleges and universities, this session identifies common themes, institutional variation, and emerging approaches that reveal how colleges and universities are redefining AI governance beyond academic integrity to include teaching, learning, ethics, and faculty support.

Conference Track: Inclusive Teaching and Learning

Belonging as a Pedagogy: Cultivating Authentic Care in the Classroom

Jessica Manzone
Associate Professor of Education, Northern Arizona University

In higher education, supporting students’ well-being takes more than just focusing on academics—it’s about creating spaces where students feel seen, valued, and included. Research shows that a strong sense of belonging plays a big role in engagement, persistence, and overall success. This session invites faculty to think about belonging, not as something that happens by chance, but as something we can intentionally design through inclusive, community-centered teaching. Grounded in equity-minded practice, social-emotional learning, and trauma-informed approaches, participants will explore practical, transferable strategies to build more connected and inclusive classrooms.

Beyond Accommodation: Supporting Neurodiverse Students in Higher Education

Alicia Ead
Supervisor of School-based Services – LICSW, Bradley Learning Exchange

College campuses are enrolling increasing numbers of neurodivergent students, including those with autism, ADHD, learning disabilities, and executive functioning challenges. While many students receive accommodations, faculty often seek practical strategies to foster inclusion, engagement, and academic success beyond compliance requirements. This session explores common barriers neurodivergent students may encounter in higher education and provides evidence-informed approaches that support learning while maintaining academic rigor. Participants will learn strategies to improve communication, reduce unnecessary barriers, and create more accessible learning environments that benefit all students.

Designing for Access: Moving from Accommodating to Inclusive Learning

Shalika Robie
Educational Consultant and Coach, SR Learning Designs, LLC

As higher education classrooms become increasingly diverse, faculty must design learning experiences that proactively support access, engagement, and success for all learners. Too often, instructional adjustments occur only after barriers emerge, limiting full participation for students with disabilities and other historically marginalized populations. This session provides faculty with an actionable framework for integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and inclusive course design principles into postsecondary instruction. Participants will examine common barriers embedded in course structure, materials, and assessment practices and learn how to design more flexible, accessible learning experiences from the outset.

From Awareness to Application Through Learning Frameworks and Theories

Feygens Saint-Joy
Professor, Monroe University

This session introduces a four-pillar model for thoughtfully integrating AI into higher education: AI Literacy, Emotional Intelligence, Co-Intelligence, and Integration. Positioned in the Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy, and the Higher Education Learning Framework, this session provides a structured approach to redesigning assignments, assessments, and course experiences in ways that strengthen both human and technological competencies. Through applied activities, participants will examine bias, ethical AI use, ownership and attribution, and the role of AI as a cognitive collaborator rather than a replacement for human expertise.

Student Choice by Design: UDL from Content to Assessment

Day Halsey
Senior Teaching Faculty Human Development and Family Studies Department, Colorado State University

What happens when student choice is intentionally woven throughout a course rather than added as an afterthought? This session demonstrates how Universal Design for Learning (UDL) can be used to design learner-centered courses where flexibility, access, and engagement are built into content, activities, and assessments from day one. Through practical examples and course design strategies, participants will learn how to provide multiple ways for students to access learning, demonstrate understanding, and engage with course material while preserving academic standards.

Supporting Transgender, Nonbinary, and Genderqueer Students

Arielle Catron
Associate Teaching Professor, Rowan University

Inclusive teaching is essential to supporting diverse learners and creating environments where all students can thrive. Trauma-informed teaching recognizes the experiences and challenges students may bring into the classroom and provides a framework for fostering safety, belonging, and support. By better understanding the unique needs and experiences of marginalized populations, including transgender, nonbinary, and genderqueer students, educators can create more responsive and inclusive learning environments. These practices not only support TNG students but can also strengthen the classroom experience for all learners.

Conference Track: Mental Health, Wellbeing and Resilience

Becoming a Resilient Professor

Michael Alleruzzo
Adjunct Professor of Business Management, Carnegie Mellon University

College professors want to feel confident and successful as educators, researchers, advisors, and mentors. They want to feel welcomed and included, as members of a thriving academic community. And they want to realize optimistic outcomes that include positive course evaluations, contract renewals, and opportunities for tenure and promotion. Too often, they are met with external obstacles that threaten this success. Common faculty frustrations include student defiance, feelings of injustice due to arbitrary decision-making by administration, unproductive meetings, administrative communication issues, and university systems that hinder rather than support faculty. An outlet for faculty to privately engage in a formal model for self-reflection and problem-solving should help lead to healthy college faculty, and as such, healthy college students, and healthy college classrooms.

Building Resilience Through Crucial Conversations and Emotional Intelligence in Higher Ed

Marquita Lyons-Smith
Director, Health Administration Program, North Carolina Central University
Co-presenter: Keva Suitte

Faculty and student wellbeing in higher education is strained by stress, blurred work-life boundaries, and pressure to sustain rigor without burning out. This session shares a faculty/student wellness initiative grounded in crucial conversations, growth mindset, and emotional intelligence, delivered through structured reverse-mentoring built on psychological safety and reciprocal exchange. This session shows how naming perfectionism and overcommitment, co-creating communication norms, and reframing meaningful work as protective, not extractive, helps educators spot burnout early and rebuild resilience.

RSI That Feels Real: Humanizing Your Online Course with Real-World Connections and Culturally Responsive Teaching

Carla White
Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Maryland Global Campus

Online learning doesn’t have to feel isolating. In this session, attendees will explore how Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)—often treated as a compliance requirement—can become a powerful tool for fostering student mental health and well-being. Attendees will learn how RSI strategies, such as personalized video messages, reflective prompts, and wellness-centered feedback, can build connections, reduce student stress, and create a sense of belonging in the digital classroom. We’ll share examples from real courses, provide templates and implementation tips, and invite you to reflect on your own practice.

Whether you’re new to RSI or looking to reframe it as a student-centered teaching practice, this session offers practical takeaways to support the whole student.

Teaching the Whole Student: Trauma-Informed Strategies for Student Success

Dr. Shama Winston-Ford
Assistant Professor, Charleston Southern University

Today’s college students are navigating increasing levels of stress, trauma, anxiety, grief, and life transitions that can significantly affect their ability to learn, engage, and succeed academically. While faculty are experts in their disciplines, many have received limited training in understanding how trauma and emotional dysregulation influence classroom behavior, motivation, attention, and academic performance. This session explores trauma-informed teaching practices that support the whole student while maintaining academic rigor. Drawing from neuroscience, counseling, and higher education research, participants will examine how trauma impacts learning and discover practical strategies for creating psychologically safe, engaging, and supportive classroom environments.

Conference Track: Preparing Your Course and Curriculum

AI-Enhanced Case Learning: Backward Design and Generative AI in Graduate Business Education

Andrea Hunt
Professor of Practice, High Point University

Educational technologies are rapidly reshaping how students analyze information, collaborate, and communicate professional insights. At the same time, employers increasingly emphasize graduates’ ability to think critically, interpret complex information, and apply theoretical frameworks to real organizational challenges (Association of American Colleges and Universities, 2023; National Association of Colleges and Employers, 2024; World Economic Forum, 2023). These developments create an opportunity for faculty to integrate emerging technologies in ways that strengthen analytical learning rather than complicate instruction. This session presents a research-grounded instructional model that integrates backward design with AI-supported case learning to enhance graduate students’ critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning.

Avoiding “Groundhog Day”: Strengthening Established Courses Through a Guided Review

Dennis Lowe
Professor of Psychology, Pepperdine University

Once a course is developed, familiar routines, competing demands, and the prospect of substantial revision can make it difficult to examine whether it still serves students well. Courses may remain unchanged for years, not because faculty are unconcerned about quality, but because review can feel time-consuming and potentially overwhelming. This session introduces a Course Review and Reflection Guide that provides a manageable, step-by-step process for recognizing strengths, considering evidence, and identifying focused priorities for improvement. Participants will leave with a framework for reviewing key course elements, prompts for integrating student feedback and instructor observations, and strategies for moving from reflection to realistic, actionable improvements without undertaking a complete redesign.

Building Interactive Online Activities with AI: A Design Framework

Jennifer Coon
Professor of Accounting, Tyler Junior College

Faculty want online course activities that genuinely engage students, but AI tools alone produce more of what students already tune out. This session presents a design framework that puts the learning goal first. We will discuss a three-decision backward-design framework for using AI as a thinking partner to build interactive, LMS-ready course activities that work in both online and in-person settings. Participants will explore a three-decision framework for designing AI-assisted activities grounded in learning goals, a replicable process for building interactive SCORM activities that embed directly into an LMS and include built-in grading, and a prompt template and reference guide they can take back and use immediately.

Empowering Educators: Using C.O.D.E.S. to Design Student GenAI Use Statements in Higher Education

Jeralyne Manweiler
Instructional Facilitator & Educational Developer, Saskatchewan Polytechnic

As GenAI evolves, higher education must shift from punitive policing to purposeful, transparent practice. This session introduces C.O.D.E.S., a five-step framework to design assignment-specific GenAI statements. Permitted tools and explicit prohibitions are structured to directly support learner achievement of learning outcomes. Instructors will learn to account for tool features and provide meaningful, equitable alternatives if learners choose not to use GenAI. This session provides faculty with a repeatable toolkit to audit tasks using TILT, SAMR, and UDL, account for tool equity, and write clear, assignment-specific statements that preserve academic rigor.

Engagement by Design: Creating Meaningful Learning in Fully Online Teacher Preparation

Jessica Bogunovich
Department Chair/Program Chair/Associate Professor, UMass Global

In fully online teacher preparation programs, meaningful engagement must be intentionally designed, not assumed. This session explores practical, field-tested strategies used to actively engage teacher candidates in virtual environments, including interactive discussion forums, video journals, authentic fieldwork and tutoring projects, book studies, peer feedback, GoReact video feedback, live science experiments, and optional synchronous support structures. Grounded in asset-based and UDL-informed practices, these approaches move candidates from passive participation to deep, reflective learning.

Human-Centered Feedback in the Age of AI: Amplifying Instructor Presence

Spencer Willis
Associate Professor of Practice, University of Arizona

As generative AI becomes part of everyday teaching, many faculty are asking the wrong question: How can AI generate better feedback? A more meaningful question is: How can AI create more opportunities for meaningful human feedback? This session introduces the Feedback Reinvestment Canvas, a human-centered instructional design framework that helps educators make intentional decisions about how AI can support teaching while preserving the uniquely human dimensions of feedback, coaching, and instructor presence. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for instructor feedback, the framework encourages faculty to identify routine tasks that AI can support and intentionally reinvest that time into high-impact learning interactions.

Templating Works

Megan Smeznik
Instructional Designer, Kent State University

One of the biggest complaints from students is that every course can look different in the learning management system. This can make it harder for students to find important information and navigate their courses. Using a consistent LMS template can help create a more organized and student-friendly experience while still allowing faculty to make the course their own. In this session, participants will learn how a course template can be developed, how faculty may respond to using a common structure, and how student feedback can be gathered to improve the template over time.

Time-Saving Teaching Assistant Training Strategies

Ashley Harvey
Professor, Colorado State University

Do you struggle to utilize TAs? Do you find yourself thinking, “It will just be quicker if I do it myself?” With your repetitive tasks each semester, does it feel like you are living in the movie Groundhog Day? How often do course improvements get delayed because you don’t have time? Although challenging to recruit and structure, TAs can reduce faculty workload, boredom, and burnout. Having managed over 250 TAs across nearly 150 face-to-face and online classes, I will share my strategies to efficiently recruit, train, and utilize undergraduate and graduate TAs. I will demonstrate how to create collaborative wiki pages that both TAs and instructors can build and revise. These wiki pages guide TAs to grade reliably and comment sensitively, set up new courses, compile student evaluation data, manage late assignments, write exam questions, and provide time-sensitive student outreach.

Transforming Curriculum: Lessons from the Competency-Based Shift

Carol Kirby
Associate Professor Nursing, Berea College

As higher education moves toward demonstrating tangible student outcomes, competency-based education provides a useful roadmap for building more intentional curricula. Drawing on lessons from nursing’s competency-based shift, this session breaks down the backward design process used to align graduation goals with leveled assessments across a curriculum. Participants will explore strategies for using case studies and simulation-based pedagogy to bridge the gap between classroom theory and workforce reality, while also considering how to assess professional behaviors such as communication, ethics, and emotional intelligence alongside technical knowledge.

Conference Track: Student Engagement

Designing Course Games with AI for Any Modality

Jennifer Coon
Professor of Accounting, Tyler Junior College

Most faculty who want to gamify their courses hit the same wall: game design tools require technical skills they don’t have, and open-ended AI prompts produce surface-level results. This session offers a working solution. Participants learn a three-decision backward design framework that produces a game brief specific enough for AI to execute, then spend time building one. The framework applies across disciplines and modalities, with explicit attention to preserving pedagogical effectiveness in both in-person and asynchronous online environments.

From Personalization to Practice: Human-Centered AI for Active Learning

Savitri Dixon-Saxon
Vice Provost for the Division of Mission Fulfillment, Walden University
Co-presenters: Maurice Penny, Oleksii Hliebov

How can educators use AI to personalize learning without reducing cognitive effort or replacing faculty judgment? This session presents a human-centered framework that integrates AI-supported differentiation, active learning, and faculty-reviewed feedback. Using examples from anatomy, physiology, and pharmacology, participants will examine practical workflows for identifying knowledge gaps, redesigning passive tasks, and developing questions and feedback that promote reasoning. Participants will leave with three key takeaways: a Personalize-Engage-Feedback framework for course design; a method for converting passive content into active, higher-order learning; and a quality-assurance checklist addressing accuracy, accessibility, equity, privacy, and human oversight.

Gamification of Live Sessions in Online Courses

Jessica Love
Faculty, Purdue University Global
Co-presenter: January Pearson

A frequent challenge in higher education, particularly in online courses, is keeping students engaged with course material. Because engagement is powered by motivation and curiosity, gamification can offer an effective way to make learning more interactive while reinforcing course outcomes and learning objectives. In this session, presenters will share findings from a multi-term informal study exploring how incorporating games into online courses can support student engagement, retention, and success. Participants will examine research on gamification, explore practical ways to incorporate games into online learning, and consider how game-based activities can strengthen teamwork, problem solving, critical thinking, and students’ ownership of their learning.

Simple Engagement Strategies for Your Next Class

Kelly Hendershot
Assistant Professor, Minot State University
Co-presenter: KateLynn Albers

This session will focus on evidence-based strategies for strengthening student engagement through active and experiential learning. The session will highlight the strategic use of textbook resources, individual and group simulation assignments, and instructors’ own professional experiences to help students practice, apply, and connect course concepts to real-world situations. These strategies also strengthen students’ emotional engagement and sense of belonging by giving students opportunities to interact, learn from others, and actively participate in the classroom community. When used consistently in a course, these approaches can promote and sustain participation and engagement throughout the semester.

Spark, Stretch, Sustain: Student Engagement through Creativity Generators

Jessica Manzone
Associate Professor of Education, Northern Arizona University

Creative thinking offers a powerful pathway for amplifying student engagement by building on the strengths, curiosity, and diverse perspectives students already bring into the classroom. This session highlights how higher education faculty can leverage these assets through research-informed creative processes that promote emotional connection, active participation, and deep cognitive investment. Participants will leave with five “Creativity Generators” to transform their courses into inclusive, interactive spaces where students feel valued, take intellectual risks, and form authentic connections with classmates and the content.

Conference Track: The Online Classroom

A Digital Engagement Model for Online Teaching

Ronald Yaros
Associate Professor, University of Maryland

Students don’t always disengage simply because they’re on a Zoom; many disengage when online sessions fail to sustain attention. This session introduces the Digital Engagement Model (2026 book by Palgrave Macmillan), a research-based framework that pairs interactive Zoom sessions with evidence-based engagement strategies, including frequent phone-based interactions, hybrid work sessions, Monday Missions, recorded but personalized Wednesday Wrap-Ups, and follow-up assignments to keep students actively involved throughout the week. Participants will see how these techniques increase attendance, interaction, and sharing while fostering a more connected online classroom experience.

Micro-Moments of Presence: Small Teaching Moves That Transform Online Learning

Lori Spanbauer
Chair of the Core Curriculum, Nebraska Methodist College

Instructor presence is essential to student engagement in online courses, yet many faculty experience it as time-intensive and difficult to sustain. This session reframes presence as a series of “micro moments”—small, intentional teaching actions embedded throughout a course that enhance clarity, connection, and engagement without increasing workload. Participants will explore a simple framework organized around clarity, connection, feedback, and anticipation, with concrete examples such as weekly announcements, assignment framing, and brief video or written touchpoints.

Multi-Level Online Teaching: Retention, Differentiation, and Cultural Immersion

Baocai Jia
Professor of Chinese, Diablo Valley College

This session offers a practical framework for using Canvas and Zoom to create a high-retention, culturally immersive learning experience without doubling faculty workload. Drawing on pre-recorded explanations, speaking and handwriting activities, differentiated assignments, and tiered breakout tasks, participants will explore ways to support self-paced learning while maintaining meaningful instructor presence. Attendees will leave with replicable Canvas layouts for multi-level courses, Zoom strategies that promote cultural immersion and connection, and time-saving video and audio feedback approaches that sustain engagement.

Online But Not Alone: Human-Centered Teaching in an AI World

Jennifer Duncan
Associate Professor of English, Georgia State University’s Perimeter College

As generative AI becomes part of higher education, many faculty respond with restrictions or detection tools. Yet in asynchronous courses, the bigger challenge is often student disconnection. When online learning is treated as self-paced or hands-off, students can feel anonymous and disengaged—conditions that make AI substitution more likely. Grounded in Community of Inquiry, Regular & Substantive Interaction, and Universal Design for Learning, this session shows how meaningful choice, opportunities to express thinking, and intentional instructor presence reduce isolation, increase engagement, and make courses more AI-resilient.

Online Classrooms: Strategies for Supporting Adjunct Faculty Engagement and Instructional Presence

Courtney Wiest
Assistant Director of Online MSW, University of the Pacific
Co-presenters: Khalilah Louis Caines, Sarah Guadalupe

Student Success through Engagement and Connection: An Online FYE Approach

Dr. Steven Kramer
Adminstrative Faculty, AIUS
Co-presenter: John Hall

Teaching Sensitive Topics Online: Thoughtful Approaches to Difficult Content

Kara Parker
Associate Professor of School Psychology, University of Findlay
Co-presenter: Jon Brasfield