Kickstart the Fall semester with innovative pedagogical approaches and strategies that integrate emerging academic technologies, AI, and cultural humility. Engage in hands-on activities and gather practical ideas to make your year more engaging, creative, and successful. 

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Program Agenda 

8:30 Morning – coffee, tea, and pastries

Welcome and A&II introductions and announcements

9:00 Workshop:  Promoting and Equalizing Participation in Class

Watch the recording.

Presenter: Lauren Oliveira
Senior Instructional Designer, Academic & Instructional Innovation, Samuel Merritt University.

Description: 

Getting students to participate in class can feel like an impossible challenge some days. In this workshop, explore some of the reasons students do not participate and a variety of techniques to reduce barriers and improve conversation. Learn techniques that help equalize participation so there aren’t just a few voices dominating discussions. Faculty will be encouraged to contribute their own ideas and experiences to the workshop.

Outcomes:

1. Identify barriers to participation.
2. Choose one technique to improve interactions that they will apply in the next week.
3. Identify one strategy for encouraging participation in their class.
4. Discuss strategies for equalizing participation in class.

Resources: 

• Presentation: Promoting and Equalizing Participation in Class
• Cultural Humility in Teaching
• Active Learning and Student Engagement

10:00 Add Creativity to Learning: Create Interactive Activities in Your Class

Watch the recording.

Presenter: Beverly Saar
Senior Instructional Designer, Academic & Instructional Innovation, Samuel Merritt University.

Description: 

Find ways to help your students become more involved with learning. Discover how tools that are available to you can be used to make learning more interactive, engaging, creative, and fun. Explore the possibilities for using Poll Everywhere in class for ice breakers, surveys, knowledge checks, competitions and more. Discover how VoiceThread can make discussions and presentations more engaging with multimedia including images, audio, and video in addition to text. 

Outcomes:

1. Identify at least 3 benefits for using interactive technology tools.
2. Identify at least 3 ways Poll Everywhere activities can be shared.
3. Identify at least 3 ways a VoiceThread activity can be used
4. Create at least 1 Poll Everywhere activity.
5. Create at least 1 VoiceThread activity.  

Resources:

• Presentation: Creativity to Learning: Create Interactive Activities in Your Class
• VoiceThread 
• Poll Everywhere 

11:00 Workshop: Give your students better feedback in less time using Gen AI and Panopto

• Watch the recording about "Gen AI."  

• Watch the recording about "Panopto."

Co-Presenters:
Liz Winer
Senior Instructional Designer, Academic & Instructional Innovation, Samuel Merritt University.
Elba Rios
Senior Instructional Designer, Academic & Instructional Innovation, Samuel Merritt University.

Description: 

Learn how to provide personalized, timely, and compassionate student feedback and correspondence using AI and academic technology.

Outcomes:

1. Learn how to use Google Gemini to craft rubrics and personalized feedback.
2. Provide compassionate feedback.
   Add Canvas SpeedGader for audio and video feedback.
3. Post, reply, and easily access timestamped Comments in Panopto.

Resources:

• Presentation: Give your students better feedback in less time using Gen AI and Panopto
• Generative AI (like ChatGPT) for Teaching and Learning  
• For more Gen AI resources, including a 10-minute video for students about ethical use of AI at SMU, visit the SMU AI Institute page.
• Introduction to Generative AI for Students (10-min video)
• How do I record a webcam video, screen capture, or audio recording as a feedback comment in SpeedGrader?
• Design video assignments in Canvas and provide timestamped feedback using the "comments" feature in Panopto  

12:00 Lunch 

12:30 to 2:00 Q&A and chat with A&II

• Resource: GETMARKED Quiz Importer 
   Watch the recording
   

• Teaching with the iPad - Demo 
  Watch the recording.

For information about this event please reach out to A&II at: aii@samuelmerritt.edu