2026 Teaching & Learning Symposium

REGISTRATION

WELCOME & OPENING REMARKS

Teaching That Matters

Wendy M. Smith, Director, Center for Transformative Teaching (CTT)

When AI can generate an essay, solve a problem, summarize a reading, or produce an explanation in seconds, what is it that we actually want students to learn?

This interactive 45-minute workshop, led by Dr. Wendy Smith, director of UNL’s Center for Transformative Teaching, moves beyond questions about detecting or controlling AI use to a more fundamental conversation about teaching and learning. What is higher education for? Which learning outcomes truly matter across a course or sequence of courses? And what kinds of learning experiences help all students develop understanding they can use beyond the classroom?

Participants will examine formative assessment as one particularly powerful approach. By creating frequent opportunities to see what students know, understand, and can do, instructors gain information they can use to adapt their teaching. At the same time, students gain insight into their own learning and can make more intentional decisions about how to move forward.

This session will invite you to reflect on your own teaching, exchange ideas with colleagues, and leave with practical ways to make student thinking and learning more visible, purposeful, and consequential.

Dr. Wendy Smith (they/she) is the Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a Willa Cather professor of mathematics with the Center for Science, Mathematics, and Computer Education and Department of Mathematics. Wendy is a long time educator, starting their career as a middle level mathematics and special education teacher, and then switching to the collegiate level. In addition to teaching many mathematics courses at different levels, Wendy also does research on how to improve equitable teaching and learning. Wendy’s research also includes a focus on institutional change: how to change the culture of a department to value teaching improvement through course coordination and more active student engagement.

Student Perspectives on Barriers to Engagement and How to Adjust Your Pedagogy

• Lisa Karr, Animal Science
• Krista Croghan, CTT

• Robert Vavala, CTT 

  Presenters will report on feedback about the expressed challenges of students in Canvas and other learning environments. We will then explore practical ways instructors can respond to those challenges to meet students' needs. 

BREAK

Accessibility Office Hours Drop-In (Legacy Board Room)

SPEED SESSIONS

• "All the world's a stage": Quizzes as performance. Tim Cook, English
•  From Padlet to Play: Using virtual classroom tools for class engagement. Meghan Otoupalik, Libraries 
•  OER in 5: From Free Textbooks to High-Impact Teaching. Catherine Fraser Riehle, Libraries
• Assessing Art & Design: Process vs. Product.  Kylin Flothe & Sandra Starkey, Textiles, Merchandising, & Fashion Design 
• Attendance Barometers. Richard Graham, Libraries 
• Math placement at UNL: What's changed and why. Josh Brummer & Allan Donsig, Mathematics
• Digital Accessibility. Krista Croghan & Grace Troupe, Center for Transformative Teaching

LUNCH

Table Discussions & Institute for Online Teaching Awards

Accessibility Office Hours Drop-In Table

INSTITUTE FOR ONLINE TEACHING AWARDS

CONCURRENT SESSION 1

Emotional Scaffolding: Creating a Sense of Belonging in the Classroom 

Mavis Beckson, English 

This session will focus on the following objectives:

• Highlight teacher’s response and interactions with students and efforts that promote an environment of trust and sustainable emotional support;
• Offer knowledge on how teachers and students can create a positive space where everyone can learn with the help of others;
• Engage interactions that support student competence and autonomy through positive relationships and classroom climate that support student engagement, learning, and perceptions of competence.

In this session, participants will read one page from “Scaffolding Emotions in Classroom” by Debra K. Meyer and Julianne C. Turner. Afterwards, they will write at least one strategy they could incorporate in their classrooms to encourage student-teacher trust, motivation, and a sense of belonging. Participants will share their strategies with others and the entire group. The list will be compiled shared with all participants after the session.

When the Students Make the Rules: Realtime Engagement in Critical Issues 

Vanessa Gorman, History 

Gorman is the Aaron Douglas Professor for Teaching Excellence in History and Classics. She has two books on ancient Greek history and social attitudes, and articles reaching from traditional studies in ancient history and philology to the use of digital stylometry for determining author identification in Greek prose writing. She teaches classes in Greek and Roman history and Greek language and has won the 2022 Outstanding Teaching and Instructional Creativity Award.

I will describe two experiences where I incorporated game-playing into undergraduate history courses. In one instance, the students worked together to create a game based on course material. In the other, I provided the rules, and they assumed historical characters in a moment of crisis (the assassination of Caesar) and spent five weeks in character trying to rebuild the Roman government. My learning outcomes focus on boosting student engagement with the material and reinforcing skills employers desire in successful candidates: the ability to speak convincingly, to collaborate in teams, and to solve problems creatively. 

Accessibility Office Hours Drop-in

RESOURCE FAIR FOR INSTRUCTORS

• UNL Libraries 
• Information Technology Servies (ITS) 
• Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD) 
• Center for Academic Success and Transition (CAST) 
• Academic Navigators 
• Institutional Equity and Compliance (IEC) 
• Therapy Dogs—Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS) 
• Writing Center

Accessibility Office Hours Drop-In (Legacy Board Room)

Please also feel free to take a break during this time.

CONCURRENT SESSION 2

What Would You Do? Using Low-Stakes Challenges to Build Professional Judgment 

Emily Fisher, Teaching, Learning, & Teacher Education  

By the end of the session, participants will be able to do the following:

• Identify professional thinking students need to rehearse, including noticing, interpreting, deciding, and adapting, to move from disciplinary knowledge toward professional judgment. 
• Examine how low-stakes games, simulations, and challenges can create opportunities for students to practice professional judgment within complex and changing situations. 
• Design a low-stakes challenge that engages students in practicing a professional judgment relevant to their own discipline.

Participants will actively engage in a brief “Pyramid” game and a condensed “What Would You Do?” simulation, followed by guided reflection on the thinking each activity requires. Participants will then use a simple design framework to identify a professional judgment their own students need to develop and begin designing a low-stakes challenge that provides an opportunity to rehearse that thinking.

Incorporating Mastery-Based Learning and Differentiated Instruction in a High Enrollment Introductory Financial Accounting Course  

Amanda Gonzales, Accounting 

High-enrollment introductory financial accounting courses bring together students with varying levels of preparation, interest, and confidence. Meeting the needs of students who require additional support while continuing to challenge those ready to move beyond course expectations can be difficult in large classes. This session explores how elements of mastery-based learning and differentiated instruction can help address these challenges, along with practical strategies and considerations for implementing these approaches in high-enrollment courses

Examining the roles of student reactance and ethical perceptions as predictors of in-class AI use effectiveness and student performance

Andrew Hanna, Management

Students' beliefs about AI may shape how well AI works for them. This session shares findings from a Seacrest Teaching Fellowship project in which a sample of100 students completed in-class activities with custom AI chatbots. Results point to two pathways to performance: students' felt reactance while using AI and their ethical perceptions of it, each operating through their perceived effectiveness of the tool. Attendees will explore how negative expectations can become self-fulfilling prophecies and consider evidence-informed strategies, such as instructor transparency and expectancy-disconfirming experiences, for helping students approach AI with a more productive mindset. View associated research article on Science Direct (requires login). 

Hanna is an assistant professor of management and Seacrest teaching fellow in the UNL College of Business. He is a three-time graduate of the University of Nebraska (BSBA '09, MBA '16, PhD '21) and teaches in the areas of organizational behavior (i.e., workplace psychology), leadership, strategy, and entrepreneurship. His teaching research focuses on the role of student perceptions surrounding AI in the classroom and the impact of "third spaces" on student development. In line with this, he organizes and teaches an annual for-credit, off-site UNL course with local founder Mike Smith (The Bay) called "Design Your Life," where students are challenged to unpack the most important elements of their lives and design pathways toward lives they love. At UNL, Andrew also sits on the advisory board for The Daily Nebraskan and is an active faculty fellow to both the Nebraska Center for Entrepreneurship and the UNL Center for Brain, Biology and Behavior. 

CLOSING SESSION 

The Highs, Lows, and Buffalos of AI in Teaching: Making sense of what we're seeing in our classrooms

Sydney Brown, Center for Transformative Teaching

AI in your classroom: what’s working, what’s challenging, and what’s caught you by surprise? Join this interactive 30-minute conversation to share your Highs, Lows, and Buffalos, spot patterns with colleagues, and help shape future teaching support.

Sydney Brown, Ph.D., is assistant director of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Center for Transformative Teaching, specializing in instructional technology and generative AI use in education.