Teaching Exchange Symposium 2026

Start the day with an opportunity to connect with colleagues, grab refreshments, and ease into the Teaching Exchange Symposium together.

Join Dr. Linda Hollis (Psychology) for a guided chair yoga session designed to refresh the body and mind before diving into the day’s conversations and ideas.

Student Union, Grand Ballroom

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Dr. Jenna Rickus is the Senior Vice Provost and a Professor of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Arizona, reporting directly to Provost Prelock. Dr. Rickus facilitates collaboration and coordination among Academic Affairs, Campus Community Connections, Faculty Affairs, University Analytics and Institutional Research (UAIR), and the University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology (UCATT). She also oversees initiatives and alignment across these areas. Prior to this appointment, she served as the Senior Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning at Purdue University.

Dr. Rickus is a bioengineer, interdisciplinary scholar, and inventor with expertise in biofunctional materials and biosensors.  She earned B.S. degrees in biochemistry and agricultural engineering from Purdue University and worked as an engineer in the food industry before earning a Ph.D. in Neuroscience and NeuroEngineering from UCLA.

Her research has focused on engineered biomaterials for the sensing and actuation of living cells and tissues with a particular emphasis on the brain and pancreas. Materials from her lab have wide reaching applications in cell physiology, implantable devices, and cell-based therapeutics. With funding from NIH, NSF, USDA, NASA, the Army Research Office and DARPA, her research team developed new technologies for important problems in brain cancer, epilepsy, type 1 diabetes, foodborne illness, and space biology. 

Designing Courses with Information Literacy at the Core
Presenter(s): Melony Shemberger (College of Information Science)
Location: Santa Rita

This interactive workshop explores how instructors can design a dedicated information literacy focus within any course to strengthen students’ research and source-use skills. The session will highlight practical ways to embed information literacy instruction early and intentionally across a course. Participants will examine how sustained attention to information literacy can improve student confidence, reduce frustration with research assignments, and support stronger writing and learning outcomes.

The workshop is grounded in a common teaching challenge: many courses require students to locate, evaluate, and cite credible sources, yet gaps in information literacy skills persist. By integrating structured information literacy activities into a course, instructors can help students build durable skills that save time for both learners and instructors later in the term. These skills support not only academic success but also transfer beyond the classroom into professional and workplace contexts.

Participants will engage in paired and small-group activities that model adaptable learning strategies. They will work through examples of discipline-specific research tasks, discuss approaches to evaluating and formatting sources, and reflect on ways to scaffold citation practices and advanced search techniques. Hands-on activities using worksheets and Post-It Notes will encourage idea generation, application, and reflection, with options to adapt activities for individual work as needed.

Participants will leave with practical methods for embedding information literacy instruction into their courses and concrete lesson ideas they can adapt to their own disciplinary contexts. The workshop will help instructors design approaches that align with their teaching goals while fostering student success and confidence.

Designing for Joy: Playful Pedagogy in the Higher Ed Classroom
Presenter(s): Jessica Hill (W.A. Franke Honors College & Office of General Education)
Location: Tucson

Do you have a lesson or class that makes you think, “ugh” the moment it shows up on your syllabus? The one you dread teaching or the one students seem to snooze through? This session invites you to explore how playful pedagogy can breathe new life into those lessons.

Through playful exercises and a mini-design challenge, participants will be introduced to play in higher education, the many learning benefits it offers (spoiler alert: there are lots of them), and practical ways to design with playfulness in mind. Playful pedagogy might just be the spark you need to re-energize a course and help you rediscover more joy in teaching!
 

Student Voices on AI: Designing Assessments That Spark Engagement
Presenter(s): Laura Gronewold (Health Promotion Sciences); Sarah Grace (Psychology)
Location: Sabino

In the AI era, a widespread source of anxiety stems from authentic assessment when students use AI tools. We reframe it as an opportunity for intentional design. Drawing on empirical evidence from independent student surveys across two contexts (large psychology courses n=500+, small writing courses), we examine student intent and ethics surrounding AI use that may challenge faculty assumptions, including helpful AI use vs. cheating, logical reasoning around AI, and perspectives on discussing AI in classes.

Two faculty with contrasting approaches share how student data transformed their assessment design, moving from anxiety to energized, purposeful teaching.
 

Teaching Statistics with Student-Centered AI-Enhanced Assignments
Presenter(s): Tierra Stimson (Psychology)
Location: Catalina

This project shares a practical, scaffolded approach for integrating generative AI into a Statistics in Psychology course to support student engagement with empirical literature, public datasets, and applied statistical reasoning.

The how-to centers on designing a multi-stage research assignment in which students transparently use AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT) to generate keywords, locate quantitative empirical articles through a university library database, identify publicly available datasets related to human behavior, cognition, or emotion, and plan and conduct statistical analyses. Each stage includes structured check-ins, explicit AI-use disclosures, and targeted rubrics aligned with APA-style empirical writing.

The why guiding this work asks: How can instructors leverage AI to reduce cognitive barriers and increase access to authentic research experiences while preserving academic integrity and statistical rigor? Rather than treating AI as a shortcut or threat, this project reframes AI as a learning scaffold that supports information literacy, synthesis, and methodological understanding—skills that are often challenging for students in introductory statistics courses.

Participants will take away:

• A transferable assignment framework that ethically integrates AI while strengthening students’ abilities to evaluate empirical research, work with real data, and apply descriptive statistics, hypothesis testing, and effect sizes.
• Concrete tools—sample AI prompts, staged deliverables, and rubrics—that can be adapted for different course levels, modalities, and institutional AI policies.

Overall, this project demonstrates how intentional assignment design can transform AI from a passive content generator into an active support for statistical learning and psychological inquiry.

Student Union, Grand Ballroom

The Info Fair offers a dynamic space where instructional support units provide guidance on a variety of preselected topics to highlight the services they offer. Attendees can engage with experts to seek guidance on specific issues through targeted discussions framed by guiding questions. This interactive session is designed to foster collaboration and offer practical solutions, allowing educators to enhance their teaching strategies and pedagogical approaches. Whether you're looking for advice on course design, technology integration, or assessment methods, the Info Fair is a valuable resource for all attendees.

The A Center

The A Center is an Academic Advising department under the Office of the Provost for Undeclared and transitional majors, along with Pre-Health Professions and Pre-Law advising.

CIRTL

The Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL) is an international network of research institutions that prepares graduate students, postdocs, and early-career faculty for teaching in higher education. 

College Teaching GIDP

The College Teaching Graduate Interdisciplinary Program offers courses on various topics pertaining to College Teaching. The signature program, the Certificate in College Teaching, is one of the most popular certificate programs at U of A. 

Faculty Learning Community 

The Faculty Learning Community is dedicated to exploring innovative teaching strategies, strengthening student engagement, and fostering a passion for lifelong learning. Participants also explore opportunities to mentor—or develop skills to mentor—graduate students and postdocs in teaching.

International Student Services

International Student Services (ISS) provides international students with support in the areas of immigration, academics, and personal support, along with opportunities for friendship and leadership. ISS serves as a central hub for a wide range of programs and resources on and off campus.

Life & Work Connections

HR Life & Work Connections connects benefits-eligible employees with resources, tools, and education to support their total health: physical, mental, emotional, financial, and social.  Our services are free, voluntary and confidential.

SALT Center

The SALT Center provides academic support for University of Arizona students who could benefit from assistance with time management, organization, tutoring, and individualized academic strategies. The SALT Center can support students who learn differently, need assistance with navigating the transition to college, or would benefit from consistent one-on-one support with planning and course content.

UA Libraries and CATaylst Studios

The UA Libraries' Student Learning & Engagement and CATalyst Studios partner with you on supporting students' research skill and maker literacy development. We collaborate on course-embedded instruction, hands-on and experiential learning, custom research guides, and more. Our goal is to help students confidently navigate library resources and develop the skills they need for academic and creative work. 

UCATT Assessment and Curricular Design

Assessment and Curricular Design assists programs with assessment of student learning outcomes as well as help with new program proposals. 

UCATT Creative Curriculum

Digital literacy and experiential learning trainings, classroom visits, and resources centered around Adobe Creative Cloud. 

UCATT Digital Learning/Continuous Improvement

Digital Learning/Continuous Improvement wants to provide information about Quality Matters and the Digital Learning Fellowship at this table.

UCATT Digital Learning/Instructional Design

Digital Learning/Instructional Design collaborates with instructors to plan a course from concept to delivery, including analyzing the learning needs of students and developing activities, assessments, and technologies. 

UCATT Instructional Technology & Top Hat

The Instructional Technologies team introduces the services and tools available to support teaching and learning, highlighting instructional technologies and practical strategies that encourage student engagement and enhance the learning experience in courses. Our Top Hat vendor will be present to answer questions about how instructors can utilize Top Hat to increase engagement, interaction, and knowledge retention in their courses.

UCATT Multimedia and Digital Maker Spaces

UCATT Multimedia collaborates with instructors to create course content grounded in the science of learning. Support includes professional video and podcast studios, field production, equipment checkout, Digital Makerspaces, and guidance for developing effective multimedia assignments and course materials.

UITS Collaborative Technologies Team

The UITS Collaborative Technologies team supports the core digital tools that power teaching, learning, and collaboration at the University of Arizona. Services include platforms such as Box, Zoom, Qualtrics, Panopto, and Brightspace integrations that help instructors, staff, and students connect, collaborate, and support courses across learning environments.

Writing Across the Curriculum

Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) empowers instructors with the tools, resources, and support to integrate meaningful writing into their classrooms. We provide resources for writing pedagogy, such as assignment design, peer review, feedback, and assessment. 

Student Union, Grand Ballroom

Birds of a Feather sessions are small, informal gatherings designed to help educators find their flock. Facilitators will host and organize tables to promote engagement and participation around one or more of the suggested proposal topics and conference theme. Attendees can expect to build their networks, exchange ideas, collaborate with peers, and expand their teaching community.

Constellating AI Literacies: Curious and Creative Teaching with AI
Presenter(s): Angela Gunder (UCATT)
Table: 8
 

Cultivating Connection: Strategies to Support Belonging and Joyful Learning
Presenter(s): Christine Hoekenga (College of Humanities); Cassandra Hirdes (Campus Health); Chantelle Warner (College of Humanities); Borbala Gaspar (French and Italian)
Table: 3

Designing Engaging Online Lab Experiences: A Collective Creativity Session
Presenter(s): Veronica Mullins (Nutrition Sciences and Wellness); Jackie Maximillian; Rivka Fidel (Environmental Sciences); Lisa Rezende (UCATT)
Table: 1

Enhancing Undergraduate Education through Alumni and Industry Mentors
Presenter(s): Dean Papajohn (Civil & Architectural Engineering); Noel Hennessey (College of Engineering); Kevin Lansey (Civil Engineering); Tyler LePeau (College of Engineering)
Table: 4 

Improving Undergraduate Statistical Analysis Writing through LLMs
Presenter(s): M. Gray Hunter (HS Lopez School of Business Analytics); Adam Molnar (HS Lopez School of Business Analytics); Priscila Ledezma (Educational Psychology)
Table: 5

An Inclusive and Stress-Free Classroom
Presenter(s): Florian Hafner (Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences)
Table: 9
 

Irritation, Discussion, Exploration, Learning: Teaching Medieval Literature
Presenter(s): Albrescht Classen (German Studies)
Table: 10

Keeping Writing Joyful: Large Classes in the Age of AI
Presenter(s): Steve Kortenkamp (Planetary Sciences); Katie Southard (Office of General Education)
Table: 2 

Showing up in Professional Settings
Presenter(s): Alexis Barr (Think Tank)
Table: 12

Teaching with Community: Sparking Joy and Lasting Impact
Presenter(s): Stephanie Springer (Department of Public and Applied Humanities); Liz Marsalla (College of Information Sciences); Emily McCarthy (Center for Career Readiness); Brittney Crawford (Public and Applied Humanities)
Table: 6 

Teaching Deep Source Engagement in the Age of Gen AI
Presenter(s): Shelley Rodrigo (English), Michelle Halla (Writing Program), Lara Miller-Rivera (University Library), Leslie Sult (University Library)
Table: 11

Transforming Course Content into Meaningful Learning Experiences
Presenter(s): Julianne Hammink (CESL/College of Humanities)
Table: 7

Location: Rincon

This interactive session highlights innovative teaching ideas and projects from instructors and students across all levels. Presenters will share unpublished and early-stage work, offering a dynamic space to exchange feedback, spark new ideas, and connect with colleagues from across campus. Attendees can explore emerging practices, engage in conversation, and build meaningful professional connections.

AI-Augmented Case Study Design
Presenter(s): Randi Weinstein (Physiology)
Poster: 1

AI has been disruptive for traditional, large-class case study assignments. My approach has been to embrace AI to augment the learning and teaching process. Case studies introduce students to differential diagnosis and clinical reasoning. The key elements of my longitudinal assignment design are: 1) to encourage students to use an LLM as a collaborator throughout a series of 4 assignments, 2) to evaluate how students prompt the LLM, 3) to teach students how to fact-check LLM output, and 4) to ask students to report their contributions and the AI's contribution  (quantitative and qualitative) to the final output. I will provide insight into analyzing LLM conversations and student feedback.

Bridging Campus and Community: The Reciprocal Power of Experiential Learning
Presenter(s): Veronica Mullins (School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness), Kayle Skoruski (School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness), Ashlee Linares-Gaffer (School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness)
Poster: 12

Serving the community is at the heart of the land grant identity. To deliver on this promise, students, faculty and staff must be engaged in meaningful partnerships within and beyond the University of Arizona. In this presentation, we will review foundation principles for community-engaged learning and intersections with experiential learning theory. Then, we will discuss how we have implemented a community-engaged experiential learning model in three different teaching and learning contexts in the School of Nutritional Sciences and Wellness. Not only is community-engaged experiential learning deeply aligned with UA as a land-grant institution, it also integrates several high impact teaching practices that are meaningful to both the student and the instructor. 

Creating Connection and Energy in Asynchronous Learning
Presenter(s): Lydia Kilea (Eller College of Management)
Poster: 8

This poster shares an approach to designing an asynchronous career-management course that increases engagement through purposeful content delivery and gamified external learning tools. The session highlights how flexible, self-paced structures can still foster connection through discussion posts, peer interaction, and collaborative projects. Participants will gain practical ideas for integrating interactive tools into their own online or hybrid courses and see how thoughtfully designed activities can make learning feel energetic, meaningful, and responsive to students’ needs.

Ditch the Test: Assessing Learning with Student-Centered Infographics
Presenter(s): Melony Shemberger (College of Information Sciences)
Poster: 7

This poster explores the use of learner-created infographics as a flexible assessment alternative to traditional essays, exams, or quizzes. Infographic assignments can help learners synthesize course content, demonstrate understanding, and communicate ideas visually while allowing instructors to design assessments that foster creativity and engagement. The approach is applicable across disciplines; exams and essays are common assessments, and creativity is a valuable competence in any field.

Infographics ask learners to explain, discuss, and elaborate on key concepts using visual and textual elements, offering an alternative way to achieve learning goals. For instructors, this approach opens new possibilities for joyful, creative assessment design; for learners, it provides agency to engage with content in a different, often more motivating format.

Examples of student-created infographics from the presenter’s courses will be showcased. 

Explore with Students in a Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) Class
Presenter(s): Na Zuo (Agricultural and Applied Economics)
Poster: 9

This poster explores how a Course-based Undergraduate Research Experience (CURE) can be used to make undergraduate research more inclusive, engaging, and joyful by embedding authentic research into a credit-bearing course. The practice shared centers on a food economy course in which all enrolled students investigate real-world questions about college student food insecurity and food behaviors, generating findings of interest to campus and community stakeholders.

The guiding question behind this approach is: how can we expand access to meaningful undergraduate research while strengthening students’ motivation, sense of belonging, and identity as emerging scholars? Traditional undergraduate research experiences often reach only a small, privileged group of students. By contrast, the CURE model removes access barriers and allows entire classes—particularly early-career students from diverse majors—to participate in authentic research simply by enrolling.

 

From Concept to Classroom: Building a Coordinated Teaching Toolkit
Presenter(s): Hannah Niccum (Teaching, Learning, and Sociocultural Studies); Kristel Phillips (Think Tank); Tianna Urrea MacMeans (Think Tank); Susan Brundos (Think Tank)
Poster: 2

This poster addresses the ongoing challenge of teaching students who require additional support in foundational mathematics—a significant barrier to college persistence and success. In addition to our corequisite math course, over the summer, we collaboratively developed a comprehensive instructional package consisting of an Open Educational Resource Student Success Book, a Teacher’s Manual, and accompanying classroom slides for course instructors.

The ebook focuses on essential academic competencies such as effective study strategies, time management, overcoming procrastination, and developing a growth mindset toward mathematical learning. Written in accessible language and paired with practical exercises, it aims to rebuild student confidence and prepare them for college-level work. The book currently ranks #30 out of 89 U of A Pressbook publications for 2025, with 673 visitors and 1,748 page views. The most frequently accessed chapters focus on overcoming procrastination and improving sleep.

The Teacher’s Manual functions as a turnkey guide, offering a fully structured curriculum with detailed weekly lesson plans, activity descriptions, timing, and step-by-step instructions. This format ensures consistent instructional quality across sections while significantly reducing preparation time. The classroom slides align directly with the curriculum presented in the book and manual. All materials were developed through a rapid, iterative process that incorporated feedback from current student success instructors.

Together, these resources provide an engaging, evidence-based foundation for our support class, designed to improve student engagement, skill mastery, and overall retention. This poster will inform participants on the processes we used to create an OER textbook, manual and slides for our class.
 

From Abstract to Ah-Ha: Visualizing Learning with AI
Presenter(s): Sean Dougherty (Cyber & Intelligence Operations)
Poster: 4

This poster explores how AI tools can be used to create aids that help students grasp concepts that are difficult or impossible to see directly, using the electromagnetic spectrum as a primary example. Teaching invisible or highly abstract material often creates barriers to understanding, especially when static textbook images fail to capture dynamic processes. Recent advances in AI tools such as NotebookLM and Google AI Studio have made it possible to quickly and easily generate clearer graphics, animations, and interactive learning materials that bridge this gap.

The work is motivated by one of the most joyful moments in teaching: watching students reach the “ah-ha” moment. By using AI to rapidly prototype and refine visual explanations, the instructor can respond to gaps in student understanding more quickly and effectively. These tools allow instructors to interact with AI much like they would with a student—by explaining, refining, and guiding—resulting in instructional materials that are closely aligned with course goals and learner needs.

The poster highlights a custom-built web application that provides AI-generated visual aids and interactive activities designed to support student comprehension. Examples include visualizations, exploratory activities, and AI-generated audio content that students can engage with beyond the classroom.

How Can We Incentivize a Tech-Free Classroom Learning Environment?
Presenter(s): David Weber (Management Information Systems)
Poster: 3

In 18 years of university teaching, I have seen an ever-increasing student usage of personal technology in the classroom, yet only a small percentage of that usage is for class-related purposes. An overwhelming body of evidence exists suggesting that personal technology use in the classroom decreases:

• Exam scores (Sana, Weston, & Cepeda 2013; Bjornsen and Archer 2015; Kuznekoff and Titsworth, 2013; Ravizza et al. 2017)
• Grades (Junco 2012; Junco and Cotten 2011; Kirschner and Karpinski 2010; Carter 2017)
• Academic satisfaction (Gaudreau, Miranda, & Gareau 2014)
• Recall and understanding (Hembrooke 2003; Hembrooke & Gay 2003; Fried 2008)
• Class attention (Wei 2012)

Along with other findings:

• Handwritten notes result in greater recall than typed notes (Schoen 2012; Crumb 2020; Horbury 2021; Mueller & Oppenheimer 2014)
• Those addicted to technology perform better on cognitive tasks when mobile phones are out use and out of sight (Ward 2017)
• Laptops are a distraction even for non-users (Sana, Weston, & Cepeda 2013; Sana 2013; Hall 2020; Lee 2017; Glass & Kang 2018)

I tried several approaches in the past, all of which were either ineffective, disliked by the students, or posed too great of an administrative burden. This new approach incentivizes self-selection into a classroom technology-free zone.

Interested participants will be provided with access to the policy and its administrative tools that can be implemented in any university classroom setting and hopefully see their student engagement improve from its adoption.

Immersive Learning Institute: an invitation to develop new curricular integrations
Presenter(s): Jennifer Nichols (CATalyst Studios), Matthew Briggs (School of Health Professions) , Georgia Davis (UCATT), Gretchen Gibbs (UCATT)
Poster: 11

The Immersive Learning Institute (ILI) is scheduled for June 1-5, 2026, and is a structured, cohort-based program that supports faculty, instructors, and researchers in the development of immersive learning projects using extended reality technologies. 

This poster session is designed to support researchers and instructors who are interested in developing strong proposals for the institute and learn more about colleagues across the university working in these areas.

Quality Matters as a Tool for Joyful Online Teaching
Presenter(s): Jenny Rea (Human Development and Family Sciences); Christina Rivera (Disability and Psychoeducational Studies); Na Zuo (Agricultural and Applied Economics); Holly Egurrola (UCATT)
Poster: 10

This poster introduces participants to Quality Matters (QM) as a practical, supportive framework for designing joyful, engaging online and hybrid learning experiences. Rather than approaching QM as a checklist or evaluation, the session reframes the QM rubric as a teaching tool that supports clarity, care, and connection—key contributors to both student success and instructor satisfaction.

The poster also models how instructional designers partner with instructors throughout course development and review, reducing uncertainty and making quality design more manageable.

Scaffolded Interactives to Boost Systems Thinking Learning Online
Presenter(s): Rivka Fidel (Environmental Sciences); Patricia Moreira (College of Education)
Poster: 6

Students in STEM, sociology and economics can greatly benefit from using systems thinking to help them understand systems in their respective disciplines. The use of systems diagrams in particular helps students to identify different system components, their relationships, and how they shape the outcomes and the system (Fortuin, et al., 2013). However, students’ development of system modeling skills and other systems thinking skills requires significant time and rapid feedback from the teaching team. Students cannot acquire these skills in one sitting but must rather build them over time through scaffolded formative assessments with timely feedback. Without synchronous feedback found in in-person and live online courses, the asynchronous online environment creates a challenge for such scaffolded student experience - especially one that builds visual or technical systems thinking skills like modeling. Here we present approaches for incorporating a series of interactives and other activities that either provide real-time feedback automatically to scaffold student learning of systems thinking in D2L Brightspace. We anticipate the strategies conveyed here will be broadly applicable to courses that feature systems thinking, critical thinking, modeling, and various complex tasks or skills.
 

Understanding Gen AI Policy Creation in Foundations Writing Classes
Presenter(s): Josh Barrows (English); Maryam Vaezi (English); Shelley Rodrigo (English); Micah Stack (English)
Poster: 5

As Gen AI technologies continue to be prevalent conversations across the University, with proponents for embrace and refusal (REFUSAL). It is important to continue to share. We will also share some guidance about which elements to consider when developing policies of their own. A number of studies have investigated the relationships that Gen AI technologies have with the writing classroom and education generally, and offered insight into early experiences that First Year Writing instructors have with Gen AI (Cummings et al. 2024, McKnight and Shipp, 2024). Many early studies are theoretical in nature, and we look to use our Program Improvement Project started Fall 2025 to provide concrete insight into teacher policy development. 

In fall 2025, we collected syllabus policy statements about Gen AI from all foundation writing programs. We present a corpus approach to analyzing these policy statements, focusing on which elements are most key to the policy statements. Using our findings, we plan to develop a series of recommendations for instructors as they consider their classroom context and their Gen AI policies. 

Student Union, Grand Ballroom

During this interactive lunchtime session, a diverse group of students will share their perspectives on learning, classroom engagement, instructional approaches, and the experiences that most support their success. This panel offers a unique opportunity to hear directly from the students we serve—what’s working, what challenges they face, and what meaningful teaching looks like from their point of view.

Moderators: Dr. Nadia Alvarez Mexia (W.A. Franke Honors College) and Dr. Tori Hidalgo (Chemistry and Biochemistry) 

Student Panelists: Gabriella Arroyo (Psychology and Sociology), Carlos Garcia-Rameriz (Education), Bhargav Kale (Mathematics)

D2L Badges: Charting a Joyful Path to Student Success
Presenter(s): Ellen Gauthier (Mathematics); Michelle Woodward (Mathematics)
Location: Sabino

Using badges in D2L course sites has become a joyful and effective way to strengthen course structure, enhance feedback practices, and build student momentum. Badges provide a clear and intuitive framework that intentionally organizes the course and guides students through expectations, transforming what once felt overwhelming into a transparent and supportive pathway for success. As students progress, badges deliver timely, formative feedback that makes assignment completion, learning milestones, and academic habits visible in real time. This visibility empowers our instructional team to engage in early intervention, foster meaningful conversations, and support students with greater intention and precision.
Momentum builds naturally as students begin to see their progress accumulate.

Badges celebrate incremental achievements, encourage persistence, and motivate learners not only to complete coursework but also to engage in tutoring and academic workshops that reinforce effective learning habits. For first-year students and those navigating challenging subjects such as mathematics or online learning environments, this momentum is especially powerful: it reframes effort as achievement and shifts engagement from passive participation to active, self-directed learning.

Ultimately, integrating badges into our Math 100 course design fosters a joyful teaching practice—one that emphasizes intentional structure, responsive feedback, and forward momentum while cultivating an inclusive, engaging learning experience for all students.
 

From Headlines to Humanitarianism: A Current Events Assignment Building Student Efficacy
Presenter(s): Elizabeth Hall Lipsy (Department of Pharmacy); Amy Kennedy (Department of Pharmacy)
Location: Catalina

Contemporary students encounter a steady stream of headlines describing social, political, environmental, and humanitarian crises, yet many struggle to translate awareness into informed action relevant to their professional development. This interactive session introduces a scaffolded, current-events–based assignment designed to help students from across disciplines move from passive consumption of news to critical analysis and professional or self-efficacy.

Participants in this session will explore a flexible teaching strategy that asks students to succinctly summarize a contemporary event, and facilitate a discussion with their peers by posing questions that address the structural and social forces shaping the issue. Students engage in a discussion that includes identifying responses appropriate to their role as emerging professionals and community members. Originally implemented in a health equity course, the assignment could be successfully adopted for broad application in general education, humanities, social sciences, STEM, and professional programs.

The session models how instructors can integrate news literacy, systems thinking, and reflective practice without requiring specialized disciplinary expertise. This session will emphasize how this type of class activity can be adapted, using minimal resources, to emphasize inclusive student participation. Participants will leave with a ready-to-use assignment template, discussion prompts, and assessment strategies that emphasize student growth in critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and confidence for action.

Takeaways:

• A transferable framework for teaching community engagement and advocacy through current events
• Practical tools to help students connect course content to real-world responsibility
   

Outcomes to Odyssey: Storytelling and AI for Transformative Course Design
Presenter(s): Angela Gunder (UCATT), Cathy Russell (UCATT)
Location: Santa Rita

Many courses are well-intentioned collections of readings, activities, and assessments—but students experience them as a story, whether we design that story or not. This workshop invites participants to shift from “course as container” to “course as narrative journey,” using a simple storytelling lens to redesign one module or assignment for coherence, momentum, and meaning beyond the classroom.

Participants will build a Course Story Spine that makes the learner’s journey visible: an inciting question, rising practice, moments of choice, feedback as plot development, and a culminating artifact that demonstrates growth. We will then introduce AI—not as an answer bot or template machine—but as a design partner for rehearsal: a conversational mirror that helps us test the story from multiple learner perspectives, surface points where students may get lost, and generate alternative pathways for engagement and evidence of learning.

Participants will leave with (1) a completed Story Spine for a real course element and (2) a short “relational protocol” for working with AI as a critique partner (how to ask, listen, challenge, and revise while keeping instructor judgment and student context at the center).
 

Small Practices, Big Impact: Building Belonging in Teaching Teams
Presenter(s): Sarah Grace (Psychology); Corin Gray (Molecular and Cellular Biology); Arin Haverland (Environmental Sciences)
Location: Tucson

This session directly engages The Joy of Teaching by focusing on the people who sustain our classrooms: undergraduate TAs and Learning Assistants. When teaching team members feel they belong, their motivation and care ripple outward—strengthening student learning while renewing instructor joy and sustainability.

The insight: Research with 60 TAs and LAs reveals that belonging isn't built through major initiatives but through small, consistent practices—weekly icebreakers, soliciting course improvement ideas, acknowledging invisible struggles, and including individual voices.

The question: What small gestures can instructors implement immediately to help teaching team members feel valued, heard, and motivated?
The practice: This session shares discipline-agnostic, evidence-based strategies that any instructor supervising even one TA can implement without redesigning courses or adding significant workload. By centering intentional micro-practices rather than systemic overhauls, we acknowledge the reality of busy semesters while offering concrete ways to reduce isolation and restore energizing human connection.

Engagement: Participants will engage through multiple modes—guided reflection on their current teaching team strengths and challenges, small group brainstorming to adapt practices to their contexts, and collective toolkit building where groups share promising strategies organized in real-time into a collaborative digital resource.

Takeaways: (1) A personal commitment to implement one specific belonging-building practice with their teaching team, written on a take-home card for accountability; (2) Access to a co-created digital toolkit of belonging strategies with context-specific adaptations and implementation details for ongoing support.

Student Union, Grand Ballroom

Join us as we celebrate instructors and graduate teaching assistants who have made a meaningful impact on student learning through joyful, engaging, and effective teaching.