Concurrent Sessions

2025 CHIIPs Concurrent Sessions

Concurrent I

10:10 - 11:00

• Connecting with Students: Perspectives and Strategies for Holistic Support

  Deidre Johnson & Kate Emmerich, ETSU

  Room 137A

  Teaching the whole student requires an appreciation for the myriad experiences, challenges, and circumstances in which our students live. Unfortunately, most of us have little knowledge of the broad student experience or how to help those experiencing difficulties outside of our content expertise. Furthermore, building connections with students from a position of power poses further complications. Drawing from decades of student support and counseling experience as well as best practices, this interactive session will explore challenging student situations faculty may encounter, delve into urgent and sometimes neglected areas of teaching, provide practical strategies for developing more meaningful relationships with students, and share an overview of available support resources.

• Hands-On, Minds-On: Unlocking Classroom Potential with LEGO®SERIOUS PLAY®

  Jillian Alexander, ETSU

  Room 137B

  Introducing LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY®: A Hands-On Teaching Tool for Reflection and Engagement. This interactive session introduces faculty to LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® (LSP), a facilitation method designed to deepen reflection, foster connection, and spark creative thinking in the classroom. Participants will engage in two sample builds that demonstrate how the method encourages storytelling, metaphor, and meaning-making—powerful tools for both teaching and learning. Along the way, you’ll explore how LSP can support inclusive course design, student engagement, and intentional reflection across disciplines. No LEGO® experience needed—just curiosity and a willingness to build.

• Redesigned Activities with Student Input for Maximized Learning

  Alisa Hearl & Florence Weierbach, ETSU

  Room 215

  Evaluating assignments demonstrating student learning outcomes (SLO) that are acceptable to students is challenging. Over the last three years two assignments demonstrating knowledge and skills associated with two of the SLO has been modified based on student accomplishment and feedback. The two assignments were initially combined into one with the most recent change in assignment a result of the Hurricane Helene floods. The original assignments included a written paper and poster presentation with a single SLO attached to each assignment. The current assignment is a poster presentation that addresses both SLOs.  In addition to the two SLO's the assignment allows students to demonstrate skills in developing competencies associated with library and internet searches, synthesis of the searches, application of evidence base practice, and oral presentations.

• The Balancing Act: Engaging Online and In-Person Students in a Blended Synchronous Course 

  Jesse Gilreath & Violet Nkwanzi, ETSU

  Room 225

  This session introduces instructors to blended synchronous teaching, where in-person and remote students learn together in real time. Participants will begin by reflecting on their own experiences with this teaching format and anticipated concerns regarding blended classrooms. Presenters will then share their challenges and successes from teaching a graduate-level research course and a practice course, highlighting issues like uneven engagement and technology limitations. The session emphasizes practical strategies, such as how to structure discussions so both groups are heard, how to use tools like polls and shared documents to bridge the distance, and how to optimize technology. Attendees will also explore how course design, particularly the syllabus and early communication, can shape student expectations and promote inclusion. Participants will consider which of their own courses might suit this instructional format and ends with collaborative problem-solving and lesson design to help instructors leave with concrete, personalized ideas.

Concurrent II

11:10 - 12:00

• Bridging the Classroom and the Community: Teaching with Community Partners

  Kate Beatty & Megan Quinn, ETSU

  Room 137A

  Integrating community partners into the learning experience can elevate student learning, bridge the classroom and the community, and prepare students for the workforce. There are a variety of ways to partner with community members, and in the College of Public Health at ETSU, we have developed a continuum of engagement for co-teaching with community partners. Best practices in engaging community partners include: 1) building and sustaining partnerships, 2) aligning goals, 3) preparing students, faculty, and partners, 4) assessing impact, and 5) ongoing feedback and communication. Providing opportunities for community members and practice-based partners to share their expertise and experience alongside a faculty member can add value to the learning experience for all involved. Additionally, this aids in bridging the classroom experience with the community, further illustrating the connections between the campus and the community and preparing students for the workforce.  

• Teaching Like a Crew Chief: Lessons from NASCAR about Teaching

  Amy Johnson, ETSU

  Room 137B

  What can NASCAR teach us about teaching and learning? More than you think. During this session, we will explore concepts from some of NASCAR's legendary crew chiefs that can be directly applied to teaching and learning. Participants will explore the crew chief teaching disposition by analyzing leadership qualities of NASCAR crew leaders and identifying how strategic thinking and team-focused decision-making translate to classroom success. Through interactive discussions and guided reflections, attendees will explore strategies for letting their love of their content drive student engagement, reimagine yourself in the teaching role as a crew chief, think about how your passions can drive success, and discover how not to turn yourself upside down when students occasionally get out of their lane.

• Embodied Pedagogy in Online Spaces: Using AI-Generated Case Simulations to Teach the Whole Student

  Jill Channing, ETSU

  Room 215

  Attendees are encouraged to bring their laptop or tablet for this session.

  
  This interactive session introduces participants to the instructional potential of generative artificial intelligence (AI) for creating emotionally resonant, ethically complex, and discipline-relevant case simulations in online higher education. In alignment with the conference theme of Teaching the Whole Student, the session emphasizes how AI-generated scenarios can foster embodied engagement—intellectual, emotional, and interpersonal—by simulating real-world dilemmas and encouraging reflective, values-driven learning. Drawing on current research into AI-supported teaching simulations, participants will engage with sample AI-generated cases, collaboratively adapt scenarios for their own disciplines, and explore tools and techniques for cultivating whole-student learning online. The session will include a live demonstration of AI scenario/simulation generation, small-group analysis, and pedagogical strategies grounded in adult learning and constructivist theory. Participants will leave with a toolkit of practical resources for implementing AI-enhanced, embodied case learning in asynchronous and synchronous modalities. 

• Practicum as Place

  Annalee Tull Lanier, Kelly Bremner, Catherine Mantooth, & Patrice Foster, Emory & Henry University

  Room 225

  Theatre often operates as a company in the nonacademic world, but students gain a better understanding of that when encouraged to begin that mentality at the undergraduate level. By diversifying opportunities through practical coursework, students can translate their praxis into real world applicability and experience something even greater. The built space of community is difficult to achieve on college campuses and a variety of methods have been tried, including cohorts by year, clusters by learning/majors, and student organizations. One way we have cultivated a built space of community on our campus is through the company mentality of practicum. These courses encourage hands-on experience in numerous aspects of theatre. By encouraging inclusion across different disciplines in theatre, students understand the importance of each role and feel we succeed or fail together across all areas. This experience has built community and continues serving the students for their transition into the workforce. 

Poster & Tabling Session

12:45 - 1:35

Concurrent III

1:45 - 2:35

• Revision Reimagined: Engaging the Whole Student Through Reflective Practice

  Brittany Butler, ETSU

  Room 137A

  Too often, revision is viewed as a mechanical task—something students do simply to correct grammar or meet formatting requirements. This session reimagines revision as a dynamic, reflective process that fosters deeper learning, self-awareness, and student agency. Rather than treating revision as an endpoint, we will explore it as a pedagogical strategy. This interactive workshop will introduce the concept of active revision and begin by exploring how students typically revise. Participants will then analyze real-world student revision scenarios to consider how revision strategies impact learning. Highlighting the conference theme of Teaching the Whole Student, this session offers concrete strategies to make revision more meaningful, reflective, and student-centered. Participants will leave with tools to facilitate active revision in any discipline and foster deeper engagement in the learning process.

• Embodied Learning in the Digital Age: Using Tech to Teach the Whole Student

  Amber Arnsenault, ETSU

  Room 137B

  What if technology could help us reconnect with the physicality of learning rather than distract from it? This session explores how embodied learning principles can be amplified—not diminished—by thoughtfully integrated technology. Drawing from Susan Hrach’s Minding Bodies, this interactive presentation demonstrates how simple tools (like smartphones, collaborative docs, and QR codes), emerging technologies (AI tools, virtual reality), and movement can work together to teach the whole student. Participants will experience tech-enhanced strategies that foster sensory stimulation, spatial engagement, and social learning. Participants will engage in hands-on, movement-based activities that illustrate how technology can stimulate the senses, support spatial awareness, and enhance social interaction. The session showcases practical, low-cost strategies for designing active, tech-enhanced learning environments that foster curiosity, connection, and cognitive engagement.

• Enhancing Student Engagement of Peer Oral Presentations in the Online Learning Environment 

  Jean Hemphill, ETSU

  Room 215

  Students must develop oral presentation competencies to effectively disseminate their scholarly work after graduation. In a blended, online learning environment, it is difficult to evaluate engagement by being attentive to nonverbal communications, and other extralinguistic factors. Student oral presentations done in an online synchronous class have been used to address presentation competencies, to promote student engagement, and to analyze content. Student peer evaluation should help the student engage in critical analysis. However, the peer evaluations and questions during a synchronous class were not substantive. Therefore, the online assignment methods were changed. Using Kolb’s experiential learning cycle framework, this presentation will describe increased student engagement in the online environment. The learning activity was evaluated over three years during which a total of 11 different graduate students were enrolled in the same course. One of the steps included a period of reflection, a step usually excluded in the online environment. 

• Teaching the Whole Student Through Active Learning in a Hybrid Environment

  Laura Hunt Trull & Mary Andreae, ETSU

  Room 225

  This workshop provides a toolkit of active learning strategies designed to support the whole student—cognitively, socially, and emotionally—in hybrid learning environments. Participants will explore techniques such as brainstorming, jigsaw discussions, role-playing, inquiry learning, and group evaluation, adapted for in-person and online modalities. Through direct participation, attendees will experience the student perspective and reflect on how these methods foster engagement, collaboration, and deeper learning. Aligned with the “Teaching the Whole Student” conference theme, this session emphasizes inclusive, student-centered practices that promote critical thinking, self-awareness, identification of needs, trust and empathy, and community building. These practical strategies will enhance interaction, personalize instruction, and support diverse learners in hybrid settings. Considering media dependence and the transformation of interpersonal communication, participants will learn how to promote beneficial communication skills. By modeling these approaches, the workshop demonstrates how active learning can transform hybrid classrooms into dynamic spaces that nurture the whole student.