UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — This year’s Penn State Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium will feature several presentations by faculty and staff whose work supports online learning at the University and through Penn State World Campus.
Each year the Teaching and Learning with Technology Symposium brings together ideas and people with the power to transform education through presentations, discussions, workshops, networking, and awards.
This year’s event will be held on Saturday, March 22, at The Penn Stater Hotel and Conference Center. Registration is now open.
Several of the World Campus-focused presentations in the TLT Symposium will focus on using AI to enhance the teaching and learning experience.
Here are the sessions featuring online teaching faculty and staff.
‘Embracing AI to Foster Critical Thinking: Designing AI-Resistant Learning Activities’
This concurrent session presentation explores strategies for designing AI-resistant learning activities that foster critical thinking and authentic learning experiences, using AI as a supportive tool in the design process.
Crystal Donlan, an instructional designer for World Campus, will give the presentation. Donlan is a doctoral candidate with the Penn State College of Education and holds a master’s degree in learning design and technology through World Campus.
‘The Ai Toolkit – Leading Collaboration and Innovation Across Penn State’
This concurrent session presentation introduces a visual framework that clearly guides AI use in coursework, addressing students’ uncertainty about appropriate AI implementation.
The session will be co-presented by Janet Duck, the faculty chair of the Penn State Online MBA; Chris Millet, director of learning design for Penn State World Campus; Carmen Strand, instructional designer for World Campus; Cheryl Horten, program specialist for the Penn State Smeal College of Business; and Dana Friedman, learning analyst with Smeal College.
‘Expanding Access with Free Student Learning Tools and Assistive Technology’
This concurrent session presentation will show how faculty, staff and students can find and use free learning tools and assistive technology like the Immersive Reader, Read & Write, Anthology Ally. An emphasis will be on how students can use them to access digital course content.
Matt Farley, accessibility consultant with World Campus learning design, will give the presentation.
‘Coaching Students for Career Readiness and Workplace Leadership Success’
This lightning talk will explore the Coaching for Leadership program available to online learners in the bachelor’s degree program in organizational leadership.
The presentation will be led by Brian Redmond, the online teaching lead for the organizational leadership program; Arthur Matthews, teaching professor in the School of Labor and Employment Relations; and Kim Trahan, assistant teaching professor of organizational leadership.
‘From Hallucinations to Hitting the Mark: Leveraging Existing Content to Jumpstart Online Course Authoring with a Custom GPT’
In this lightning talk, faculty members and World Campus instructional designers will discuss their collaboration for using AI to leverage existing course content to jumpstart writing new course content. The course is in development through the World Campus Online Faculty Development.
The faculty members are Chris Gamrat, an assistant teaching professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and Lynette Yarger, associate dean for equity and inclusion in the Schreyer Honors College and a professor in the College of IST.
The collaborators from World Campus learning design are instructional designer Carmen Strand and Matt Dingo, the director of Online Faculty Development.
‘AI-based Virtual Teaching Assistant to facilitate student queries’
AI can provide customized learning for students and give teachers the flexibility to focus on guiding the students.
One of the discovery table presentations is a design of the AI-based Virtual Teaching Assistant (VTA), which would have the potential to take over the administrative tasks away from the instructor allowing them to focus on the other important aspects of the education.
Visit the TLT Symposium website to see the full schedule and learn more about the World Campus track.