Presenters

• Jeff Lindgren, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Sarah Kussow, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Session Description

Many institutions are investing in Active Learning Classrooms, yet high‑cost, high‑tech models can slow down renovation cycles and limit access. At the University of Minnesota, an “all‑or‑nothing” definition of ALCs created bottlenecks for faculty requesting space and for facilities teams managing demand. This session shares a collaborative model between the Center for Teaching and Learning and the Office of Classroom Management to develop a simplified, pedagogically driven taxonomy for ALC spaces. By identifying existing rooms as “ALC‑Lite” spaces, the team matched room affordances with instructional goals, prioritized lower‑cost flexible seating models and streamlined the request process for faculty. The approach supports scalable, equitable access to active learning environments while maximizing future funding.

Presenters

• Abraham Ayebo, University of Minnesota Rochester
• Molly Dingel, University of Minnesota Rochester
• Shanna Altrichter, University of Minnesota Rochester

Session Description

Participants will explore the many ways students use AI tools in their coursework and examine strategies that help students meet learning objectives without requiring or prohibiting AI use. The session highlights practical techniques for maintaining academic integrity, supporting skill development and designing learning experiences that keep students engaged and accountable regardless of their AI choices.

Presenter

Danielle Condry, North Dakota State University

Session Description

Participants will use AI tools in real time to explore how prompt design, scaffolding and reflective framing shape learning outcomes and assessment. The session emphasizes active learning strategies, ethical integration and practical classroom applications, offering immediately transferable ideas for using AI as a learning partner rather than a shortcut. Attendees will leave with concrete approaches for designing intentional, transparent and student‑centered AI‑supported learning experiences.

Presenter

Sarah Sletten, University of North Dakota

Session Description  

This session examines an immunology course design that replaces high‑stakes exams with active and adult learning strategies to support mastery of complex content. Participants will review mixed‑methods evidence showing that rigor can be maintained without traditional testing and discuss the intellectual demand paradox, in which students achieve deep understanding even when a course feels less intimidating. The session highlights practical approaches for fostering meaningful learning, sustained engagement and confidence in challenging scientific material.

Presenter

Oybek Turayev, University of Minnesota Crookston

Session Description

Participants will explore an innovative active learning model that turns passive field trips into high‑stakes vendor interviews. This session demonstrates how agribusiness students engage in authentic, cross‑cultural sales inquiry with industry professionals. Attendees will leave with a scalable framework and rubric for integrating real‑world professional interactions into their own curricula, fostering student agency, confidence and applied communication skills.

Presenters

• Karina Campbell, Mayo Clinic
• Colleen Fagan, Mayo Clinic
• Stephany Pascual, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

This session outlines a quality improvement project that established a student‑led Wellness Committee within a single‑institution doctoral CRNA program. Presenters will describe how they used Plan‑Do‑Study‑Act cycles to tailor initiatives and increase awareness of available wellness resources. Participants will leave with strategies to identify and enhance learner well‑being through PDSA‑driven interventions that can be implemented within their own institutions.

Presenters

• Nancy Van Erp, Mayo Clinic
• Heather Billings, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

Curiosity is a powerful driver of thinking and action, yet it often remains dormant in traditional learning environments. In this session, participants will reflect on the role of curiosity in learning, explore principles and strategies that cultivate a curious mindset and discuss active learning approaches that tap into curiosity to promote meaningful engagement. The session emphasizes simple, adaptable techniques that help learners inquire, explore and connect more deeply with course content.

Presenter

Kimberly Beckstrom, Mayo Clinic

Session Description 

By the end of this session, participants will be able to explain the value of service‑learning as an active learning strategy that connects classroom content to real‑world context; describe the core components of a structured service‑learning curriculum; apply a transferable framework for integrating community‑engaged learning into their own educational settings; and evaluate the impact of service‑learning on learner development.

Presenters

• Renee Hawthorne, Steelcase
• Marisa Sergnese, Steelcase

Session Description

Drawing on recent research from Steelcase Learning, this interactive session invites participants to examine how space, technology and pedagogy intersect to influence engagement and inclusion. Participants will identify evidence‑based design principles, analyze their own teaching contexts and leave with practical strategies to implement more equitable, student‑centered active learning across in‑person, hybrid, remote or asynchronous environments.

Presenter

Kristin Shingler, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Session Description

This session presents work on developing and implementing genAI chatbots to support ongoing refinement of motivational interviewing communication skills within a dental hygiene curriculum. Participants will examine how chatbot‑supported practice can extend learning beyond the classroom, provide low‑stakes opportunities for skill rehearsal and offer consistent, scalable feedback. The session highlights design considerations, implementation insights and student perspectives to illustrate how AI‑enabled practice can strengthen learner confidence and competence.

Presenters

• Abraham Ayebo, University of Minnesota Rochester
• Kylie Van Dyke, University of Minnesota Rochester

Session Description

Participants will explore how active learning influences equity and achievement gaps in undergraduate STEM courses through findings from a recent meta‑analysis. By the end of the session, participants will be able to interpret evidence on the impact of active learning on diverse student groups, identify factors that shape equitable outcomes and apply practical, evidence‑based strategies to design inclusive active learning environments that support all students.

Presenters

• Dawn Foster‑Hartnett, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Barb Billington, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Cheryl Dvorak, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Session Description

This session presents an inquiry‑driven, group project‑based science communication course focused on antimicrobial resistance. Using active learning, presenters will outline the scaffolded assignments behind two major assessments: a group presentation and a student‑designed website, with additional details available via QR code. Participants will consider developing their own presentation and website assignments, design a rubric for assessing student work and discuss strategies for promoting equitable group work (Hobbs et al., 2026).

Presenters

• Marisa Sergnese, Steelcase
• Renee Hawthorne, Steelcase

Session Description

This plenary session explores the technological, societal and demographic forces shaping the future of education. Through interactive foresight exercises, participants will learn to identify emerging trends, visualize multiple plausible futures and assess implications for learning environments, faculty and students. Attendees will leave with practical strategies for applying foresight thinking in planning and decision‑making, enabling institutions to anticipate change, design adaptable spaces and proactively shape thriving educational experiences.

Presenter

Jake Wright, University of Minnesota Rochester

Session Description

Human flourishing is a complex, lifelong process shaped in part by students’ experiences in the classroom. Yet many instructors feel uncertain about how to help students reflect on their own flourishing in meaningful, appropriate ways. This session introduces active learning strategies and adaptable activities that support flourishing‑focused pedagogy across disciplines. Participants will learn approaches for helping students connect course experiences to their personal sense of flourishing, fostering deeper engagement, reflection and well‑being throughout the curriculum.

Presenters

• Jeff Schultz, Mayo Clinic 
• Thom Linville, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

This session examines a scholarly, practical and inclusive approach to preparing paramedics and emergency clinicians for real‑world practice. It highlights active learning strategies — simulation, case‑based reasoning, deliberate practice and reflective debriefing — that bridge didactic instruction with field application. Emphasis is placed on clinical decision‑making under pressure, psychological safety and inclusive pedagogy to promote equitable, patient‑centered emergency care.

Presenter

Brian D. Krohn, Butler University

Session Description

Many instructors turn to Problem‑Based Learning to boost engagement, yet the complexity of the course structure and the shift in instructor role can feel overwhelming. This session reviews core PBL principles and highlights strategies for overcoming common barriers to implementation. Participants will develop project ideas by reviewing PBL models, considering timelines, examining self‑directed learning and problem structure, and identifying how to balance learning objectives with expectations from industry partners.

Presenter

Emily Dane-Staples, St. John Fisher University

Session Description 

This session guides participants through the process of creating a custom classroom bot for instructional use. Examples include bots that help students practice interview skills, give and receive feedback on a sales pitch, walk novice practitioners through real‑world scenarios without real‑world consequences or support accurate progression through stepwise learning. The session highlights existing templates, presenter experience and student feedback on custom bot assignments. BYOT.

Presenters

• Olivia Crandell, University of Minnesota Rochester
• Kelsey Metzger, University of Minnesota Rochester

Session Description

This session demonstrates how high‑structure course design can create space for student‑centered learning pedagogies in chemistry. Presenters will share evidence of student buy‑in for pre‑class assignments that free up class time for student‑constructed explanation activities and integrated feedback across lecture, homework and assessment. Participants will consider how intentional structure supports explanation‑focused learning while maintaining clarity, pacing and alignment with course goals.

Presenters

• Angela Bergene, Mayo Clinic
• Jenn Embers, Mayo Clinic
• Emily Scanlan, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

This session shares qualitative insights from a fully digital Education & Technology Forum to examine how intentionally designed active learning experiences supported engagement, interprofessional connection and readiness to apply AI‑enabled tools beyond the event. Grounded in active learning and learning‑space literature, participants will explore practical design considerations and adaptable examples for digital, physical and hybrid learning environments.

Presenters

• Emily Hackerson, North Dakota State University
• Lydia Miller, North Dakota State University
• Jennifer Momsen, North Dakota State University

Session Description

This session introduces a modified Scrum framework designed to strengthen social metacognitive collaboration in classroom group work. Presenters will outline key Scrum roles, events and artifacts, then guide participants through a mini‑game that models the framework in action. Attendees will reflect on how Scrum structures can support communication, accountability and iterative improvement, and will leave prepared to adapt a modified Scrum model to fit their own course needs.

Presenter

liz thompson, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Session Description

Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act focuses on digital accessibility. While the deadline for compliance has been extended to April 2027, the work continues. What if adding alternative text (alt text) to images and graphics or descriptive text in videos was not just for compliance, but framed as an active learning strategy for all learners to look more closely and think more critically? This session will include a brief overview and an example of how the strategy can be implemented.

Presenters

• Danielle Condry, North Dakota State University
• Jenni Momsen, North Dakota State University
• John Buncher, North Dakota State University
• Tara Slominski, North Dakota State University

Session Description

Participants will actively explore retesting without penalty as a strategy for positioning exams as part of the learning process. By the end of the session, participants will be able to explain how retesting supports feedback use and metacognitive learning; compare multiple retesting models across instructional contexts; and identify practical strategies for adapting retesting approaches within their own courses and constraints.

Presenter

Joan Kwako, University of Minnesota Duluth

Session Description 

This session builds on ideas from Powerful Teaching (Agarwal and Bain, 2025) and Building Thinking Classrooms (Liljedahl, 2020) by combining low‑stakes retrieval practice with collaborative, vertical work spaces. Participants will experience this highly engaging methodology through a three‑part process: a rapid‑learning activity, followed by retrieval practice and concluding with at‑the‑board collaboration. These strategies offer scalable methods for transforming passive students into active collaborators, eliminating the “hide‑in‑the‑back” mentality and fostering deep, collaborative thinking.

Presenter

Sarah Economides, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

Grounded in current research on global health engagement, this session explores the complexities of preparing and implementing service‑learning and clinical education in international settings. Participants will examine key considerations for ethical, effective global health work and leave with strategies to design learning experiences that are culturally responsive, sustainable and aligned with best practices in international education.

Presenter

Elizabeth M. Adams, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Session Description

This interactive session presents a lifecycle‑based learning model for teaching AI project management as an exercise in leadership judgment. Participants will explore how microlearning, workforce context and portfolio‑based assessment help learners reason through AI‑enabled initiatives from initiation to closing. Faculty will leave with practical strategies and adaptable module ideas for teaching AI‑related work through reflection, ethics, governance and organizational decision‑making.

Presenters

• Jasmine Johnson, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Jared Van Hooser, University of Minnesota Twin Cities
• Diana Langworthy, University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Session Description

This session explores how to scale Team‑Based Learning across a curriculum while maintaining instructional fidelity. Participants will learn to define essential TBL standards, use a uniform instructional framework to reduce student cognitive load and implement a peer‑coaching model that supports faculty adoption. Attendees will leave with strategies to streamline TBL design and help faculty adapt materials for sustainable, cross‑disciplinary delivery.

Presenters

• Mohamad K Abou Chaar, Mayo Clinic 
• Emilia R. Dellacecca, Mayo Clinic 
• Talia R. Cheifetz, Mayo Clinic 
• Kelsey Metzger, University of Minnesota Rochester

Session Description 

Effective teaching grows through evidence, reflection and responsiveness to student needs. The Trail Mix Teaching Philosophy emphasizes transparency, instructional variety, student participation and inclusivity to support diverse learners. Using the trail mix metaphor, varied pedagogical strategies are intentionally combined to strengthen the classroom community. Through active learning, curricular co‑creation and inclusive practices, this approach boosts engagement, maintains rigor and fosters equitable, supportive environments where all students can thrive academically and socially.

Presenters

• Kasey Kuker, Mayo Clinic
• Corey Dulek, Mayo Clinic
• Bob Jackson, Mayo Clinic
• Stacy Coleman, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

Participants will explore how a Blood Bank‑themed escape room can reinforce advanced serologic reasoning while strengthening affective‑domain skills essential to Medical Laboratory Science practice. Through analysis of puzzle design, serologic case integration and team‑based problem‑solving mechanics, attendees will learn strategies for creating immersive activities that promote application of transfusion medicine concepts, enhance communication and collaboration and provide meaningful opportunities to observe and assess affective learning outcomes in MLS learners.

Presenters

• Martin E. Fernandez‑Zapico, Mayo Clinic
• Henriette Thau, Mayo Clinic

Session Description

This roundtable examines how metacognition exercises help Ph.D. learners situate themselves within a field of knowledge and recognize challenges in acquiring new concepts. Presenters propose incorporating a simple end‑of‑lecture metacognition activity for sessions that blend abstract and concrete content. Using a 3‑2‑1 reflection format, participants will discuss how structured reflection can surface learning difficulties, strengthen teaching strategies and promote a more active, self‑aware role for learners working with multidimensional datasets.

Presenter

Vincent Han, Mobile Coach

Session Description

This plenary examines why many learning programs struggle to translate knowledge into real‑world action and how AI‑supported learning environments can address long‑standing barriers. Participants will explore how contextual guidance, reflection prompts and adaptive feedback strengthen active learning and support meaningful knowledge transfer. The session highlights ways educators and instructional designers can combine active learning strategies with emerging AI tools to deepen understanding, increase engagement and extend learning beyond the classroom.