{"id":1786,"date":"2026-05-20T05:58:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T09:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/?page_id=1786"},"modified":"2026-05-20T05:59:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T09:59:58","slug":"innovations-in-teaching-learning-conference","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/innovations-in-teaching-learning-conference\/","title":{"rendered":"INNOVATIONS IN TEACHING & LEARNING CONFERENCE 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Session Abstracts<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Scaffolding AI Usage at UMES<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Serwornoo<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this presentation, I will be exploring AI’s impact on learning and academic integrity which leads to thinking through how we can look beyond the ‘Cheat-Bot’ and navigate AI in Higher Education. Faculty skepticism toward AI in higher education often stems from legitimate concerns about academic integrity, misinformation, and the erosion of critical thinking skills. Many educators see their students rely excessively on AI tools, leading to a decline in original thought and writing proficiency. Another major worry is the phenomenon of AI hallucinations, where systems confidently provide incorrect or fabricated information, potentially misleading students and undermining trust in academic rigor. Additionally, there is apprehension about the dehumanization of learning, as over-reliance on technology could diminish meaningful student-teacher interactions and reduce opportunities for developing essential cognitive skills. These concerns are amplified by the limitations of AI detection tools, which are often inaccurate and create a false sense of security. Faculty members also question whether institutional policies adequately address ethical use, plagiarism risks, and privacy issues. Acknowledging these fears is critical for fostering constructive dialogue and building pathways toward responsible AI integration. By validating these concerns, institutions can position themselves as partners in navigating this technological shift rather than imposing change unilaterally. This approach sets the stage for moving from skepticism to informed engagement, ensuring that AI becomes a tool for enhancing education rather than compromising its core values. In this scaffolding presentation, I take real UMES cases and improve them to exceptional refined output rending AI as a tool rather than a solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Integrating ACS Project SEED, USDA FANE, and USDA REEU programs to Build a Vertical Community of Motivated Interdisciplinary Learners<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Victoria Volkis<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The American Chemical Society (ACS) Project SEED is a transformative initiative for high school students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds that provides hands-on research experiences in chemistry and related fields. The USDA-funded AFRI-EWD REEU program is a hands-on research and extension experience for college students showing applications of STEM in agriculture and food. The USDA-funded FANE program is a high-school-oriented counterpart of the REEU program. Since 2013, we have attempted to integrate these programs to build a vertically organized learning community where high school students can team and collaborate with college students, teachers, graduate student-mentors, and program leaders, who are faculty and extension agents. The idea is based on the following pillars: (1) showing the students the interdisciplinary nature of modern science; and (2) building their attitude to professional and career by exposing them to other high school, college, and graduate students, mentors, and professors from chemistry, engineering, food and agricultural science, and extension. Together, they create a community of motivated learners at different stages of their careers, where they can interact, learn about professional pathways, develop their leadership and professional skills, and gain experience in the laboratory and extension. We use AEL (active experiential learning) thematic, sequenced weekly activities during three of the ten weeks of all programs, while the rest of the time is devoted to widening their knowledge in the field and conducting research projects. We will present the general logic model of our programs, and examples of week-long, theme-centered workshop sequences and active experiential learning activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Active, Creative, Transformative: Rethinking Undergraduate Pedagogy for Engagement<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saswati Sen<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This presentation explores a dynamic suite of innovative pedagogies designed to increase engagement, deepen learning, and foster student agency in undergraduate classrooms. Drawing on approaches such as Flipped Classroom with Active Application, Curiosity-Driven Classrooms, Performance Pedagogy, Dialogic Teaching through student-led inquiry, Multimodal Assignments, Creative Assessment Pedagogy, Reflective and Metacognitive Practices, Interdisciplinary \u201cBig Question\u201d approach, and Inquiry-Based Learning, the session demonstrates how shifting from instructor-centered delivery to student-centered exploration transforms the learning experience. These methods prioritize active participation, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking, enabling students to connect course content to real-world contexts and personal meaning. Through concrete examples, adaptable strategies, and interactive elements, attendees will experience how these pedagogies function in practice across disciplines, particularly in humanities and composition classrooms. The presentation also addresses common challenges, including time constraints, assessment design, and varying student readiness, offering practical solutions for sustainable implementation. Participants will leave with a toolkit of ready-to-use techniques, sample activities, and assessment models that can be immediately integrated into their courses. By the end of the session, attendees will be equipped to design more inclusive, engaging, and intellectually stimulating learning environments that not only enhance student participation but also improve retention, motivation, and overall academic success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Creating Robot-Proof Assignments: We are Uniquely Human<\/strong>
Roxana Walker-Canton<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As faculty, we are continually rethinking how we teach our disciplines. With the rapid introduction of generative AI into the tasks\u2014and pleasures\u2014of teaching and learning, higher education finds itself at a crossroads. In the post-COVID university, shifting student attitudes toward attendance, participation, and outcomes have intensified long-standing tensions between credentialing and learning itself. As educator Shant\u00e9 Holley recently observed, many students now seek the product of education without the process: \u201cThey want a college degree, but they don\u2019t want a college education.\u201d As we pause to consider how\u2014and whether\u2014to incorporate AI into our classrooms, we face a critical choice. Will AI reinforce an unsustainable, outcome-driven model of instant gratification, or can it help us reimagine education for this moment? Drawing on Joseph E. Aoun\u2019s Robot-Proof, this workshop approaches AI not as a shortcut, but as an opportunity to refocus on distinctly human capacities: reasoning, creativity, ethical judgment, and critical engagement. Participants will explore examples of \u201crobot-proof\u201d assignments and collaboratively design at least one assignment for their own courses that leverages AI responsibly while ensuring students remain active, reflective, and intellectually engaged learners, while simultaneously leaning the power and place of AI in the learning process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Embracing a Family Voices History Project to Engage Authentic Student Writing<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill Cecil<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This presentation proposes a replicable oral family history assignment for college classrooms, especially first-year writing and humanities courses. The activity asks students to interview a family member or chosen elder, then transform that interview into a short presentation, a visual component, and a reflective written essay. The model is designed to strengthen listening, research, interpretation, and revision while also helping students connect personal story to larger historical and cultural contexts. The session will share the assignment structure, sample prompts, and a student-friendly rubric. It will explore how the project supports writing instruction by moving students from informal conversation to purposeful analysis and polished composition. Because the assignment values memory, voice, and lived experience, it can be adapted across disciplines. Participants will leave with a ready-to-use assignment model, practical classroom strategies, and ideas for assessing both oral and written work. The presentation will emphasize how oral history builds engagement, deepens students\u2019 sense of audience, and makes academic writing more meaningful by anchoring it in family narrative and community knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Less, Together: Students and Courses in Conversation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amy Hagenrater and Justine Whitaker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Robot Proof<\/em>, Joseph E. Aoun calls on the concept of humanics, \u201ca discipline that teaches mastery of content as well as the acquisition of particular skills\u201d seeing content knowledge as New Literacies (technological literacy, data literacy, and human literacy) and skill set acquisition as \u201crobot-proof\u201d what he names Cognitive Capacities (core capacities of critical thinking, communication and collaboration, and cultural agility); Catalytic Capacities (initiative and self-reliance, comfort with risk, and adaptability and flexibility); and Creative Capacities (opportunity recognition, creative innovation, and future orientation). This shifting in nomenclature moves beyond simple relabeling and establishes a framework by which learning can integrate skills for this digital age. Using this framework and theory, we aim to show how general education can be reformed into Integrative Studies: Human Capacities in Practice. We will showcase a broad-based vision following an eight-week model of intensive focus, inquiry-paired classes mapped to learning pathways, and assessments which build experiential opportunities, community engagement, and cooperative learning. To help conceptualize what such a course might look like, we will discuss the pairing of ENVS 101 with ENGL 101 for a course entitled \u201cFish and People.\u201d By crafting intentional bridges of learning across these two disciplines, we will talk about how this can work at a granular classroom level and how the generalized requirements can be reenvisioned to create a \u201crobot-proof\u201d learning experience through course pairs that highlight the opportunities of experience, application and synthesis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Using Classical Rhetoric to Ground Human-Centered Interactions with AI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriela Vlahovici-Jones<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The widespread availability of AI tools has generated tension between the recognition of AI\u2019s benefits and concerns about the loss of human agency and deterioration of critical thinking skills. Educators should not attempt to erase this tension; instead, they should embrace it to help students ground their interactions with AI. What does human-centered grounding involve? What strategies can educators use to craft activities and assignments that prioritize students\u2019 curiosity, flexibility, and creativity? Classical rhetoric offers productive solutions that apply to various fields of study. Ancient rhetoricians trained their students to speak on a wide range of subject matters, so their strategies were highly interdisciplinary. One set of strategies falls under stasis theory \u2013 a method that identified places of the mind (or stases) as seats of arguments. This presentation explores how a purposeful and ordered movement through these mental spaces can help students locate areas of inquiry where they can welcome or refuse interactions with AI. This presentation also addresses how the stasis model can help instructors develop assignments that prioritize human agency and judgment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Micro Memoir: Finding the Pivotal Pomegranate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Melissa Green<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today’s classroom, students are less interested in reading and recapitulating other authors’ ideas and more interested in exploring their own voice and how to use personal experience as an entryway into academic discourse. I have found in my instruction that allowing students to incorporate their personal experience into essays provides them with confidence that instills a sense of belonging, particularly among minority students who may be hesitant about what they bring to academia. This presentation will focus on the newest emerging genre of memoir, micro memoir which distills the writing focus down to a single pivotal event, what I will refer to as the pomegranate–the link to the painful, emotional underworld that when tapped, offers a gateway into personal insight and profound growth. The presentation will explain the methodology of finding each participant’s \u201cpomegranate\u201d and offering him\/her examples and starting prompts from which to begin his\/her own writing journey in self-exploration and in accessing \u201cthe story within\u201d (Oliver).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Irreplaceable Elements of Teaching: Creating Experiential Environments that Technology Cannot Replicate<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Youngmi Kim, Archana Gupta, Hanna Kang<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this digital age, how can modern language education still feel meaningful? As technology advances, hands-on experience and real human interaction matter more than ever. This session focuses on the \u201cirreplaceable\u201d elements of teaching: creating experiential learning environments that technology alone cannot replicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three UMES educators will talk about the value of experiential, culturally grounded language learning. We will share examples of how to get students involved in authentic cultural encounters and real-world language use that extend beyond just the classroom. Our session will focus on practical strategies for human-driven experiences and provide attendees with a framework to ensure modern language education continues to thrive in today\u2019s world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This session will feature a traditional Korean dance performance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Classroom to Capitol: How UMES Students Became ECE Advocates<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michelle Spencer<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people imagine advocacy happening far away, behind closed doors, in rooms filled with seasoned policymakers and experts. But for the 8 CHDE students who attended the 2026 NAEYC Public Policy Forum in Washington, D.C., the moment they stepped into those rooms, they realized something powerful: advocacy isn\u2019t distant. It\u2019s personal. It\u2019s urgent. And it needs new voices. Come hear their reflections on this amazing 3 day experience with Dr Spencer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Linguistic Justice in the Age of AI at an HBCU<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lauren Hatch Pokhrel<\/p>\n\n\n\n

College classrooms, especially at Historically Black institutions, are increasingly culturally, racially, and linguistically diverse, and yet, much of writing instruction assumes White, monolingual communicative norms. This presentation overviews linguistic justice and how it can be implemented to be more culturally and linguistically responsive for HBCU students as well as student perspectives and experiences with a linguistic justice writing curriculum. Attendees will be guided through reflecting on our own linguistic backgrounds, biases, and pedagogies in our classrooms and receive tools and approaches to making our students feel more welcomed and celebrated in their linguistic identities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Debating Freud with AI<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jamie Barrett<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This activity explores an innovative classroom activity titled \u201cDebating the Wednesday Psychological Society with AI,\u201d designed to strengthen critical thinking, psychological theory application, and AI literacy in psychology courses. The focus is on using generative AI as an interactive learning partner that allows students to engage directly with those long dead psychologists: Freud, Jung, and others. They review psychoanalytic concepts, challenge assumptions, and compare historical perspectives with information they have learned in Theories on Personality (PSYC 401). In the activity, students use AI tools to simulate debates with Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. This allows students to engage in competing theoretical perspectives, requiring them to analyze evidence, construct arguments, and evaluate the accuracy\/limitations of AI-generated responses. It\u2019s a great practice to show students AI gets it wrong sometimes. Students are encouraged to critique psychoanalytic theories and the AI\u2019s interpretations, fostering deeper engagement rather than passive content consumption. The teaching strategy combines active learning, debate-based pedagogy, and responsible AI integration. This lesson can cross disciplines to be utilized by those in other departments that want students engaged in theoretical theory. Attendees will leave with practical ideas, sample prompts, and strategies for incorporating generative AI into psychology instruction in meaningful and academically rigorous ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Teaching the Craft of Academic Writing Through Student-Centered Scaffolding<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shannon Paige Clark and Kelsie Endicott  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This presentation explores practical pedagogies for introducing doctoral students to the craft of academic writing. Together, we will examine strategies that demystify scholarly expectations, build writing confidence, and cultivate intellectual voice among emerging researchers. Participants will explore scaffolded assignments, and structured feedback practices designed to support doctoral student development. Particular attention will be given to student-centered approaches that balance academic rigor with encouragement, address common misconceptions, and foster sustainable writing habits. Participants will also review sample student artifacts to examine how feedback can support growth. In addition, the session will include syllabus policies and assignment structures that encourage students to incorporate instructor feedback, engage meaningfully in revision, and view writing as an iterative scholarly practice. Join Drs. Kelsie Endicott and Shannon Paige Clark in reflecting on how doctoral writing instruction can be intentionally embedded within course assignments and integrated into broader approaches to graduate teaching and mentorship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From Digital Pods to Physical Pits \u201cFostering Equitable Voices through Shared Screens and Group Logic\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khaled Hasan<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do we transform a dense, high-stakes curriculum into an experience students genuinely look forward to? This workshop presents a multi-sensory active learning framework \u2014 designed and implemented with the UMES Physician Assistant Cohort 2027 \u2014 that moves students from passive listening to high-level clinical reasoning while building a lasting sense of community and belonging. Participants will explore four interconnected innovations. First, the Digital Pod approach, where decentralized teams debate complex clinical scenarios via shared screens, governed by democratic discussion rules that guarantee every voice is heard. Second, the Pharmacology Plates activity, a tactile brand-generic-ADR matching exercise that makes drug knowledge physical and memorable. Third, the Pit-Stop Challenge is a high-energy, timed competition using custom-built boards and labeled balls to simulate rapid clinical decision-making. Fourth, an AI-generated video song tribute \u2014 created using Gemini \u2014 celebrating the cohort’s full journey across two semesters, producing a moment of joy and belonging no lecture can replicate. This 50-minute session is a live demonstration. Attendees rotate through digital hubs, compete on the Pit-Stop boards, and leave with practical, low-cost strategies adaptable to any academic discipline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Learning About Learning: Using Student-Generated Data to Increase Engagement and Promote Effective Study Strategies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Patterson and Jamie Barrett<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This presentation describes an innovative classroom activity used in PSYC 100: Introduction to Psychology that increases student engagement while promoting evidence-based learning strategies. During the class meeting preceding Exam 1, students participate in an in-class replication of the classic Hyde and Jenkins (1969) experiment on levels of processing and memory. Students first predict which factor is most important for successful learning, selecting from commonly held beliefs such as motivation, attention, study time, or cognitive processing. Working collectively as a class, students then generate their own experimental data by participating in activities that compare shallow and deep processing strategies. Some students focus on superficial features of words, such as spelling, while others engage in deep semantic processing by evaluating word meaning and personal relevance. After analyzing the class-generated results, students consistently observe that depth of processing, not intention to learn or time spent studying alone, produces superior recall. Because students actively create and interpret the findings themselves rather than simply hearing about them in lecture, the activity increases engagement, personal investment, and conceptual understanding. The exercise also encourages students to adopt more effective study behaviors based on deep processing, elaboration, and meaningful cognitive engagement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Critical Engagement with Archives and AI: Cultivating Memory and Citizenship in the Age of Large Language Models<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriela Vlahovici-Jones, Rondald Clark, and William Cecil<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the value of human memory in informational landscapes dominated by Large Language Models? How can physical and digital archives provide a source of self-knowledge and creativity? How can students\u2019 appreciation for individual and collective memories prepare them for citizenship roles? This panel will explore three types of archives: digital archives on US history topics, documents from the archives of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and human beings as living archives. The presenters will share their experience with writing and multi-media assignments based on archival resources and will outline their strategies for encouraging both critical distance from AI and critical engagement with AI. The presenters will also share strategies for creating assignments that draw on archival resources to encourage reflection on generational contributions to political, social, and cultural landscapes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Session Abstracts Scaffolding AI Usage at UMES Michael Serwornoo In this presentation, I will be exploring AI’s impact on learning and academic integrity which leads to thinking through how we can look beyond the ‘Cheat-Bot’ and navigate AI in Higher Education. Faculty skepticism toward AI in higher education often stems from legitimate concerns about academic…Read more INNOVATIONS IN TEACHING & LEARNING CONFERENCE 2026<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":981,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"folder":[],"class_list":["post-1786","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/981"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wwwcp.umes.edu\/innovationconference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/folder?post=1786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}