**NEW - ONLINE** The State of AI in Higher Education and What Is to Come
Monday, March 24, 2025 from 3:00 PM to 4:00 PM
| Location: Online from AAC&U
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping higher education at a rapid pace—but where are we headed? This session will take a forward-looking approach, exploring the larger impact of AI on teaching, learning, and institutional strategy. Panelists will examine potential futures, emerging trends, and the evolving role of human expertise in an AI-driven world. What’s on the horizon for colleges and universities in 2025 and beyond? Join us for a discussion that goes beyond current policies to consider what could happen and how institutions can prepare for the future. Register Now!
**NEW-ONLINE** Unleashing Potential: Powerful Strategies to Boost Cognitive Engagement in the Classroom
Tuesday, March 25, 2025 from 11:00 AM to 12:00 PM
Imagine a classroom buzzing with energy, where every student is deeply involved and eager to learn. Unlocking this potential starts with effective strategies that enhance cognitive engagement. By fostering a dynamic learning environment, educators can inspire creativity, critical thinking, and a love for knowledge. In this workshop, we’ll explore dynamic strategies to boost cognitive engagement in your classes and transform your classroom into an interactive learning environment. Advance registration required.
Register Now!
**NEW - ONLINE** How Colleges Are Responding to AI
Tuesday, March 25, 2025 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
| Location: Online from AAC&U
AI has rapidly presented an array of challenges and opportunities for higher education, and in response, the 2024–25 academic year has found many institutions working to develop and implement policy changes, curricular reforms, pedagogical innovations, and professional development programming. This session will showcase strategies and real-world implementation models from institutions participating in AAC&U’s inaugural Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum. Panelists will share the goals they set for themselves, the reasoning behind those goals, and the concrete steps they’ve taken to bring them to life. From policy development and curricular reform to faculty development and classroom innovation, this discussion will provide a roadmap of practical approaches that institutions can use to navigate AI’s evolving role in education. Whether you're an administrator, faculty member, instructional designer, or student success professional, you’ll gain actionable insights to help your institution plan for success with AI. Register Now!
**NEW - ONLINE** Writing and Writing Instruction in the Era of AI
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
| Location: Online from AAC&U
Those who teach writing or leverage writing for learning and assessment in their courses are among the educators whose practice and pedagogy have been the most disrupted by the emergence of generative AI. Academic integrity persists as an ongoing challenge while, at the same time, writing and communication practices are being reshaped in real-world contexts beyond the academy. This session will examine the core issues around writing in college today and discuss strategies that promote academic integrity, maintain engagement, and encourage learning. Those attending this session will leave with practical solutions for addressing the core issues around college writing today and clarity regarding future trends in writing instruction as AI continues to advance. Register Now!
**ONLINE** Blackboard Communication Tools
Wednesday, March 26, 2025 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
Communication is a critical element of a successful course, and Blackboard Ultra Course View has a wealth of tools to facilitate building community, encouraging academic discussion, and fostering interaction with and between your students. In this session, you will be introduced to the asynchronous and synchronous tools available in the Blackboard Ultra Course View, including discussions, announcements, conversations, messages and web-conferencing. Advance registration required.
Register Now!
**ONLINE** Connect with your students using Navigate Staff: A New Users Function-to-Practice Session
Thursday, March 27, 2025 from 9:15 AM to 10:00 AM
Are you new to NIU's Navigate Staff system, or looking to understand how it can enhance your advising and support efforts? This virtual session is tailored for those who are not yet familiar with Navigate.
Why Attend? Navigate is a powerful tool designed to streamline your advising process, improve student outcomes, and foster a more connected campus community. By learning to use Navigate, you'll be able to:
Connect with students to instill a sense of care and belonging. Participants will have hands-on experience with sending a text and an email to the facilitator through Navigate.
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Student Searches
Identify students for potential academic recruitment outreach, scholarship promotion, research fellows, etc. Participants will be able to (1) Conduct a student search in Navigate to identify students assigned to them who meet specific criteria and (2) Create
a saved search to be used as a template to build additional searches.
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Set Up your Calendar for Students to Self-Schedule with You:
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Calendar Sync with Outlook: Learn how to seamlessly integrate your Outlook calendar with Navigate Staff.
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Create Navigate Availabilities: Set up availability slots based on your office hours.
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Personal Availability Links (PALs): Generate PALs to include in your email signatures, Blackboard sites, and syllabi. Students can click and self-manage their appointments,
reducing back-and-forth emails.
What to Expect In this beginner session, you'll get hands-on practice with Navigate's features directly from your own screen. We'll cover the basics of system navigation, key functionalities, and practical tips to help you integrate Navigate into your daily workflow.
Register Now!
**ONLINE** Anthology Blackboard: Ethical AI in Action, Session 3: Pedagogical Approach and Future Innovations
Thursday, March 27, 2025 from 10:00 AM to 10:45 AM
To complete the Roadshow, we’ll look in depth at how Anthology is approaching AI. We’ll start by explaining how pedagogical best practices directly inform our product development approach, before dissecting some key insights we’ve taken from our first-to-market generative AI features in Blackboard. Finally, we’ll unveil some key AI innovations that are planned for 2025. Register directly with Anthology Blackboard to attend. Note: when visiting the registration link, you may need to change the location to North America > Virtual. There is a single registration for all three events in the series.
**ONLINE** Blackboard Interactive Rubrics
Thursday, March 27, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
The Interactive Rubric tool in Blackboard Ultra Course View makes it possible for rubrics with click-and-score simplicity to be built into the grading workflow, increasing efficiency while also supporting consistent and high quality feedback. During this workshop we'll explore the Interactive Rubrics tool in Blackboard Ultra Course View and sample interactive rubrics applied to various types of Blackboard assessments. We'll highlight the steps for creating an Interactive Rubric using percentages and applying it to an assignment for grading. We will also cover how to reuse a rubric within a Blackboard course or share with other faculty. Advance registration is required.
Register Now!
**NEW - ONLINE** Cultivating Belonging Through Wise Feedback
Thursday, March 27, 2025 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
This workshop will equip educators and staff with essential strategies for providing feedback that fosters growth and strengthens relationships, both in the classroom and within professional teams. Drawing on Geoffrey L. Cohen’s "Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides," this session will introduce the concept of wise criticism, which balances high expectations with a supportive approach. Participants will learn to initiate feedback with positive affirmations, offer specific and actionable suggestions for improvement, and encourage revision and growth in both students and colleagues. The workshop will also explore how these techniques can be applied to professional interactions, helping to build a collaborative and inclusive work environment that mitigates belonging uncertainty and other threats to team cohesion. By the end of the session, attendees will be prepared to use wise feedback to enhance both student achievement and the effectiveness of their professional relationships. Advance registration required.
Register Now!
**NEW - ONLINE** Navigating the AI Revolution
Thursday, March 27, 2025 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
| Location: Online from AAC&U
In late 2024, AAC&U and Elon University’s Imagining the Digital Future Center surveyed senior college and university leaders to discern how they believe AI is affecting higher education and what they think will emerge in the future. This session will begin with a brief overview of key findings from the recently published report on the survey, followed by a conversation among leaders in higher education who will reflect on the findings and offer their perspectives on what lies ahead. Register Now!
**NEW-ONLINE** Inclusive Pathways to Professional Success: Teaching Career Readiness
Friday, March 28, 2025 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM
This workshop is designed to help you integrate essential skills into your curriculum. Together, we will explore practical strategies that ensure students are ready to thrive as they transition from academia to the professional world. In the session, we will dive into key areas of career readiness. We will also discuss how fostering an inclusive learning environment can help students meet their career readiness goals. Advance registration required.
Register Now!
**ONLINE** VoiceThread Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning (UDL)
Tuesday, April 1, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
In this workshop, you will learn how VoiceThread can help you provide multiple means of engagement, representation, action and expression for your courses. We will review all of VoiceThread’s accessibility features, including: closed captioning, automatic alt-text, our screen-reader optimized interface and more. It is led by VoiceThread staff. Register Now!
**ONLINE** NAVIGATE: How do I issue Navigate Alerts and what happens afterwards?
Tuesday, April 1, 2025 from 2:15 PM to 3:00 PM
Want to let NIU know that students in your class are falling behind and need additional support? Find out how you can use Navigate Staff to issue alerts for students to help them get back on track to succeed in your class before it's too late.
- How to issue ad hoc alerts using Navigate Staff
- How to respond to Progress Reporting Campaigns
- What happens after your alerts are posted in Navigate Staff
- Results data from alerts issued during prior terms
Register Now!
**ONLINE** AI @ WMU: Decoding our Humanity in the AI Revolution
Monday, April 7, 2025 from 11:00 AM to 12:15 PM
Join us for a talk entitled "Minds, Mirrors and Gods: Decoding Our Humanity in the AI Revolution," given by Dr. Shannon Vallor, Baillie Gifford Chair in the Ethics of Data and Artificial Intelligence at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (EFI) at the University of Edinburgh, where she is Director of the Centre for Technomoral Futures in EFI and co-Director of the BRAID (Bridging Responsible AI Divides) Programme. Her new book, The AI Mirror (2024), has been heralded as "a fresh and fascinating take on the perils and promises of a much-debated technology" by Publishers Weekly. This session is co-sponsored by the WMUx Office of Faculty Development, the Center for the Study of Ethics in Society, and the Department of Philosophy. This session is offered and managed by WMUx. Register Now!
**ONLINE** VoiceThread Advanced: Skills and Ideas
Tuesday, April 8, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
This training is designed for faculty members who have mastered all of the basic technical aspects of using VoiceThread, but would like to see some alternate pedagogical approaches. We will take a deep dive into some uses cases that demonstrate how to incorporate elements of storytelling and game-based learning into your VoiceThread activities. We will discuss playback settings like “one conversation” and timed comments, and we will have an open Q&A throughout the training. The workshop is led by VoiceThread staff. Register Now!
**IN-PERSON** How to Create a Community-Engaged Course
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
NIU faculty and staff are doing impactful, community-engaged research, teaching and collaboration. This brown bag lunch series is your chance to hear their stories, ask your questions, make connections, and leave with tools and inspiration to pursue your community engagement goals.
In this session, part of the Division of Outreach, Engagement, and Regional Development Community Engagement Brown Bag Lecture Series, you'll hear from Alicia Schatteman, Ph.D., Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, and Laura Ruth Johnson, Ph.D., NIU Center for Nonprofit and NGO Studies. Learn about the new NIU community-engaged course designation, find out what best practices make for a successful community-engaged course and hear about the speakers' experiences teaching community-engaged courses. Register Now!
**NEW - ONLINE** VoiceThread Accessibility for NIU
Tuesday, April 22, 2025 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
In this VoiceThread workshop delivered only to NIU Faculty and Staff, we will explore the accessibility features in VoiceThread. This session is led by VoiceThread staff. Register Now!
**ONLINE** Using VoiceThread in Blackboard
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
In this workshop, you will learn how to create VoiceThreads and then add them to your Blackboard course as lessons, discussions, or assessments. This will be a hand-on workshop where you can follow along with the activities and add VoiceThreads into your course modules. This session is facilitated by VoiceThread.
Register Now!
**IN-PERSON** Enriching the Design of General Education - April Brown-Bag
Wednesday, April 30, 2025 from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM
The Enriching the Design of General Education (EDGE) pilot initiative supports excellence in general education teaching by fostering a thriving and supportive community of practice among faculty and emphasizing the unique philosophy and practices that define general education courses. This in-person brown-bag event will be informal - feel free to bring your lunch!
In this session, the University Libraries and the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning collaboratively facilitate a conversation about the impact of adopting low- and no-cost course materials as well as the support and opportunities for finding, adapting, or creating open education resources.
Register Now!
**ONLINE** Using AI to Generate Engaging Course Content
Friday, May 30, 2025 from 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM
Explore key strategies for creating compelling online course content, focusing on storytelling, multimedia integration, and the application of learning theories. Discover how to leverage Custom GPT for personalized learning scenarios and image AI tools for captivating visuals. This session is sponsored by Quality Matters and facilitated by Lisa Byrnes, Instructional Designer for Penn State World Campus. Register Now!
