Conference Day

ACCESS Disability Services, Enhancing the Student Experience: Updates and Open Forum Q and A
Erika Escobar and Carla Montes

This session will provide an overview of recent updates to ACCESS Disability Services processes, forms, and student responsibilities. It will also offer guidance on the rationale for accommodation determinations and best practices for implementation in the classroom. The presentation will conclude with an open forum question-and-answer segment, allowing faculty to raise questions and discuss topics of interest.

Meeting Students Where They Are: How Faculty Connect Learners to Tutoring That Works
Caitlin Richardson and Erick Dominicis

Participants will obtain a clear understanding of MDC’s tutoring ecosystem and how to leverage multiple support pathways to meet students where they are academically and logistically. Faculty will gain concrete strategies for encouraging tutoring use in ways that reduce stigma, increase engagement, and strengthen student success. By activating faculty as key partners in academic support, this session contributes to improved course performance, retention, and a culture of shared responsibility for student achievement.

A Sip of Innovation: Stirring AI into Health Science Training to Enhance Student Success
Professors Barbara Basti, Pedro Colina, Donna Fishkin, Marta Lopez, and Jaishri Venkatsubramaniam

In this fast‑paced Faculty Mini‑Design Sprint, participants work in small groups to create a 15‑minute micro‑lesson based on a health science concept from their discipline. Each team selects an AI tool and uses it to design a focused learning experience that includes a hands‑on student activity, a measurable skill outcome, and a clear assessment strategy. To guide their planning, groups receive a simple template outlining the learning objective, AI tool used, planned activities, assessment method, and estimated time required. After drafting their micro‑lesson, teams briefly present their designs to the room, allowing everyone to exchange ideas, compare approaches, and gather practical strategies for integrating AI into short, high‑impact instructional moments.

Advancing Excellence Through Fulbright - How to Apply for Fulbright Award
Professors Ginny Peterson Tennant, Sandra Torres, Arlen Garcia, and Michael Lenaghan

This 60-minute session will present Fulbright opportunities as a high-impact pathway for advancing academic excellence, faculty development, and global engagement at Miami Dade College. Four MDC faculty members will provide a concise overview of the Fulbright program, emphasizing its value for teaching, scholarship, and institutional visibility, and its alignment with the College’s strategic goals. Each presenter will share a brief, focused account of their Fulbright experience to illustrate concrete outcomes for students, faculty, and the institution.

To ensure an interactive learning experience within the allotted time, the session will integrate a moderated, whole-group Q&A segment that follows the faculty presentations, allowing participants to pose targeted questions about project design, timelines, and expectations. Attendees will then engage in a short guided activity using a structured worksheet to articulate an initial Fulbright project idea and identify potential host countries or themes. The session will conclude with a succinct, step-by-step overview of the application process and institutional support available at MDC, providing a clear pathway for continued exploration and mentorship beyond the workshop.

Analog Inspiration: Introduction to Human Centered AI in Higher Education
Carter Moulton, Ph.D.

Dr. Carter Moulton will help participants thoughtfully integrate generative AI in ways that center human values, skills, and concerns. He will provide an introduction to human-centered AI in the classroom and facilitate interactive activities using his specially designed card games to spur creativity and instructional design ideas.

Beyond Engagement: How Packback Drives Deeper Learning
Amanda Wickham from Packback

This session introduces Packback, an AI-powered learning platform designed to boost student engagement and foster deeper collaboration. We'll explore how Packback's AI-driven feedback helps students develop critical thinking and communication skills through its innovative discussion and writing tools. Attendees will gain a comprehensive understanding of Packback's pedagogical advantages and its potential to transform student engagement across diverse academic disciplines.

Copyleaks: Evolving Academic Integrity in the Age of AI
Laina Haymes from Copyleaks

This session explores the rapidly shifting landscape of education caused by the surge in generative AI usage and how institutions can maintain integrity through transparency and ethical innovation. We will outline the benefits and challenges of AI in the classroom and examine how Copyleaks can help navigate AI detection and establish best practices. This session will also cover what’s new in Copyleaks since we launched the tool last semester, including recent updates and added features.

FeedbackFruits for Engaged & Authentic Learning
Professor Ildiko Barsony and Instructional Designer Mariah Schuemann

Join Professor Ildiko Barsony and Instructional Designer Mariah Schuemann as they share their expertise and real classroom insights using FeedbackFruits to enhance teaching and learning. Discover how the FeedbackFruits suite can elevate authentic assessment, spark student engagement, and support meaningful collaboration in any course modality. This interactive session introduces seven powerful tools designed to streamline feedback, deepen learning, and address common instructional challenges. Participants will explore live examples, discuss effective use cases, and leave with practical strategies they can immediately apply in their courses.

Leveraging Learning Resources to Deepen Your Changemaker Education Practice
Sandra LaFleur, Lizeth Garcia, and Stephanie Garcia

MDC is nationally recognized for its leadership in changemaker education. Through strong campus synergies, all students have opportunities to develop core changemaking attributes via curricular and co-curricular experiences. Learning Resources is a key partner in this work, supporting changemaker education both inside and outside the classroom. In this interactive workshop, participants will explore Learning Resources’ many offerings and discover how they can help elevate changemaker education to the next level.

MDC Faculty Fellows with the Jack Miller Center
Professors Susan Lichtman, Richard Tapia, Vilma Petrash, Anastasia Tamali, Raphael Rivera, and Jonathan Gondelman, Jack Miller Center

Engaging students with primary historical documents is an instructional challenge. Join this session to hear from MDC Professors who have spent the year working on how to incorporate original historical materials into their courses. This group of Faculty Fellows has been sponsored and guided by the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America's Founding Principles and History. This presentation is part of the MDC celebration of America's 250th year.

Reimagining SLS Faculty Certification: Data, Innovation, and Instructional Excellence
Professors Vellisse Grimes, Jessyca Perez, Rah Ahsan, and Chair Miguel Perez

This session highlights the ongoing redesign of the SLS Certification and Recertification course for faculty, originally developed in 2016. Informed by historical data, faculty survey results, and current college priorities, the redesign focuses on modernizing the faculty learning experience, strengthening alignment with student pathways, and integrating college-wide initiatives, including AI. Attendees will receive an overview of the redesign process, including collaboration with Dr. Helen Muñiz and Dr. Miguel Perez, as well as Psychology and Student Life Skills faculty Professors Vellisse Grimes and Jessyca Perez, and will explore how the updated certification better supports instructional excellence, student onboarding, and career readiness.

The session will also feature results from Shark Tech, a President’s Innovation Award–winning project led by Professors Grimes and Ahsan, demonstrating how creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving informed key elements of the redesigned curriculum. Engagement will include live polls, small-group discussions, and hands-on review of sample modules, with participant feedback directly shaping the final version of the certification course.

Teaching with Confidence Using Honorlock: Best Practices and Results that Matter
Asim Khan from Honorlock

Join the Honorlock team for a session designed for intermediate and advanced users. This session focuses on maximizing the value of Honorlock through effective setup, feature usage, and confident interpretation of results. Faculty will explore best practices for newer capabilities and gain practical guidance on reviewing flags, addressing potential violations, and having productive academic integrity conversations with students.

The Great Questions Foundation Pedagogy for the Disengaged
Professors Taurie Gittings, John Frazier, Brinda Surendar, and Sarah Jacob

This discussion-based workshop uses a Great Questions–style format to connect John Dewey’s philosophical approach with a contemporary critique of education. Drawing on a selection from Experience and Education (1938), the session invites collaborative exploration of strategies for engaging disengaged students. Guided by the question, “How do I know what I know?”, participants will engage in shared inquiry and compose their own student-centered discussion questions.

The Modern Teaching Workflow: What’s New in Canvas and How It Supports Teaching
Douglas Grooms and Tom Janke from Canvas

This interactive session helps faculty move beyond routine course management and toward more effective, high-impact teaching—using the latest Canvas enhancements as practical teaching assistants. A Canvas specialist will highlight the most impactful features released in 2025–2026 and show how they fit together into a more efficient, student-centered workflow.

Faculty will explore improvements to grading and course design, including redesigned Enhanced Rubrics with drag-and-drop editing, improved layouts, and tighter SpeedGrader integration, as well as recent SpeedGrader performance upgrades that streamline the grading experience. The session also demonstrates effective feedback strategies, such as scheduled and feedback-first releases, that emphasize learning over point accumulation.

Participants will see how tools like semantic search, AI-generated discussion summaries, and emerging IgniteAI capabilities reduce administrative overhead, support accessibility, and improve student engagement. Participants will also explore the Lucid integration and how collaborative whiteboards can support learning. Additional updates—including differentiation, tagging, and usability enhancements—round out a practical overview of what’s new and how it can immediately support teaching and mentorship in Canvas.

Chairs-Academic Chairs Council
Amy Crowley-Gonsoulin and Dr. Jorge Michael Cuellar

This working session brings department chairs together to advance shared priorities around strengthening academic leadership, improving key processes, and aligning departmental practices with the College’s strategic goals. Building on recent cross‑campus conversations—including efforts to enhance the faculty performance review process and clarify the evolving responsibilities of chairs—the session invites collaborative problem‑solving on challenges that affect all department chairs.

With an emphasis on unity of purpose consistent with the College’s One College direction, chairs will examine common needs, explore opportunities for more consistent practices, and co‑design approaches that support student success, faculty development, and effective operations. Structured activities will guide participants in reflecting on current workflows and identifying practical steps that can strengthen collaboration and align departmental work more closely across campuses.

Finding Meaning and Purpose in Challenging Times
Dr. Juan Abascal and Dr. Dominic Brucato, Mindworks International

The second wave of Positive Psychology provides us with tools to deal with difficult situations while fostering personal growth. This presentation explains Existential Positive Psychology (EPP), which represents a paradigm shift in understanding human wellbeing. Participants will explore how engaged living provides a path to flourishing at work and in life.

Human Trafficking Awareness & Prevention
Professor Marie Etienne

Participants in this workshop will gain a comprehensive understanding of Human Trafficking (HT) as a serious crime and a violation of human rights, often referred to as “modern slavery.” Attendees will learn how human trafficking operates as a multi-dimensional threat involving force, coercion, fraud, and exploitation. The session will examine various forms of trafficking, including forced labor, child labor, involuntary domestic servitude, and commercial sexual exploitation, including sex trafficking. The workshop will address common misconceptions—such as the belief that human trafficking does not occur in the United States—and provide current data highlighting its prevalence, including the impact in Florida, which consistently ranks among the top states for reported cases. By the end of the session, participants will be better equipped to recognize warning signs, understand risk factors, and respond appropriately to concerns related to human trafficking within their communities.

Taking Care of Yourself: The Importance of Practicing Self-Care in Higher Education
Russell Correa from Zeta Consulting Group

Employee burnout is impacting workplaces across the country. Higher education is not immune to this phenomenon. In fact, due to the lingering impact of the pandemic, faculty and staff are working in a more intense and challenging environment, which is leading to rising cases of stress and burnout across the country. Part of creating a psychologically healthy learning environment for students starts with your own self-care.

People in a Room: Improv Strategies for Connection and Collaboration
Professor Alicia Garcia and Dashiel Ruiz

Classrooms and workplaces are increasingly shaped by technology and connections to screens, scrolling, and people we have never met. However, the most important and often impactful tool we have is ourselves—people, in a room, connecting and working in community. This session invites you to rediscover how people in a room can adapt and collaborate to strengthen learning and workplace culture through the skills and practice of improvisation. We will explore how the tools of improv can enhance empathy, psychological safety, and responsiveness—skills that complement, rather than compete with, emerging technologies. By exploring the human elements we bring to each interaction, People in a Room will explore how the power of active listening, quick thinking, and staying present can change so much! No previous improv experience required!

Unstoppable You: Building Strength, Confidence, and Success Through Movement
David Gonzalez

An engaging way to keep this session interactive is to blend movement, reflection, and collaboration so students stay mentally and physically involved. The experience opens with a quick energy boosting warm-up - simple stretches or breathing exercises - to immediately connect the topic of fitness to personal well-being. Students then complete a brief self-assessment that highlights their current habits, which sparks personal insight and prepares them for discussion.

Next, small group breakout circles allow students to compare their results, identify shared challenges, and brainstorm realistic fitness strategies that fit a student's schedule. Each group creates a “Success Through Movement” mini plan and shares one idea with the room, building a sense of community and accountability. To keep the momentum high, the session may include a short, guided movement breaks that demonstrate easy, low-impact exercises students can use between classes or during study sessions.

The session closes with a personal challenge: each student sets one achievable fitness-based well-being goal and records how they plan to track it over the next month. This ensures the experience is not only interactive but transformative.

Building Employer Partnerships: A Work-Based Learning Model That Gets Students Hired
Jon Q. Adell and Lucy Moscoso

How do you get employers to invest time in student projects—and keep coming back? This session shares the playbook behind the EPIC Innovation Challenge, a paid work-based learning program funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation that has achieved a 96% completion rate, 9.7/10 employer satisfaction, and multiple job offers for students.

You'll hear from two perspectives:

1. Jon Q. Adell will cover the EPIC model—how we structure 6-week employer-led projects, match students to real business challenges, and track outcomes through the Riipen platform. You'll see real examples from Fall 2025, including AI tools built for Canela Media and customer experience work for Miami-Dade Transit.
2. Lucy Moscoso will share best practices for employer engagement—how to identify the right partners, pitch the value proposition, onboard employers smoothly, and maintain relationships that lead to repeat participation.

Interactive components:

• Small group activity: Draft an employer pitch for a program in your area
• Role-play: Handling common employer objections
• Takeaway templates for employer outreach and project scoping

Whether you're in academics, career services, or workforce programs, you'll leave with practical tools to build employer partnerships that benefit students.

Learning without Limits: Leverage LinkedIn Learning for Professional Growth
Elma Clarke from LinkedIn Learning

Take your LinkedIn Learning experience to the next level in this session designed for professionals who already know the basics and are ready to deepen their impact. Explore practical strategies for using LinkedIn Learning intentionally to support your short‑ and long‑term career goals. Whether you are focused on advancing your role, expanding your skill set, or preparing for new opportunities, this session will help you leverage LinkedIn Learning as a powerful tool for continuous career development.

AI in Action: Copilot + Kahoot Tools Every Staff Member Should Know
Brandon Castro

Join this fast, interactive session to meet your new AI assistants and see how they can support your everyday work. Get a quick tour of the latest features in Copilot for Web (free), including new enhancements that help you draft, summarize, research, and plan more efficiently—whether you’re new to Copilot or already using it regularly. Discover how Kahoot’s AI‑powered question generation makes it easy to create engaging activities in seconds, energizing meetings, presentations, orientations, and more. We’ll play a quick Kahoot and try short AI prompts together so you leave with practical ideas for when to use Copilot, when to use Kahoot, and how both boost productivity and engagement.

Explore M365 Copilot for Staff: How to Get Licensed & What’s New
Lucas Hernández from Microsoft

This session is designed specifically for staff to learn how to apply for an M365 Copilot license and explore its powerful capabilities. Join us for an engaging overview of M365 Copilot, the AI‑driven assistant that enhances productivity across Microsoft 365 applications such as Outlook, Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote. This session is also ideal for current Copilot users, as we will demonstrate new features—including the Notebooks experience in M365 Copilot. You’ll see Copilot in action and walk away with the knowledge and confidence to request your own license. Don’t miss this opportunity to elevate your workflow with M365 Copilot!

Hire Like a Pro: Level Up Your Hiring Game at MDC
Alvar Andollo and Malaika Keane

Great teams don’t happen by accident; they are hired with intention. This high-energy, interactive session is designed to help MDC supervisors hire smarter, faster, and with confidence. We will walk through real hiring scenarios, share practical strategies you can use immediately, and simplify MDC’s hiring tools and forms so you can move through the process with clarity and confidence. You will also get an inside look at Miami Dade College’s new Applicant Tracking System and how it will transform the way we recruit, evaluate, and hire top talent.

Microsoft Loop: Collaboration Made Simple
Seth Fewell from Microsoft

This short demo offers a sneak peek at Microsoft Loop, a flexible collaboration tool that brings people, content, and tasks together in one shared space. Instead of a step‑by‑step walkthrough, this session showcases what’s possible—highlighting real‑time brainstorming, co‑authoring, and planning using Loop components inside familiar Microsoft apps like Teams and Outlook. Attendees will see practical examples, explore ready‑to‑use templates, and get inspired to rethink how collaborative work happens. This session is designed as a preview and pairs well with upcoming hands‑on trainings for those who want to dive deeper.

Title II ADA Compliance & Accessible Canvas Courses
Sophie Septoff and Victor Nwankwo

Join us for a practical, hands-on session on meeting Title II ADA web accessibility requirements while keeping Canvas courses clean and organized. Learn core accessibility practices—such as color contrast, link text, images, and effective alt text—and see how UDOIT helps identify and fix accessibility issues directly in Canvas. Discover how TidyUP streamlines course content by removing clutter and managing files. Together, these tools help you create accessible, efficient, and student‑friendly courses.

Unlock Your Benefits: Getting the Most from Your Employee Assistance Program
Jill Pinder from Aetna Resources For Living

Come hear what Resources for Living is all about and the many ways it can support you. In today’s fast‑paced environment, many of us are juggling increased workloads, competing priorities, and limited time. Your Employee Assistance Program (EAP) is here to help lighten the load. This session will introduce all full-time employees to the free, confidential services available. From counseling and everyday problem‑solving to online tools that make life a little easier, Resources for Living offers practical resources designed to help you better navigate work and life demands.