The 2026 Celebration of Teaching is on Friday, October 9, in the Godfrey Graduate and Executive Education Center (1275 E 10th St). We have a full slate of engaging workshops, discussion-based roundtables, panel presentations, ignite talks, and poster presentations by IUB faculty and by our keynote speaker. Open the dropdowns to read the abstract for each presentation.
Please be sure to register for the conference. We look forward to seeing you there!
Annie Edwards, Lecturer, Mathematics (College of Arts & Sciences)
In many introductory mathematics courses, students spend much of class watching an instructor work examples. While direct instruction has an important role, students also need structured opportunities to try problems, discuss ideas, make mistakes, and receive feedback while learning is still happening. This session describes a course-based active learning project in Math M124, Basic Algebra for Finite Mathematics, a coordinated algebra course taught primarily by graduate student instructors. Through a CITL Active Learning Grant, I developed in-class activities for every lesson in the course. These activities were designed to give students regular opportunities to work collaboratively on authentic mathematical tasks while also supporting graduate student instructors with ready-to-use materials aligned to daily course objectives. This was especially important in a coordinated course where instructors may have strong mathematical preparation but varying levels of teaching experience. Because the work was completed during class, instructors could observe student thinking in real time and return timely feedback. The activities also provided a useful response to the challenges of interpreting out-of-class homework in an era of widely available AI tools. This session will share the motivation for the project, examples of the activities, preliminary student outcome data, and reflections on using shared instructional materials to support active learning across multiple sections of a coordinated course. Participants will reflect on how small changes in their own class structure can help make student thinking more visible.
Hyesun An, Lecturer, Statistics (College of Arts & Sciences)
Why do students often struggle more in asynchronous online courses, and where in the curriculum do those challenges appear most clearly? This session shares findings from a scholarship of teaching and learning study of 415 students in online and in-person sections of introductory statistics. Using item-level exam data rather than final grades alone, the study examines not only whether online students perform differently overall, but also which topics appear most vulnerable in an asynchronous format. The analysis compares students’ likelihood of answering the same exam items correctly while accounting for repeated observations within students, exam timing, and content area. The findings show a consistent disadvantage for students in the asynchronous online section, with the largest gaps concentrated in topics that require multistep reasoning, interpretation, and cumulative understanding, especially hypothesis testing and regression. For instructors, the value of these results lies in their practical application: item-level evidence can reveal where course design may need more structure, more guided practice, or more timely support. Rather than treating online learning gaps as uniform across a course, this session demonstrates how assessment evidence can help identify specific instructional pressure points in introductory statistics. Attendees will leave with ideas for using their own course assessments to refine teaching decisions, strengthen online course design, and better support student learning in conceptually demanding parts of the curriculum.
Hyesun An, Lecturer, Statistics (College of Arts & Sciences)
Students in large introductory statistics courses often enter with different levels of preparation, confidence, and prior experience with quantitative reasoning. These differences can become especially visible after the first exam, when some students perform well while others experience disappointment, anxiety, or a loss of motivation. Although individualized feedback may help students understand their performance and identify concrete next steps, providing that level of support can be difficult in large-enrollment courses. This Ignite talk presents a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning study that examines whether individualized feedback can improve student performance and engagement in introductory statistics courses for non-majors. Students are assigned to receive one of three types of feedback after early exams: generic class-wide feedback, individualized in-person feedback, or individualized feedback by email. The feedback is tailored using students’ exam performance, attendance, and assignment completion. The study examines later exam performance and students’ perceptions of feedback usefulness, motivation, and engagement. Although the study is situated in statistics, the approach is relevant to instructors across disciplines who teach large classes and want to make feedback more meaningful, timely, and scalable.
Barbara Ross Wooldridge, Clinical Professor, Marketing, Kelley School of Business
Across disciplines, one of the most persistent challenges faculty face is sustaining student attention. Research indicates that approximately one-third of students report feeling disengaged during class, and studies of lecture-based instruction show that attention commonly drops after five minutes and again between 10 and 18 minutes. Digital distractions further fragment focus, making sustained attention increasingly difficult. This Ignite Talk introduces brief, evidence-informed attention-reset strategies that can be embedded into any course in 60–90 seconds. Drawing on classroom data collected across two jumbo undergraduate courses, the session demonstrates how short, structured pauses can help students cognitively re-enter the learning space without sacrificing instructional time. Student survey data collected over three semesters reveal that 13% of students identified lack of engagement as the most detrimental factor affecting their success, while 21% identified active engagement as the most positive contributor to their success. One intervention—a bell-based sound awareness exercise—was evaluated directly by students. Fifteen percent reported the exercise improved their focus “a lot” or “a great deal.” Importantly, an additional 26% reported moderate improvement. In total 78% of students noted some level of positive impact from very little to a great deal. In an attention-fragile classroom, these gains matter. A slight increase in focus can be the difference between cognitively checking out and re-engaging with the next instruction, example, or concept. When compounded across a semester, even small resets can meaningfully shape students’ learning experience.
Room CG0034/0036
Roundtable Session
Jennifer Lale, Senior Lecturer,Theater, Drama, and Contemporary Dance (College of Arts & Sciences)
As an instructor of large lectures as well as small intensives, it becomes clear to me that the students need more support in the basics of being a, well, student. They may not know how to read a text, take notes about a lecture, or even approach a classmate to work during an activity. I hope to collectively build a repertoire of tactics that helps our students to be ready to learn.
Room CG1022
Panel Presentation
J Duncan, Teaching Professor, Informatics (Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering)
Shabnam Kavousian, Teaching Professor, Informatics (Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering)
Jenny El-Shamy, Senior Lecturer, Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
Kate Muehlhaus, Lecturer, Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
This panel will discuss the concerns, strategies, and experiences of instructors doing online teaching at IU. Four of our faculty who are all teaching online asynchronous classes in Summer 2026 will be available to answer questions and share lessons learned. The classes taught include two programming classes, a math class, and a visual design class. As such, the variety of approaches and course learning goals will offer something for everyone.
Room CG3044
Workshop
Shannon Winston, Lecturer, Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
Peer review can be one of the most powerful forms of active learning, helping students practice analysis, clarify their own thinking, and engage more deeply with course concepts. The peer review process is one that many students will encounter in their professional lives. Yet many students experience peer review as tedious, confusing, or simply “busy work.” This hands‑on workshop introduces three adaptable approaches to peer review that work across a wide range of disciplines and class formats. Together, we will examine what makes peer review activities genuinely engaging and effective—from clear purpose and structure to models that help students give specific, actionable feedback. Participants will explore several sample activities, consider how each one supports learning, and discuss strategies for tailoring them to different classroom contexts. By the end of the session, participants will leave with concrete, ready‑to‑use ideas for designing peer review that feels meaningful, energizing, and worth students’ time.
Room CG3046
Workshop
Erika Lee, Teaching Professor, Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering
Meghan Porter, Senior Lecturer, Chemistry, College of Arts & Sciences
Megan Dunn, Senior Lecturer, Biology, College of Arts & Sciences
In this interactive workshop, we’ll focus on lesson planning using the Decoding the Disciplines pedagogical framework designed to guide teaching and learning practices. Developed at IU nearly 20 years ago, this internationally recognized approach gives faculty the essential strategies and a common language to create a cohesive learning experience for students. Join us in considering a new lesson or improving upon a current one. We’ll identify learning bottlenecks in your lesson and provide examples and tools to better model a concept, unpack where students get stuck, and how to apply these techniques to other parts of your courses.
Room CG3065
Workshop
Dawn Wisher, Teaching Professor, Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
Angela Perry, Senior Lecturer, Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
James Hook, Lecturer, Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
As generative AI becomes increasingly integrated into teaching, writing, and professional communication, educators need practical frameworks for helping students engage with AI critically, ethically, and creatively. This workshop introduces XQ™ (Expressive Quotient), a framework developed by Angela Perry and Dawn Wisher to explore the human capacities that remain essential in AI-supported communication: expression, connection, adaptability, ethical reasoning, and collaborative meaning-making. XQ™ approaches AI as a collaborative partner that requires stronger intentionality, audience awareness, and reflective practice from both instructors and students. Participants will explore how XQ™ can support course design, communication instruction, and assessment practices across disciplines. The framework also provides a shared language for discussing AI-supported communication and helps students reflect more intentionally on how and why they use generative AI tools. Through discussion and hands-on activities, attendees will examine examples of human–AI co-creation in writing and presenting, identify opportunities and challenges within their own teaching contexts, and begin adapting an existing assignment, activity, or rubric using XQ™ principles. The session emphasizes maintaining human meaning, authenticity, and ethical engagement while preparing students for communication environments increasingly shaped by generative AI. This workshop is designed for faculty interested in teaching communication, integrating AI thoughtfully into coursework, or developing pedagogical approaches that balance technological innovation with human-centered learning.
Room CG1022
Panel Presentation
Hope Zeller, Project Coordinator, Hoosier Sport; Adjunct Instructor, School of Public Health
Will Emigh, Director, Senior Lecturer, Game Design (Media School)
Cassandra Coble, Clinical Associate Professor, Kinesiology (School of Public Health)
Garrett Biggs and Madeleine Mastin, Student Speakers
This panel explores how interdisciplinary collaboration and student partnership can enhance experiential learning, specifically through digital game-based instruction in higher education. Drawing from a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning project, faculty from Kinesiology (School of Public Health) and Game Design (The Media School) partnered to co-develop a digital simulation that supports student learning in a large-enrollment sport management course. A central feature of this project is the integration of undergraduate students as active contributors to the teaching and learning process. Game design students served as co-creators, translating disciplinary learning objectives into game mechanics through iterative cycles of design, testing, and revision. Simultaneously, sport management students engaged with the game as learners, applying course concepts through decision making, experimentation, and reflection. During the session, participants will engage directly with a live demonstration of the digital game to experience the learning environment firsthand. This interactive component provides a shared reference point for discussion and highlights how design decisions shape student learning. The panel brings together faculty and undergraduate students to highlight multiple perspectives on cross-disciplinary collaboration and experiential learning. Faculty and students will reflect on both designing and experiencing the game, emphasizing how learning through design and play can support meaningful, transferable learning outcomes.
Workshop
Room CG3044
Becca Butters, Senior Lecturer, Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
Anna Deeds, Senior Lecturer,Communication, Professional, & Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
This interactive workshop introduces faculty to data storytelling as a versatile tool for enhancing student success, supporting interdisciplinary communication, and enriching teaching narratives. Participants will explore how narrative structures, audience-centered visualizations, and strategic framing can transform data into impactful stories. Aligned with IU’s 2030 Strategic Plan, the session emphasizes using data storytelling to communicate across diverse academic contexts. Faculty will engage in small-group activities to analyze datasets, identify key insights, and tailor visualizations for specific stakeholder audiences. This workshop is ideal for faculty seeking to elevate their teaching and support student success through clearer, engaging, and accessible communication. Its interdisciplinary approach ensures relevance across fields, making it a valuable resource for faculty aiming to connect data with meaning in a variety of educational settings.
Workshop
Room CG3046
Akesha Horton, Director of Academic Engagement and Learning (Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering)
Matt Francisco, Senior Lecturer / Director of Undergraduate Studies, Informatics (Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering)
Most AI teaching tools sold to faculty are built without faculty. The fixes for that gap don't require you to learn to code. They require you to build a shell. In this 50-minute workshop, two IUB faculty-designers walk participants through the build of a one-page pedagogical specification for an AI tool they want in their own course. The frame is participatory design. Agentic AI sells the front-end and hides the back-end. For faculty, that asymmetry is an opening. A working shell tells a developer what the tool is for, what it refuses to do, and which pedagogical decisions cannot be flattened in production. That includes a decision faculty often overlook: a prototype's limits are not just flaws to hide but openings to teach with. A tool that visibly shows its reasoning, or fails loudly at the edge of what it can do, lets students discover its assumptions rather than trust its output — and that transparency is precisely what a developer will smooth away unless the shell forbids it. The shell is how a faculty member joins the development conversation as a peer. Participants leave with a one-page shell-spec for a specific AI tool, three named pedagogical decisions a developer would have to honor, critique notes from a peer faculty designer, and a two-sentence outreach draft for one developer or unit at IUB (department dev team, Luddy, UITS, CITL technologist) they will contact within two weeks. The workshop draws on participatory and design-based research (Sanders and Stappers, 2008; Bang and Vossoughi, 2016). The facilitators have been prototyping AI tools for educators and will use two or three as worked examples — demonstrated breaking, not just working — and the rest is participants writing, pairing, and committing.
Room CG3065
Roundtable Session
Sarah Frohardt-Lane, Senior Lecturer, Hutton Honors College
Candis Smith, Lecturer, African American and African Diaspora Studies (College of Arts & Sciences)
Eric Zobel, Lecturer, English (College of Arts & Sciences)
James Hook, Lecturer, Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
In this roundtable, faculty will discuss cultivating the classroom as an "attention sanctuary." We will explore how embracing class time as a space for sustained and focused concentration creates possibilities to extend course objectives and enrich students' experiences. Roundtable participants will consider the benefits of embracing an attention sanctuary approach, discuss how to frame the concept to students, and offer specific examples of activities to use within the classroom and beyond the classroom walls.
Jessamyn Neuhaus, Director, Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence; Professor, School of Education, Syracuse University
In this keynote, Jessamyn Neuhaus challenges myths and misconceptions that portray teaching as a perfectible activity and argues for normalizing the recurring challenges of effective college teaching. Evidence-based course design and teaching practices can reduce classroom snafus, but inequity, disconnection, distrust, failure, and fear mean setbacks remain a routine part of teaching and learning. Neuhaus highlights one evidence-supported response: talking more openly about teaching. By strengthening pedagogical communities of practice and broadening how institutions evaluate teaching effectiveness, educators can better normalize, learn from, and respond to setbacks, struggles, and classroom snafus.
Room CG1022
Panel Presentation
Polly Husmann, Associate Professor, Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Physiology (School of Medicine)
Heather Ormiston, Assistant Professor, School Psychology, School of Education
Heather Hundley, Professor, Biology, College of Arts & Sciences
When conversations about scholarly teaching arise, the focus is often on undergraduate education. Yet graduate education—where students simultaneously develop as learners, scholars, and professionals—can benefit equally from evidence-based teaching and mentoring practices. This panel session highlights research-informed approaches that support graduate student success, timely degree completion, and sustainable mentoring through a partnership-oriented lens. Panelists will present promising practices grounded in the scholarship of teaching and learning and mentoring research. Topics will include vertical and near-peer mentoring models, structured goal setting and progress monitoring, and the intentional development of mentoring networks. Emphasis will be placed on conceptualizing the graduate student–mentor relationship as an active partnership, in which both parties contribute to setting expectations, maintaining accountability, and adapting to evolving goals over time. Strategies that foster shared responsibility, clear communication, and mutual alignment will be highlighted. Each practice will be briefly anchored in relevant evidence, with attention to what works, for whom, and under what conditions. The session will include structured discussion, inviting participants to share approaches they have seen succeed—or fail—in their own contexts. Participants will leave with concrete, adaptable strategies to strengthen graduate teaching and mentoring practices, enhance student agency, and support more efficient and meaningful progress through graduate programs.
Room CG3044
Workshop
Angie Wong, Senior Lecturer, Applied Health Science (School of Public Health)
Joel Wong, Provost Professor, Counseling, School of Education
Many interventions aimed at improving academic performance rely on direct persuasion strategies, such as lectures on study habits or verbal encouragement to improve study behaviors. In contrast, Aronson (1999) proposed self-persuasion as an indirect strategy that motivates individuals to persuade themselves to change their attitudes and behaviors. Self-persuasion is effective because it supports individuals’ need for autonomy and draws on intrinsic motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2008). Rather than relying on external arguments, self-persuasion prompts individuals to create their own arguments about a target behavior. Because self-generated arguments are often more deeply internalized, and better retained, self-persuasion can produce more enduring attitude and behavior change than direct persuasion (Wong et al., 2022). This study examines the effectiveness of a self-persuasion intervention among undergraduate students enrolled in an online course. 133 college students were randomly assigned to either a self-persuasion or control condition. Participants in the self-persuasion condition were asked to provide advice to a classmate about learning strategies for succeeding in the course. We proposed three hypotheses: (1) Participants in the self-persuasion condition would report more frequent use of new learning strategies toward the end of the course than those in the control group; (2) the use of new learning strategies would predict better academic performance, namely, higher grades and lower likelihood of missing assignments in the online course; (3) the use of new learning strategies would mediate the impact of the self-persuasion intervention academic performance. Our analyses found support for the first and second hypotheses but not the third.
Room CG3046
Workshop
Erica Kovacs, Assistant Clinical Professor, Management & Entrepreneurship (Kelley School of Business)
Vesna Dimitrieska, Director of Global Education Initiatives, School of Education
This interactive workshop introduces faculty to Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) as a practical and scalable approach to internationalizing the classroom without requiring student travel. Drawing on a real implementation developed in partnership with Kent University in Pakistan and UK, the session demonstrates how COIL can be integrated into existing courses to enhance cross cultural competence, global awareness, and collaborative skills. Participants will gain a clear understanding of how to design, structure, and execute a COIL module, including partner selection, alignment of learning objectives, and coordination across institutions. The workshop will walk through a step-by-step example of a project in which students from different countries collaborated on a shared assignment, highlighting both the pedagogical benefits and the logistical challenges encountered. Particular attention will be given to managing differences in academic calendars, communication styles, grading expectations, and technology platforms. In addition to the case example, attendees will engage in guided activities to begin outlining their own COIL project, tailored to their discipline and institutional context. The session emphasizes actionable strategies, adaptable templates, and lessons learned to reduce barriers to implementation. By the end of the workshop, participants will leave with a concrete plan to incorporate COIL into their teaching, along with tools to foster meaningful international collaboration and prepare students for the complexities of working across cultures in a global environment.
Room CG3065
Roundtable Session
Mitchell Berg, Clinical Assistant Professor, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Gwen White, Adjunct Faculty, O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs
Robert Lantis, Senior Lecturer, Economics (College of Arts & Sciences)
Asynchronous online courses offer flexibility and access, but they can also present challenges for student connection, collaboration, and peer-to-peer interaction. Instructors may wonder whether group projects, community-engaged learning, discussion threads, or other collaborative activities can work well when students do not meet at the same time and therefore struggle to make meaningful connections. This roundtable invites participants to examine those assumptions and discuss how intentional course design can support interaction in asynchronous settings. Together, participants will identify common barriers to student participation in online courses. The conversation will then shift toward approaches that help students interact with course content, one another, and broader communities in ways that support course learning objectives. We will focus on three examples used in our own courses:
Rather than treating engagement as an add-on, this session will focus on designing interactions that are aligned with learning objectives and realistic for asynchronous delivery. Participants will be encouraged to share challenges, ask questions, and consider how these approaches might be adapted for their own teaching contexts.
Room CG3044
Workshop
Margaret Lion, Senior Lecturer, Kinesiology, School of Public Health
Faculty can move beyond fear of artificial intelligence and begin integrating AI into their classrooms. This interactive workshop engages participants in designing and creating AI-influenced assignments. These assignments use active learning strategies and give instructors the tools to evaluate student usage of AI. Through a structured, hands-on process, participants will create AI-influenced assignments for their own classes. Three types of AI-influenced assignments will be examined and created: (1) assignments demonstrating using specific AI tools; (2) critical thinking activities requiring students to evaluate AI-generated content; and (3) writing assignments that position AI as a tool for early drafts rather than final products. Participants will also be given design elements for student reflection and accountability. These elements will prove especially useful for critical thinking and writing. By the end of the session, participants will have created ready-to-use assignments and developed the skills to continue designing AI-influenced active learning experiences.
Room CG3046
Workshop
Alexis Larsson, Lecturer, English, College of Arts & Sciences
The purpose of this presentation is to present case studies that demonstrate ways to present writing feedback to the class and simultaneously provide a lesson on a core skill related to the respective unit learning objective(s). Presenting writing feedback to the whole class involves responding to formative assessments, such as early draft student writing, with solutions to thematic “sticking points,” moments in the student writing that suggest the need for a better understanding of the material and/or task. The workshop will present three cases based on units from a recent upper-level undergraduate course on rhetoric. Case One uses de-identified selections from student drafts to model successful application of course material and demonstrate peer review and revision strategies. Case Two uses multiple student authors from the class to produce a literature review from student-created material and embedding the literature review in a lesson on crafting a successful literature review. Case Three compares de-identified selections from student writing in a slide deck which is presented in a lesson that also demonstrates a successful method for recording and editing a presentation. Through recording and editing processes demonstrated simultaneously, this lesson is embedded in an additional set of unit-driven learning objectives aimed at providing a model workflow and required skills for producing an evaluating a multimodal final project.
Room CG3065
Roundtable Session
Xin Chen, Senior Lecturer, Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
Generative AI is reshaping how students access information, complete academic tasks, and engage with course content. At the same time, instructors continue to rely on evidence-based teaching practices grounded in decades of research on how students learn. This roundtable invites faculty to explore a timely question: What does “evidence-based teaching and learning” mean in the age of AI? As an instructor and scholar interested in evidence-based teaching, metacognition, and student learning in technology-rich environments, I have been exploring how generative AI tools are reshaping student cognition, engagement, and academic practice. I am particularly interested in how AI challenges assumptions within the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), especially around engagement, practice, feedback, and authentic learning. This session emerges from ongoing experimentation, reflection, and conversation about how instructors can preserve meaningful learning while thoughtfully integrating AI into educational environments. The session will begin with a brief overview of key ideas from SoTL and evidence-based teaching literature, including active learning, metacognition, and authentic engagement. Participants will then engage in a facilitated interdisciplinary conversation about how generative AI may challenge, reinforce, complicate, or transform assumptions underlying these approaches. Rather than focusing primarily on academic integrity or AI detection, this session centers on teaching and learning itself. Participants will share experiences, raise questions, and reflect collectively on how evidence-based teaching practices may evolve alongside AI technologies, leaving with new perspectives and practical ideas for supporting meaningful learning in AI-rich educational environments.
Bethany Murray, Clinical Assistant Professor, Community & Health Systems (School of Nursing)
Motivational interviewing (MI) is an outcome focused approach intended to strengthen motivation and commitment in changing health behaviors. This project examined prelicensure nursing student confidence in MI methods with vulnerable clients in a real-world, clinical environment. Students implemented three MI sessions with adult clients who had intellectual or developmental disabilities (ID/DD) (n=25) or psychiatric or substance use disorders (P/SUD) (n=64). Students were evaluated for confidence in MI skills before and after the clinical experience. All students demonstrated significant improvement in MI skills after three sessions. Students who worked with ID/DD clients experienced more emphasis on empathy and relationship building while students working with P/SUD clients focused more on goal setting and skill development. This study suggests that MI can be effectively taught to undergraduate nursing students.
Hope Zeller, Project Coordinator, Hoosier Sport; Adjunct Instructor, School of Public Health
Despite the use of more than ten active learning strategies, students in an undergraduate course continued to demonstrate limited growth in their ability to provide accurate, actionable feedback. Analysis of course design revealed a “scaffolding desert” at the analyze and evaluate levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, where students were expected to demonstrate higher-order skills without sufficient structured support. This study examines the impact of intentionally redesigning course activities and assignments to better scaffold learning across Bloom’s levels. Key interventions included repositioning existing activities, integrating “feedback banks” to support analytical thinking, and introducing a scaffolded peer feedback assignment aligned with evaluation-level learning outcomes. Student learning was assessed through longitudinal self-perception data collected at pre, mid, and post time points, along with cross-semester comparisons between Fall 2025 and Spring 2026. Findings indicate meaningful improvements in students’ applied feedback skills, with increases in both identifying areas for improvement and providing growth-minded feedback. Students also reported high levels of belonging (4.6 out of 5) and psychological safety in sharing ideas (4.5 out of 5), despite increased cognitive load and obtaining challenging feedback from peers and the instructor. This poster presents a practical framework for identifying and addressing gaps in scaffolding, along with five actionable lessons for instructors, communicated through the imagery of building an ice cream cone, to translate complex instructional design concepts into an engaging and memorable model for practice.
Angela Andrews, Clinical Assistant Professor, Accounting (Kelley School of Business)
The traditional first day of class is often relegated to a passive reading of the syllabus—a missed opportunity for fostering community and establishing course relevance. Grounded in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) literature on student belonging and transparent design, this poster demonstrates how to transform day one into a dynamic, high-impact learning experience that begins way before the first day of class. This presentation showcases a three-part pedagogical framework implemented within a Canvas course site. The first element is an interactive syllabus that integrates visual design and multimedia elements to humanize the instructor from the outset and prompts early conversations. The syllabus serves as a great ice breaker for the first day of class. The second part of this framework is a highly visual Canvas site that also integrates the same multimedia elements from the syllabus. The Canvas homepage is designed for intuitive navigation and inclusiveness. By integrating visual design and multimedia elements into both the course canvas site and the syllabus the two class artifacts work in tandem to establish an immediate culture of care and intellectual curiosity. This brings us to the third part of the framework and the first day of class. Instead of a line-by-line summary of the syllabus, I use an engaging activity that requires students to use financial statements and disseminate information to each other and to the class at large. Participants can expect to walk away with practical, scalable strategies to audit their own digital course architecture, craft engaging intro videos, and design a first-day activity that hooks students from the start.
Julia Sherry, Lecturer, Applied Health Sciences, School of Public Health
As part of the 2025 Global Community Engaged Learning Course Design Institute, a 300-level Global Health Promotion course at Indiana University was redesigned to integrate a community-engaged global learning experience aligned with course learning objectives. In this course, students examine strategies used to address global health challenges while making connections between local and global contexts. As part of the course redesign, students partnered with Hoosier Hills Food Bank (HHFB), a local nonprofit, to engage directly with food insecurity issues at the local level. This experience was paired with global case studies on food security and a structured role-play activity, enabling students to compare approaches across diverse global settings and deepen their understanding through applied, experiential learning. This course-based case study demonstrates the value of integrating local community-engaged learning with global learning frameworks in global health education. It also highlights the perspective of students in the course, providing insight into how participation in the HHFB experience shaped perceptions of the relationship between local and global health challenges.
Julia Sherry, Lecturer, Applied Health Sciences (School of Public Health)
Role-play simulations can help students move beyond simplified understandings of global health challenges by engaging directly with stakeholder perspectives, competing priorities, and resource constraints. This poster presents two role-play simulations implemented in a junior-level global health course designed to teach systems thinking and stakeholder negotiation through authentic decision-making activities. The purpose of this presentation is to share an iterative instructional design process, with particular attention to high-engagement elements such as incentive-based participation to increase student buy-in and emotional engagement, the use of AI-assisted tools to support simulation development, and intentional student reflection. In the first simulation, students represented stakeholders involved in malaria prevention efforts and negotiated how to allocate limited resources across interventions and geographic contexts. Students navigated competing incentives shaped by political priorities, funding restrictions, economic concerns, and public health goals. In the second simulation, students worked through global food insecurity case studies in small groups, allocating limited resources to interventions tailored to different regional scenarios. The activity design evolved from the first simulation by requiring students to collaborate before role assignments were revealed and by introducing a mid-simulation disruption that unexpectedly reduced available resources, modeling instability in global funding environments based on real-world current events. These activities generated high levels of student engagement and encouraged students to grapple with the complexity and uncertainty inherent in global health decision-making. The poster will share the design process, implementation strategies, lessons learned through iteration, and practical approaches faculty can adapt for their own courses.
Alicia Marte, Lecturer, School of Nursing
In nursing, and many other professions, it is important to advocate for our clients even if we do not share their ideals. In a nursing ethics course, team debates are used to provide students an opportunity to present and defend a randomly assigned, emotional topic. Example topics are abortion, physician assisted suicide, organ allocation, and AI. Students are given guidelines for behavior and response to uphold a professional environment. With structure, students are able to successfully debate a topic that they may not agree with and defend their argument with evidence from a nursing ethics perspective. With this poster, participants will receive practical steps to facilitate team debates in their course and have a chance to reflect on the evidence of opposing viewpoints in their chosen field. The goal is not necessarily to change our own viewpoint, but to consider and understand ideals behind opposing viewpoints.
Mansi Srivastava, Lecturer, Biology (College of Arts & Sciences)
Preparing students for careers in biotechnology requires more than developing scientific knowledge and technical expertise; students must also recognize and effectively communicate the transferable skills they develop through their coursework. This poster presents teaching strategies implemented in the T508 course to intentionally integrate professional development and career readiness into the curriculum. Guided activities are designed to help students identify, reflect on, and articulate marketable skills developed through authentic scientific learning experiences. Throughout the course, students engage in structured activities that connect academic tasks with professional competencies, including communication, teamwork, creative problem-solving, leadership, analytical thinking, technical skills, and adaptability. Rather than treating career preparation as separate from disciplinary learning, these activities encourage students to examine how experiences such as collaborative problem-solving, data analysis, scientific discussion, and presentation translate into skills valued in professional settings. Guided reflection prompts students to provide specific examples demonstrating how they applied these competencies during course activities. Career exploration exercises further extend this process by asking students to investigate potential occupations, compare job requirements with their developing skill sets, assess their career interests and confidence, and identify actionable next steps for professional growth. This approach positions professional development as an intentional component of science education and encourages students to take greater ownership of their career preparation. By making connections between classroom experiences and workplace expectations explicit, these strategies aim to strengthen students’ career awareness, confidence in describing their competencies, and ability to translate scientific training into meaningful narratives for future internships, employment, graduate education, and other professional opportunities.
Cydni Meredith Robertson, Assistant Professor, Merchandising and Fashion Studies, Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design
Hilos de Amistad (“Threads of Friendship”) is an eight-week, course-embedded global learning project developed in M404: International Textile and Apparel Trade at Indiana University Bloomington. The project connected 31 IU students with 11 industrial engineering students at Universidad Católica de El Salvador (UNICAES) to explore international trade through intercultural collaboration, sustainable textile production, and community engagement. Rather than learning global trade solely through policy, economic theory, and supply-chain analysis, students applied course concepts to a collaborative textile project benefiting a government-supported nursing home in El Salvador. IU students contributed knowledge related to textile sourcing, product specifications, bills of materials, Harmonized System classifications, shipping requirements, and trade analysis, while UNICAES students contributed expertise in production, manufacturing, community needs assessment, and local context. The experience culminated in a Virtual Trade and Production Showcase. This poster examines how international trade education can move from abstract global systems toward applied, relational learning. Student reflections and project outcomes highlight three dimensions of learning that emerged through the experience: perspective transformation, embodied knowing, and co-creating meaning across cultural and disciplinary contexts. The project offers a model for integrating disciplinary content, intercultural learning, and community-engaged practice within an existing undergraduate course.
Clovia Hamilton, Assistant Professor of Business Law and Ethics (Kelley School of Business)
This poster describes my instructional approach, in which my business law and ethics courses are conducted in the format of business meetings. Rather than treating class as a passive lecture, I structure each 75-minute session to mirror the expectations, procedures, and interpersonal dynamics of a workplace meeting. Students are expected to arrive prepared, participate in discussions, analyze legal and ethical issues, and communicate with the civility, attentiveness, and accountability expected in professional settings. Twenty percent of each student’s final grade is based on class participation and professionalism, emphasizing that learning is demonstrated not only through written assignments and examinations, but also through consistent engagement and workplace conduct. Participation includes contributing relevant comments, asking thoughtful questions, responding constructively to questions and assignments, and applying course concepts to realistic business situations. Professionalism includes punctuality, preparation, respectful communication, active listening, and adherence to meeting norms. Students may not chew gum, dress inappropriately, slump in their seats, disrupt the class, play online games, sleep, or otherwise behave unprofessionally. This meeting-based format gives students opportunities to practice skills central to business law and ethics: identifying risks, evaluating competing obligations, exercising judgment, presenting a position, and collaborating to reach decisions. It also makes the relationship between course content and professional behavior explicit. By treating students as professionals, the course creates an environment in which attendance, preparation, participation, and ethical conduct are integral to success. This approach supports content mastery while helping students develop the communication, accountability, and professionalism required for responsible decision-making in organizations.
Alexander Alexeev, Senior Lecturer in Data Analysis and Modeling (O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs)
This study investigates the impact of “grade surprise” on students' performance, persistence and retention in introductory data analysis and analytics courses taught at the O'Neill School for quantitative policy analysis field, SPEA-V 370 and SPEA-V 348, observed between Fall 2022 and Spring 2026. In the selected STEM courses, the students were given one-question survey at the beginning of the semester to gauge their emotional response to the just-posted grade of the first exam. Basing on their response and exam performance each student was allocated to groups (e.g. happy-above average, happy – below average, etc.), and received quasi-individual (group) feedback message from the instructor through IUB's Student Engagement Roster (SER). Data were collected for classes both with and without tailored “feedback” and included demographic data and grades in the current course and their GPA during the semester they were enrolled, grades in prerequisite, first-generation, High-school GPA, race, gender from past student records. For the analysis, we employed both econometric modeling and Bayesian Network Analysis. Preliminary results show that the students who received tailored quasi-individual feedback performed systematically better and increased probability of A or B grades. However, essential effect was observed for the performance in the second exam but declines for the third one. The results will create a basis and recommendations for increasing students' engagement, performance and reduction of emotional stress that is ubiquitous for challenging quantitative courses.
Christina Ruiz, Clinical Assistant Professor, Accounting (Kelley School of Business)
How can an accounting course move students from completing calculations to using accounting information to make decisions? I redesigned a large undergraduate cost accounting course around The Boardroom, a series of live, team-based business simulations in which students serve as the finance team for an assigned company throughout the semester. Rather than completing isolated exercises, teams repeatedly return to the same company as its circumstances evolve. During each Boardroom session, students receive company-specific facts, analyze a business problem using the accounting tools they have learned, and make a recommendation to management. New information introduced during the session can change the decision environment, requiring teams to revise their analysis and respond in real time. Decisions and selected results also carry forward to later sessions, creating continuity across topics including cost-volume-profit analysis, relevant costs, budgeting, foreign exchange risk, variance analysis, and performance management. The design addresses a common challenge in accounting education: students may be able to perform a calculation when told which method to use but struggle to determine what information matters, choose an appropriate analysis, and explain what the result means for a business decision. The Boardroom gives students repeated practice with that professional judgment. This poster will share the structure of the simulation, examples of student-facing materials, implementation lessons from a large course (160 students), and early observations from its first semester of use.
Christopher Reinhart, Lecturer, Architecture (Eskenazi School of Art, Architecture + Design)
Taken together, research on real-world engagement in architectural education suggests a continuum spanning stakeholder-informed processes without actual clients and client-based live projects. These approaches can heighten professional authenticity, but their pedagogical effects depend on how engagement is scoped, timed, and integrated with design activity.(1-5) This poster explores a course modification to a recurring, graduate architecture studio. In two previous iterations, brief design exercises were conducted during the first five weeks, with the remainder of the semester devoted to a technically complex yet hypothetical design problem. In Fall 2025, initial design exercises were replaced with a stakeholder-informed analysis process, and the design problem was grounded in the Columbus Downtown 2030 Plan. Students analyzed local plans and studies and conducted interviews with eight civic and professional stakeholders. The Online Course Questionnaire (OCQ) included an additional open-ended question for feedback on the community-informed analysis phase in lieu of short design exercises. All five students completed the OCQ, and all stated that the community-informed aspect was valuable or important and recommended retaining some version of it. Four explicitly advocated for a shorter, hybrid, or parallel design approach, while the remaining respondent suggested optimizing the research phase and allocating more time to the main project. Students’ concerns consistently centered on sequencing and integration with design. The current iteration of the course (Fall 2026) is testing whether multiple low-stakes design exercises interleaved with a streamlined community-informed aspect can retain perceived authenticity while restoring room for conceptual exploration.
Polly Graham, Senior Lecturer, and Mike Schmeckebier, Senior Lecturer, Communication, Professional, and Computer Skills (Kelley School of Business)
Initial discourse often framed academic use of GenAI in binary terms: a collaborative tool or a detrimental crutch (Lund & Wang, 2023). However, students navigate a more complex reality. Their reliance fluctuates based on the communication medium (written vs. oral/visual), the specific task (e.g., brainstorming vs. drafting), and their own baseline confidence. Understanding this spectrum is critical for developing effective GenAI Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). To better understand students' perspectives of GenAI, we appended quantitative and qualitative questions to end-of-semester course evaluations across multiple sections of Business Writing and Business Presentations:
This poster will provide an analysis of the survey data, investigating how students utilize and perceive GenAI use in their business communication coursework as well as (1) insights into how students navigate varying levels of GenAI reliance across different communication tasks; (2) data-informed strategies for iterating assignment instructions and rubrics to foster responsible, skill-building AI habits; and (3) actionable perspectives on how student feedback can continuously inform the evolution of course- and departmental-level GenAI SLOs.
Mahasweta Baxipatra, Senior Lecturer, English (College of Arts & Sciences)
Cartography is a valuable epistemic tool for the study of fiction because it enables students to develop a more concrete understanding of setting—an essential yet often abstract element of literary texts. It also helps students trace both real-world and fictional movements of characters and attend more closely to the social and cultural nuances embedded in place and movement.
Drawing on L224: Introduction to World Literatures in English, an upper-level General Education course taught in Spring 2026, this poster presentation will introduce the cartographic pedagogy I developed and implemented in the course. Focusing on a series of scaffolded assignments—from plotting and identifying locations, to recognizing patterns of movement, to reflecting on cartographic distance across time—the presentation will demonstrate how students progressively engaged with maps as tools for literary interpretation. I will also discuss the final formal deliverable: an analytical essay composed using StoryMaps.
Through an examination of these assignments, I will share the pedagogical aims, implementation, successes, and challenges of this ongoing project, with particular attention to how cartographic practices can support students’ close reading of literary texts and deepen their understanding of space, place, movement, and culture.
Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
