A historical look at how the NED Teaching and Learning Conference began
By Catherine Ford, Program Director for Educational Development at Minnesota State
In 2001, recognizing the need and desire for faculty from across Minnesota State to gather, learn, and discuss with one another, the then MnSCU Center for Teaching and Learning began hosting two annual conferences: Realizing Student Potential (RSP) and ITeach. Eventually consolidated in 2007, the conferences stopped altogether in 2009.
Ten years later in 2019, with the launch of the Network for Educational Development (NED), it was no surprise that a frequent inquiry was whether the NED would be bringing back the RSP or ITeach conferences. Over the last five years, this request or suggestion has consistently appeared on feedback forms, in emails, in conversations, and in committee meetings. Clearly, Minnesota State faculty and staff (then and now) value the act of gathering to share and learn about pedagogical applications and discuss current teaching and learning research and challenges.
Now in 2024, the NED is excited to host its first teaching and learning conference. Similar to these early Minnesota State conferences, the NED Teaching and Learning Conference will include sessions and discussions led by Minnesota State faculty and staff focused on evidence-based experiences. The conference will also provide opportunities for networking and collaboration among educators from different institutions.
Informed and guided by the Educational Development Committee (committee of the Academic Affairs Council), it is also important to note that our colleagues have been instrumental in shaping the conference theme (Guides for the Educational Journey), format, keynote, sessions, and location. The committee was intentional in also establishing a yearly rotation of conference locations throughout the state to provide more equitable access to in-person attendance.
This year, we are able to offer both an in-person and online conference experience. In-person attendance can include a preconference opportunity, Racial Equity Advocates, led by Dr. Beth Beschorner, Dr. Timothy Berry, and Dr. Brooke Burk. This workshop will provide an overview of the Racial Equity Advocates faculty development program at Minnesota State University Mankato, applications of the process and practices used with faculty, and discussion about how this program might be implemented on your campus.
We are delighted that St. Cloud State faculty Ruthanne Soohee Crāpo Kim is the inaugural NED Teaching and Learning Conference keynote speaker. She will lead off the conference speaking about Emergent Strategies for Minnesota State on Thursday afternoon and provide a follow up breakout session on Friday morning focused on Emergent Strategies for You.
We are excited about this opportunity to gather and learn from one another about putting pedagogies into practice, and we are excited that the NED is now able to offer this conference experience. We look forward to seeing you in person or online on Thursday, September 26 – Friday, September 27. Check out the schedule and register now if you haven’t yet!
D2L Brightspace Acquires H5P
By Scott Wojtanowski, System Director for Educational Technology and Development at Minnesota State
We wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t follow the history that H5P has had with the colleges and universities of Minnesota State. Back in 2021, following the exploration of H5P on a couple campuses (most notably Minneapolis College), the ASA Technology Council recommended funding be used to allow faculty and staff to explore using H5P as a content authoring tool to supplement the tools available in D2L Brightspace. The use of H5P was even highlighted in the April 2022 Educational Development Digest. With demand for author accounts continuing to increase each year, our Learning Technologies Team has made H5P access a “requestable service” for interested faculty and staff.
To the collective surprise of the educational technology community, D2L made a big splash at their annual user conference, Fusion, when they announced to attendees that their company had purchased H5P. As longtime customers of D2L’s Brightspace platform, this generated a lot of questions among H5P users within Minnesota State.
With the exception of some ambiguous answers provided in the “Frequently Asked Questions” sections of the articles published by D2L and H5P, we do not have any more details on what this means for those who have author accounts with the H5P instance to which Minnesota State has access.
Until more details become available, we would encourage those interested in knowing more about how faculty and staff are using H5P in their courses to join one of the upcoming sessions in the Teaching with H5P Series this fall through the NED.
Teaching with H5P Series
Teaching with AI: Community of Practice and Workshops
By Elizabeth Harsma, Program Director for Technology Integrated Learning at Minnesota State
The Network for Educational Development offers opportunities to connect and share around equitable teaching and learning with AI, including:
- Teaching with AI Community of Practice
- Teaching with AI Workshops
Teaching with AI Community of Practice
Last spring, the Teaching with AI community of practice connected on Zoom and in Microsoft Teams to build community and discuss equitable teaching practices with AI. The community explored three key themes:
- Guidelines – Exploring academic integrity, transparent and humanized communication of guidelines for AI use, and developing critical AI literacy, for example, engaging students in critical thinking and advocacy around human centered-AI approaches that advance equity.
- Course design – Adjusting parts or a whole of course activities or assignments to utilize or resist generative AI tools, such as refining learning objectives, designing authentic assessments with a real-world audience, adding in reflection, and/or personalizing learning activities.
- Applied use – Utilizing AI tools to complete instructional tasks, such as customizing AI as a virtual tutor for your course, using AI as a virtual assistant to edit or draft instructions, case studies, examples, interactive scenarios, or to analyze assessments to identify potential learning gaps to address in review, and more.
Faculty and staff at Minnesota State are welcome to join the community of practice in our asynchronous Teams channel to connect with colleagues, ask questions, and share.
Teaching with AI Workshops
In 2024-2025 the NED is offering four Teaching with AI Workshops including several regional in-person workshops and a Zoom workshop series.
Workshop description:
This hands-on introductory workshop provides time and space for applying AI in your teaching context. Participants will collectively explore generative AI tools and (re-)design a learning activity or assessment that supports AI literacy, incorporates or resists generative AI tools, and applies equitable teaching practices. At the end of the workshop participants will be provided with additional resources to explore topics further on their own.
Registration Open
Registration is now open for the first Teaching with AI Workshop that will take place on November 8, 2024 at Fond du Lac Tribal and Community college (30 participants).
Stay tuned for additional AI workshop opportunities from the Network for Educational Development.
Network for Educational Development
View past editions of the Educational Development Digest.
Visit the NED Events Calendar to view upcoming educational development opportunities. Visit the NED Resource Site for recordings of previous webinars and additional resources.
