Digital Gardener AI/GenAI Series
From career readiness & student success to future considerations
- March 31: Career Readiness & Student Success with AI/GenAI
- April 7: Student Learning & Engagement with GenAI
- April 14: GenAI, Higher Ed, & Industry/Community Partners
- April 21: AI/GenAI in My Professional Work
- April 28: Looking Forward to Fall 2025: Future Considerations
To learn more and register, visit the Digital Gardener Initiative website.
Strategies for Engaging Students in Digital Spaces
Overcoming obstacles in your online class to ensure a rewarding experience
Engagement is essential to learning, but online teaching poses particular challenges to engaging students. In this one-hour workshop, we will discuss how to overcome engagement obstacles in your online class to ensure that you and your students have a rewarding learning experience.
Our focus will be on the following tools: Quick Checks for low stakes engagement with course content, InScribe for building a peer-to-peer community, and PlayPosit for interactive asynchronous lectures and peer graded media projects.
Plater-Moore Conference on Teaching and Learning
Keynote by AI expert José Antonio Bowen, author of Teaching with AI
The Plater-Moore Conference will explore the evolving role of AI in education and feature an interactive keynote workshop by author José Antonio Bowen. Afternoon sessions will touch on teaching strategies, promotion and tenure, generative AI, and more.
Facilitating Constructive Online Discussions
Strategies to foster genuine dialogue among your students
Facilitating class discussions online can be frustrating. Often, students feel that discussion boards are essay quizzes in disguise, leading them to summarize content or write what they think the instructor wants to hear. In this one-hour workshop, we will explore strategies to foster genuine dialogue among your students, encouraging them to engage deeply with their peers.
Accessible Canvas and PowerPoint
Simple steps and tools that can make accessibility easier
With the updated 2026 Title II accessibility standards approaching, ensuring our courses are accessible is more important than ever. Making our materials more accessible helps every student, but can also seem daunting. Fortunately, there are simple steps and tools that can make this process much easier for you. In this workshop we will explore using TidyUP and the PowerPoint Accessibility Checker to improve your Ally score and Canvas course accessibility.
Learn more and register for Accessible Canvas and PowerPoint.
Faculty Showcase: Infusing Generative AI into Your Assignments
Four IU instructors discuss incorporating generative AI into their teaching
Are you working on adapting generative AI assignments into your teaching? This Faculty Showcase will present the work of 4 IU instructors who are adapting their assignments to incorporate generative AI into their courses in thoughtful ways that improve their course learning outcomes and test student critical thinking.
Surveys suggest that the majority of U.S. companies will expect student graduates to be able to navigate and use generative AI; therefore using generative AI in your course can model for students both when and how students should think about using generative AI to improve their work, training them how to be successful at IU and beyond.
10th Annual Adjunct Faculty Scholars Conference
Coming together for professional development and networking
Featuring a keynote by Ivy Tech Community College's Dr. M. Beth Borst, the conference will offer presentations from experienced instructors on a variety of topics, including research, teaching, and scholarship. There will be opportunities for networking, discussion, and learning about current trends and developments in education.
All adjunct faculty, at any university, are invited to attend this conference.
Providing Meaningful Feedback in Asynchronous Courses
Strategies for offering timely and effective feedback to online students
Asynchronous courses have unique challenges that affect students and teachers alike. One of the biggest obstacles is delivering meaningful feedback to students whom you may never see. This workshop addresses this challenge by focusing on strategies for offering timely and effective feedback to your online students.
Accessibility in Canvas Tools
Simple ways to make Canvas content and assignments more accessible
Do you use Canvas to provide information and resources to your students? Do you have assignments, discussions, or quizzes in Canvas? Are they all accessible? Accessibility is a crucial part of student success. If your students can't do what you want them to because something is inaccessible, they're less likely to succeed in the course.
Even if you don't think you have students with disabilities, you do. Around 20% of the student population and 34% of military veterans have one or more disabilities. You don't know because the majority of disabilities are invisible and most of the students don't disclose. ADHD, anxiety, depression, autism, migraines, sleep disorders, dyslexia, and post-traumatic stress disorders are not visible by looking at someone.
There are some simple things you can do to make your content and assignments in Canvas more accessible. Join us as we walk through how to check for accessibility issues and update your Canvas content. We'll cover practical steps and best practices to improve usability for all your students.
Save the date: 2025 Digital Gardener Summit
Connect with this thriving community and explore innovative teaching practices
Both events will have identical programming: featured speakers and panel discussions; success stories on digital integration in teaching and learning; critical conversations on GenAI, digital innovation in the classroom, and pedagogy and practice; and hands-on workshops focused on emerging topics/practices to allow faculty to develop creative confidence within these areas.
Learn more on the Digital Gardener Initiative website (registration opens in April).