Mini Development Day 2026
Friday, October 23,
Registration Deadline: Oct. 21
Mini Development Day, aka Mini Dev Day, invites faculty and staff to explore how we can support students throughout their educational journey, from first credit to final credential. Together, we’ll explore practical ways to strengthen the experiences that help students access opportunities, make meaningful progress, and ultimately reach their academic and career goals.
More information
Mini Dev Day proudly sponsors the Faculty Growth Series: The Connected Classroom through Belonging, UDL, & AI. Through collaboration, conversation, and interactive learning, sessions will explore three key areas and their potential to advance student success:
- 🧠 Artificial Intelligence (AI): Discover how generative AI is transforming higher education while raising important questions around ethics, access, and academic integrity.
- 💡 Belonging, Purpose, & Connection: Explore strategies to foster inclusive classrooms where faculty and students thrive through authentic connection and shared purpose.
- 🌐 Universal Design for Learning (UDL): Learn to design adaptable, accessible learning experiences that honor the diversity of all learners.
About the Keynote presenter
Dr. Thomas J. Tobin is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and speaker on technology-mediated education, with expertise in accessibility, Universal Design for Learning, academic integrity, evaluation of teaching practices, and copyright. He helped found the University of Wisconsin–Madison Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring and has been recognized among EdTech Magazine’s higher education influencers and Eduflow’s global Top 100 Learning Influencers. Dr. Tobin is the author and co-author of several books, including Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: Universal Design for Learning in Higher Education and the newly released UDL at Scale: Whole-Campus Universal Design for Learning. His Mini Dev Day keynote, “Three Ways to Lower Student-Success Barriers Tomorrow,” will offer practical strategies faculty and staff can use to reduce barriers and support student success.
This Mini Dev Day aligns with the Explorer Level of the Faculty Growth Series Framework—introducing foundational ideas in an engaging and accessible way. Sessions will feature practical strategies, guided discussion, and resources you can apply directly to your teaching in all three areas.
Pick a topic to see its schedule and details:
Welcome, Intro to FGS, and Overview of Day
8:30 — 9 a.m.
Presented by:
Dr. Theresa Glenn
Belonging & Persistence for Accessibility-Supported Students
9 — 9:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Marica Kelley
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This workshop explores how faculty and staff can support belonging and persistence by recognizing potential access barriers in the academic environment and connecting students to Student Accessibility Services. Participants will learn how to notice functional limitations without diagnosing, respond with curiosity and care, and make timely referrals that can help students access appropriate supports and stay on the path from first credit to final credential.
Silos to Synergy: Unleashing Faculty Team Strengths From Strengths-Based Pedagogy & Classroom Instruction to Supercharge Student Success
10 — 10:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Larry Davis
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How can strengths-based teaching practices and interdisciplinary faculty collaboration directly boost student retention and academic performance? In this interactive 50-minute workshop, participants will explore how transitioning from deficit-based teaching to a strengths-based pedagogical approach nurtures student self-efficacy, enhances classroom engagement, and creates proactive academic support networks.
Grounded in ACC’s baseline retention data (56% Fall-to-Fall retention; 74% Fall-to-Spring persistence) and empirical research from Gallup (a 4.73 percentage point reduction in first-year attrition) and NBER (Bettinger & Baker), this workshop demonstrates how integrating CliftonStrengths into course design and faculty feedback loops mitigates academic stress. Participants will learn how cross-disciplinary faculty pairings through mapping faculty team talents from a few examples could help transform fragmented student referrals into high-touch academic support pathways. Attendees will leave with a practical 3-step action blueprint to map departmental strengths and implement strengths-informed instruction immediately.
[Session Title]
11 — 11:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Dr. Khayree Omar Williams
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TBD
Beyond “Any Questions?”: Using Mentimeter to Hear Every Student
9 — 9:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Stephanie Bogdanich & Winona León
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Universal Design for Learning asks us to anticipate learner variability and offer multiple ways to participate. Using ACC’s new enterprise Mentimeter licenses, participants will try interactive and accessibility features that can reduce participation barriers, reveal student understanding, and amplify student voices. Attendees will leave with practical UDL strategies they can apply in classes, meetings, workshops, and student-support settings.
Demystifying Innovation: Reclaiming the Teaching Spark as a High-Impact Practice
10 — 10:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Alex Watkins
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True educational innovation isn’t about adopting every new technology—it’s an adaptive, high-impact practice that re-energizes teaching and strengthens student success. Join the Faculty Center for Learning Innovation (FCLI) to co-create a working definition of innovation for ACC. Discover how small, manageable tweaks using AI, Universal Design for Learning, and Belonging strategies can reignite your teaching spark and directly support student persistence and completion. You will leave with an actionable 1-page “Innovation Blueprint” ready to apply immediately in your courses.
Alternative Multiple Choice Assessments Including Critical Thinking, Modified, Ranked, and Teams
11 — 11:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Herb Coleman
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The traditional multiple choice test has many disadvantages and shortcomings. This workshop explores different ways of leveraging the simplicity and accessibility of the multiple choice test into a more comprehensive and effective learning assessment tool.
The AI Literate Classroom - Staying Ahead of the Curve
9 — 9:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Courtney Mlinar
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How does an AI Literate Classroom advance teaching and learning success? Discover how to thoughtfully and effectively integrate artificial intelligence into your teaching while keeping human creativity, critical thinking, and ethics at the center. This hands-on workshop provides practical strategies to navigate AI in higher education and the workplace—from prompt engineering and learning tools to data privacy, AI detection limitations, and transparent citation guidelines. Join us for an engaging workshop designed to help you build an ethical, transparent, and AI-literate learning environment where human creativity, intellectual freedom, and judgment remains paramount.
No Code Hack Just 5 Minutes to a Better Course Design Using AI & HTML
10 — 10:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Stephanie Long
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Unlocking high-impact course design shouldn’t require a degree in web development. In this interactive session, faculty will discover how to partner with Google Gemini as a personal web designer, turning standard text into visually polished, easy-to-read Blackboard course content. By drafting a custom, five-part prompt, faculty will generate clean HTML code for components like a customized callout box, module overview, objectives card, or discussion prompt.
Beyond simple copy-and-paste techniques, this workshop demystifies basic HTML so faculty can confidently make quick edits directly inside Blackboard’s content editor. Participants will gain practical skills in prompt writing while building a ready-to-use course asset, building confidence to use AI tools responsibly and model digital literacy for students.
Beyond the Answer: Helping Students Use AI as a Learning Tool
11 — 11:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Curtis Eckerman
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This workshop explores how faculty can help students shift from using artificial intelligence as an answer-generating tool to using it as a learning tool. Participants will examine practical strategies for designing AI-supported activities that encourage students to ask questions, clarify difficult concepts, receive formative feedback, and reflect on their own understanding. The session will emphasize approaches that preserve student responsibility for learning while using AI to strengthen confidence, engagement, persistence, and academic success.
Three Ways to Lower Student Success Barriers Tomorrow
Noon — 12:50 a.m.
Presented by:
Dr. Thomas J. Tobin
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Teaching can be challenging, these days. AI agents can convincingly respond to discussions. Learners struggle with studying and practice. Only a few students communicate with us regularly. Learners seem to lack motivation to act beyond what we grade. Do your students feel like they can just watch your videos and skip the interaction portions all together? Do they stop out or drop out of their studies? Learn how to make them feel more “a part of” instead of “apart from” as they come in through dual-credit, complete core Austin Community College (ACC) programs, and transfer on to further study or the workforce.
In our keynote webinar, you’ll learn three specific access strategies that work to counter these trends and restore learner engagement in face-to-face, blended, and online courses. Whether students are studying trades, business, health professions, public service, computer science, or education, we can use their own motivations to strengthen their engagement in our course conversations and activities. You’ll leave our keynote with practical, use-them-tomorrow strategies for:
- engaging learners and keeping them motivated;
- helping learners prepare, practice, and study;
- uncovering the “hidden levers” that encourage authentic participation; and
- designing paths to welcome learners to participate in varying ways.
Thomas J. Tobin is an internationally recognized scholar, author, and speaker on technology-mediated education—especially copyright, evaluation of teaching practices, academic integrity, accessibility, and universal design for learning.
He holds an English literature master’s and Ph.D., an information science master’s, and certifications in project management (PMP), online teaching (MOT), Quality Matters (QM), accessibility (CPACC), and academic leadership (Penn State). He helped found the University of Wisconsin-Madison Center for Teaching, Learning, and Mentoring.
On Ed Tech Magazine’s Influencers “Dean’s List,” honored with the Wagner Leadership Award in Distance Learning Administration, and one of Eduflow’s global Top 100 Learning Influencers, Tom serves on the boards of Advances in Online Education, InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching, the Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, and the Oklahoma University Press Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Ed series.
His books include:
- Evaluating Online Teaching (2015).
- The Copyright Ninja (2017).
- Reach Everyone, Teach Everyone: UDL in Higher Education (2018).
- Going Alt-Ac: A Guide to Alternative Academic Careers (2020).
- Implementing UDL in Irish Further Education and Training (2021).
- UDL at Scale: Whole-Campus Universal Design for Learning (2026).
- Evaluating Teaching in the Digital Era (forthcoming 2027).
- Peer Observation Made Practical (forthcoming 2028).
Find him on various social media and at thomasjtobin.com.
Wrap up: Evaluation and “Raffle”
1 — 1:20 p.m.
Presented by:
[Presenter]
Learn more
Next steps, resources, and how to get involved with the Faculty Growth Series, ToCN, implementation ToC teams, and more!
Interactive Peer Dialogue session
1:30 — 2:20 p.m.
Presented by:
[Presenter]
Learn more
This interactive Peer Dialogue session is designed for faculty in the first year of their three-year review cycle who are ready to begin thinking about their Peer Dialogue experience. Participants will hear examples from faculty who have completed Peer Dialogue, reflect on something from Mini Development Day they would like to explore further, and connect with colleagues who share similar interests.
The goal is for faculty to leave with an idea they want to explore and a potential peer to explore it with!