Storytelling, Memory, and Embodied Learning: Why the Moments Matter More than the Materials

Presented by: Micheal Foster

Ballroom East

This session explores how embodied learning—learning that shapes identity, behavior, and professional presence—emerges through memorable human moments rather than content coverage alone. Drawing on narrative experience and teaching practice, the session argues that while students often forget specific material, they remember who we were when it mattered, and those moments make later learning durable.

Through storytelling and guided reflection, the presentation distinguishes between cognitive acquisition and embodied learning, reframing forgetting as a natural cognitive process rather than instructional failure. Participants are introduced to three types of memorable classroom moments—recognition, disruption, and mutual presence—and examine how relationship functions as the container for meaning.

Rather than focusing on activities or techniques, the session centers teaching presence, modeling, and relational decision‑making as mechanisms for lasting impact. Faculty across disciplines will leave with a clearer understanding of why moments matter and how intentional human engagement can transform learning from information students remember for a test into understanding they carry forward.

Critique CHATGPT: Methods in Assignment Creation to Compare and Contrast LLM Responses to Required Texts

Presented by: Robert Geibler

PSU 308 A-B

We live in an era where students run rampant with the use of generative AI to complete assignments, especially in online courses. Students often believe large language models (LLMs) such as CHATGPT provide adequate responses to discussion questions and peer-reviewed research. However, assignments challenging the accuracy and precision of LLMs are often few and far between. In this session, I discuss strategies in developing assignments that require students to ask CHATGPT to answer questions or interpret articles and subsequently using required course texts to critique the CHATGPT responses. My course evaluation data indicates that students report a better understanding of course materials, acknowledgement of the limitations of generative AI, and an appreciation for learning how to use LLMs such as CHATGPT responsibly in academic contexts. Assignment creation, facilitation, challenges, and adaptations are discussed in this session.

I'm Booked Until Finals: Integrating Trade Press Books into the Classroom

Presented by: Taleyna Morris

PSU 308 C

Some students feel like it's not worth doing the reading because the instructor will just repeat the material. Some faculty feel like they have to repeat material because students don't complete the reading. This session will focus on integrating reading into the classroom. Possibilities for selecting books or textbooks, challenges to using audiobooks, and possibilities for creating assignments based on the in-class discussion/reading. This session focuses on strategies for classes of 25 students or less.

Designing Collaborative Learning Experiences that Connect the Classroom to Real-World Practice

Presented by: Tara Stulce; Stacy Goddard; Cody Smith; Natalie Allen; Sarah Murray; McCall Christian; Allan Liggett; Jessica Willis

PSU 312

Students from multiple McQueary College of Health and Human Services programs—including exercise science, health services, dietetics, and athletic training—are advancing Missouri State University’s Public Affairs mission through interprofessional collaboration. These students engage in community-focused, ethical leadership by forming collaborative healthcare teams and partnering with Magers Employee Wellness.

Within these cross-disciplinary teams, students counsel and educate Missouri State employees through the Interprofessional Wellness Program. This initiative aligns with key goals of the University’s Strategic Plan by providing hands-on experiences in exercise programming, nutrition education, corrective movement, and behavior change strategies. Students apply discipline-specific expertise while developing the ability to collaborate effectively across health professions.

This innovative program emphasizes experiential learning and strengthens communication, professionalism, and real-world clinical skills, preparing students to enter the health workforce as confident, collaborative practitioners.

Enhancing Course Quality with QM and Brightspace

Presented by: Stacy Rice

PSU 313

Looking to refresh or improve your course? In this session, we'll walk through simple, practical ways to strengthen your course design using Quality Matters (QM) standards. We'll look at the QM Self-Review process and share how QM's Improving Your Online Course (IYOC) workshop can help you refine a course you've already taught. 

We'll also introduce new Brightspace templates designed to make course organization easier while supporting key QM standards, saving you time and helping create a more consistent experience for your students. 

To wrap things up, we'll preview the Brightspace New Experience so you know what's coming, what to expect during the transition, and how these updates will support your teaching. By the end of this session, you'll be able to conduct your own QM Self-Review, explain the purpose and benefits of the IYOC workshop, use new Brightspace templates to better organize and align your course, and recognize upcoming changes in the Brightspace New Experience and prepare for the transition. 

Using the CARE Bear Teaching Philosophy to Engage Students in the Classroom

Presented by: Keith McShan

PSU 314 A-B

Ever wonder how you can merge summer camp experience, coaching, and sport and exercise psychology into a teaching philosophy? 2026 Teaching Excellence Award Winner Dr. Keith McShan will share how his CARE Bears teaching philosophy enhances student learning. “CARE” stands for Coach-Athlete Relationship and Environments (i.e., caring and creating mastery experiences). The Bears' part of the teaching philosophy has multiple meanings. First, drawing inspiration from the television show CARE Bears, part of the Bears' teaching philosophy centers on creating childlike fun in the classroom. Secondly, the Bears also represent school spirit and pride in what it means to be a Missouri State Bear. The CARE Bears teaching philosophy values quality relationships, positive, fun, and school-spirited environments. Participants who attend this session will leave with research-backed practices that have been shown to engage, motivate, and excite students and athletes in the classroom, helping them excel academically.

From Curiosity to Scholarship: A Faculty Training Model for AI-Assisted Health Research with NIH All of Us Data

Presented by: Molly Lancaster; Oghenekaro "Karo" S Okwis

PSU 314 C

What if you could turn a health research question into a publishable analysis without writing a single line of code? This session introduces the MO State All of Us Research Consortium, a new faculty development program that pairs faculty with graduate students and provides structured training in using generative AI tools (Claude, ChatGPT) to critically engage with cloud-based health data from the NIH All of Us Research Program. No programming experience required. We'll walk you through the training platform built in Brightspace, share early lessons from our summer 2026 pilot, and show you what critical engagement with AI actually looks like in practice: not blind reliance, but a deliberate consult-code-verify process. Attendees will leave with a clear path to join the 2026-2027 cohort and begin producing scholarly work with free data, statistical support, and a built-in accountability community.

From Inbox Overload to Instant Answers: Your 24/7 Chatbot Course Assistant

Presented by: Annice McLean; Ching-Wen Chang; Krista Tate

PSU 315

Students often have questions about assignments, deadlines, and course expectations--24/7. In this interactive session, discover how a course chatbot can provide students with instant access to key information while supporting clear communication in your course. Participants will see a working chatbot created live in under 15 minutes, demonstrating how it can guide students through syllabus details, answer common questions, and connect them to course resources. No coding, programming, or technical expertise required—this approach is designed for faculty at any comfort level with technology. Leave with practical ideas and ready-to-use strategies for integrating a chatbot into your own courses to enhance student support and engagement.

Bringing Assessment to Life: Turning Learning into Real Understanding

Presented by: Theresa Odun-Ayo; Shruti Pandey

PSU 317 A

Assessment is often treated as a checkpoint at the end of learning; but what if it could be used to create learning instead? In this interactive faculty workshop, participants will experience how assessment can actively support understanding through a hands-on exploration of a simple circuit analysis concept. No prior experience with circuits is needed. Through structured questioning, real-time feedback, and reflection, attendees will see how formative assessment can surface thinking, address misconceptions, and build conceptual understanding. The session models practical approaches to designing questions, prompts, and feedback that make student thinking visible and support learning in real time. Participants will leave with adaptable strategies for integrating formative assessment as a meaningful part of the learning process across disciplines.

Instructional Trainwreck: Recovery and Renewal

Presented by: Gautam Bhattacharyya

PSU 317 B

Despite best intentions and best practices, instructors – even well-seasoned ones – can have courses or semesters in which student evaluations feel mercilessly brutal. This presentation will focus on how I coped with one such situation during the last academic year. Principally, I decided upon three key actions. First, I had to own the students’ comments, without making excuses. When multiple students mention similar, negative perceptions and experiences, it should be clear that the environment was flawed. Second, I gathered more information. I had informal conversations with past students of that course to ask them how to best handle certain classroom management issues. I also sought the advice of colleagues who would be kind, but direct. Third, I developed and implemented a plan incorporating all the advice and feedback. Notably, I candidly discussed with the new cohort of students mistakes I made in the previous semester. Bottom line, I had to practice what I preach and be completely vulnerable with the students.

How to Cheat-Proof Your Course: Lessons from Academic Dishonesty

Presented by: Leslie Echols

Ballroom East

[Description Pending]

Designing for Depth: Backward Design and Flipped Learning in an IT-Infused Classroom

Presented by: Bonnie Slavych

PSU 308 A-B

This session describes the design and evolution of a graduate-level course that was intentionally structured using backward design and flipped learning prior to the widespread availability of generative AI tools. Originally developed to maximize depth of learning within a two-credit-hour format, the course was redesigned to align learning outcomes, assessments, and in-class activities around application, clinical reasoning, and discussion rather than content coverage. As AI tools have become more prevalent, this design model has also proven effective in shaping student learning behaviors: in-class, device-free activities emphasize thinking, interaction, and professional judgment, reducing opportunities and incentives for inappropriate AI use without relying on surveillance or enforcement. Participants will examine how backward design and flipped learning can be used to reclaim instructional time, support deeper engagement, and establish clear boundaries for student work. The session will encourage reflection on how intentional course architecture can support meaningful learning and responsible technology use across disciplines.

Heat Maps— Use of Visual Graphs to Facilitate Students' Quantitative Reasoning

Presented by: Daniel Moreno-German

PSU 308 C

This session will discuss the use of illustrative contour maps as a pedagogical tool to assist in teaching various advanced concepts, particularly those involving numerical solutions and ranges of numerical validity in heat transfer. As technology progresses, it is crucial for engineering students to develop competency in computational problem-solving skills for future career success. It can be challenging to effectively encompass both key theoretical concepts and practical numerical modeling within the limited time available in an undergraduate course. Furthermore, certain key design parameters often depend on multiple input variables, making visualization and optimization difficult on graphs that represent only one input and one output. The use of heat maps (contours) not only aids in demonstrating parametric dependence on two inputs, but also helps in highlighting key regions where different key governing effects may be present from a purely scientific perspective.

The Battle Between Traditional Textbook Readings and Applied Learning in the Classroom

Presented by: Keith McShan

PSU 312

Many university students do not complete assigned textbook readings—only about 20–30% engage with required materials (Berry et al., 2010). This presents a challenge for educators who rely on traditional texts to support learning. This session explores how instructors can help students still grasp key concepts even when readings are skipped. It will present findings from focus group research funded by a Missouri State Teaching and Learning Grant, highlighting how practitioners are incorporating Athlete Assessments’ DISC Profiles into their teaching. DISC profiling promotes self-awareness and helps individuals better understand others, improving communication and relationships in sport and exercise settings. In addition to discussing research findings, the session will provide practical strategies and engaging approaches educators can use to reinforce course content and enhance student learning beyond the textbook.

Five Teaching Moves that Matter: MSU Faculty Share Strategies They have Learned from ACUE

Presented by: Tracy Gross; Jennifer Lowenthal Hershey; Sarah Morrison; Tara Stulce; Shannon Crosby; Xiaoning Sun

PSU 313

What are some practical, research-based teaching strategies that can make a real difference in student engagement and achievement? In this session, five faculty members participating in the ACUE Effective Teaching Practices Certification Program will each showcase one high-impact instructional strategy they have learned through the program and are bringing into their own teaching practice. Participants will leave with five effective, classroom-ready strategies they can immediately apply to support student learning, strengthen engagement, and enhance achievement across a variety of course contexts.

Fostering Professional Development and Promoting a Sense of Belonging through Mentorship at a Professional Conference

Presented by: Sarah Murray; Hillary Roberts

PSU 314 A-B

This presentation highlights an innovative mentorship model designed to foster professional development and enhance students’ sense of belonging through participation in a national nutrition and dietetics conference. Supported by a FCTL Teaching and Learning Grant, faculty mentored 11 students before, during, and after attendance at a professional conference in Nashville. Structured pre-conference activities helped reduce anxiety and prepare students for meaningful engagement, while guided experiences during and after the conference reinforced professional development and connection to the field. Findings demonstrate increased self-efficacy in professional skills and a stronger sense of belonging to both the academic program and the dietetics profession. Attend this session to gain practical strategies for integrating mentorship and conference participation to support student success and engagement.

Catching Community: Building Community in Your Classroom and Outwardly Through Real Experiences that Foster Connection, Collaboration, and Communication in Any Discipline

Presented by: Joanna Cemore Brigden; Ethan Bryan

PSU 314 C

Within the course CFD 301 Play As Development, students engaged in the project “Catching Community.” Students took part in a “Leadership Catch” training that models the specifics of catch and its connection to leadership, self-care, mental health, and community engagement. They then helped create and implement the Catching Community.
Students were active members throughout. They gained understanding of content, participated in a training, planned, implemented, reflected, and assessed the project. Additionally, they contributed in planning for future students and how to implement what they learned into their lives, personally and professionally. They lived what they were learning.
Decades of research support the benefits of play. In a culture that is overworked, constantly digitally distracted, depressed, lonely, and anxious, playing catch connects students with other real people, in real time, doing something real. This presentation will share specifics of the project and students experiences. You will have a catch and brainstorm ways to adapt and implement Catching Community in your discipline.

Using AI to Design Activities that Actually Engage Students

Presented by: Todd Daniel

PSU 315

Lecture-heavy teaching is comfortable, familiar, and well-supported by decades of habit. It is also, according to a substantial body of research, less effective than active learning at producing durable understanding. The obstacle most faculty face is not skepticism about the research but the practical challenge of designing active learning activities that are rigorous, discipline-appropriate, and scalable across multiple sections. This session presents one solution: using AI tools to generate the raw materials that make active learning feasible without requiring heroic amounts of instructor preparation time.

Teaching Program Assessment through Experiential Learning

Presented by: M. Raza

PSU 317 A

The objective of this presentation is to share how experiential learning can be used to teach students about program assessment. The author will describe how he incorporated the SAMREEN Evaluation Design into one of his graduate-level courses to educate students on program assessment processes.

In this course, students partnered with a government or nongovernment organization and systematically assessed one of the organization’s programs over the course of a semester. The SAMREEN Evaluation Design-Sustainability, Attainability, Meaningfulness, Relatedness, Engaging, Evaluative, and Neat served as the guiding framework. Students applied each of these components to conduct a comprehensive evaluation of their assigned program.

Based on their assessment, students provided their community partners with continuous, essential feedback that highlighted program strengths and identified areas needing improvement. The SAMREEN Evaluation Design promotes ongoing assessment rather than evaluations conducted only at the end of a program. This approach offers a balanced blend of rigor and relevance and represents a paradigm shift in the field of program evaluation.

Transforming Learning: StreamLinED Growth, Prioritizing Accessibility and Utilizing Open Educational Resources (OER)

Presented by: Sarah Gott, Timothy McHenry, Tracy Stout

PSU 317 B

Join us for an insightful session on enhancing student success through a collaborative approach involving the university Bookstore, Disability Resource Center, and OER initiatives. This session will highlight into the importance of each element in supporting student success. Learn how the Bookstore's processes impact affordability and access, and how the Disability Resource Center ensures accessibility compliance and supports students with disabilities. Discover and adopt high-quality OER to enhance course materials and reduce costs.

Gain practical insights on enabling StreamlinED eBook links in BrightSpace and providing format choices within the program. We'll share outcomes of the StreamlinED program, highlighting its impact on affordability and student success. Additionally, we'll address the challenges faced by students with disabilities and discuss resources to enhance publishers' understanding of accessibility compliance versus actual outcomes in digital learning platforms and eBooks.

Open Educational Resources (OER) offer another way to reduce student costs. Many faculty may already be using openly licensed content without realizing it, while others may be interested in incorporating it but are unsure where to start. This segment will introduce the fundamentals of OER, including what qualifies as "open," how to find and integrate these resources, and the impact on student success. By highlighting the flexibility and benefits of OER and providing practical tools for discovery and adoption, this session will equip faculty with additional strategies to expand resource options for their courses. By the end of this session, faculty and instructors will have a clearer understanding of how to make informed choices that enhance affordability, accessibility, and ease of access for their students.