Byte-sized Teaching

This fast‑moving, practical session is designed for faculty who want to boost student participation without adding to their workload. In just 20 minutes, participants will explore a curated set of free, easy‑to‑use digital tools that support active learning in both in‑person and virtual settings. The session focuses on quick wins—strategies instructors can implement immediately to spark curiosity, check understanding, and build community. Faculty will leave with a ready‑to‑use toolkit they can apply immediately.

Most students are using AI to help study whether we like it (or give permission) or not. This session uses that momentum and guides the student to use AI as an active learning coach. In a live demonstration, participants will watch a student’s raw goals and course materials transform into a structured AI “study partner.” A study partner built with ground rules that force active reasoning instead of passive answer-copying. See how a simple brain-dump conversation becomes a reusable AI project that generates non-repetitive practice questions, prompts students to justify their reasoning, and tracks their strong and weak areas over time. Faculty will leave with a replicable prompt framework they can hand directly to students. 

Learning Objectives    

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

• Distinguish between AI use that promotes active learning (reasoning, self-explanation, retrieval practice) and AI use that enables passive answer-seeking or academic dishonesty.
• Construct an effective AI prompt — using a brain-dump-to-prompt method — that encodes pedagogical ground rules (e.g., no question repetition, concept reinforcement, objective alignment, reasoning justification, and progress tracking).
• Apply the resulting prompt within an AI “project” uploaded with course materials, so students can generate ongoing, personalized active-learning practice from that content.

This presentation explores the integration of Blackboard AI Conversations to facilitate simulated patient counseling for graduate audiology students. It highlights the development of the clinical simulations and examines how interactive AI tools can bridge the gap between classroom theory and real-world clinical communication.

Blackboard Automations enable you to automatically send timely feedback and communications when students meet specific criteria. Learn how these tools can save time, streamline course management, and enhance student engagement, ensuring prompt and tailored feedback for each student’s performance.

This session will provide attendees with an overview for interpreting psychometric indices for quality control of their test items. These metrics, available in most learning and assessment management systems, can help instructors evaluate test items for accuracy and fairness. Taken altogether, the individual item indices paint a picture of overall exam quality.

Our campus video solution, Kaltura, includes built-in editing features to cut, clip, and combine media. Join Jake Martar as he briefly demonstrates how to use this functionality to take advantage of “chunking”—a pedagogically recognized practice designed to boost student engagement and knowledge retention.

One in three of your students is burning out right now, and the strongest predictor isn’t workload. It’s psychological distress. Course design is one of the few things we control. This session looks at the Quality Matters Rubric, which faculty often experience as a compliance checklist, and shows it doing different work; reducing student stress through transparent objectives, aligned assessment, and predictable structure. We’ll walk through two versions of a Blackboard Ultra course side by side. You’ll leave with one question to ask of any course you teach, and the OED instructional design team is ready to help you act on what you find. Recorded. Handout provided. No QM background required.

This session explores how to use technology in simulation with intention; focusing on aligning tools with learner needs, educational goals, and clinical quality improvement priorities. Participants will gain practical strategies to move beyond “technology for technology’s sake” and design simulation that delivers meaningful learning impact.