Author: Carolyn Speer

Join other Innovation Campus employees in two short meditation sessions held in-person and online starting Jan. 30. Sessions will be held from 2 to 2:30 p.m. each Tuesday in the Defiance Room on the first floor of the NetApp building, across the cafeteria, and are offered free of charge to Innovation Campus partners.

Can’t join right at 2 p.m.? Each Tuesday there will be two meditations, one starting around 2:05 p.m. and the second starting around 2:20. Come for both or just one.

In-person sessions this spring:

• Jan. 30
• Feb. 6
• Feb. 20
• Feb. 27
• March 5
• March 26

Prefer to attend online? Get the link on the OIR website. The session on March 19 is online only.

All Innovation Campus partners are invited to a lunchtime panel discussion, “The Impact of Generative AI on Business and Work” from noon to 12:50 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 10 on the first floor NetApp building, Defiance Room, and via Teams.

The expert panel will include speakers from around the Innovation Campus as well as USD 259 and Wichita State. Speakers will include Neal Tilley, CISCO; Jeff Bartel, AirBus; Mark Padding, Rewards Network; Chuck Passannante, Textron; Dyane Smokorowski, USD 259; and Tonya Witherspoon, Wichita State. This panel discussion is part of the Academic Resources Conference (ARC), a free, mostly-online conference hosted by WSU three times a year. Check out the ARC schedule page to see if any other sessions catch your eye.

The Academic Resources Conference (ARC) is hosting two hybrid events Wednesday, Jan. 10. If you can’t make it to campus, there will still be an option to attend online as well:

• Noon-12:50 p.m.: Will have a Panel Hour discussion of “Generative AI’s impact on Business and Work” at the NetApp building on the main WSU campus. Visitors should enter through the main doors on the northwest side of the building. The panel will be held in the “Defiance” room, which is on the main floor, across from the cafeteria. Business leaders from across the Innovation Campus and Wichita will be on hand to provide their insights about the impact of generative AI on their industry. If you plan to come in person, feel free to grab lunch in the NetApp cafeteria first or bring a lunch. For those who would prefer to attend online: Add panel to calendar  Join panel session at noon
• 2-4 p.m.: Dr. Bobby Berry, Dr. Jennifer Friend and Dr. Sara Mata from the College of Applied Studies will present a session on “Culturally Responsive Practices” in 231/232 Woolsey Hall. For those who would prefer to attend online: Add Culturally Responsive Practices to calendar or Join Culturally Responsive Practices Session at 2 p.m. The presenters would like to customize the presentation, so those who plan to attend in person or online should register for the presentation in advance.

The Office of Instructional Resources is excited to be able to offer these hybrid events, and it hopes to see the campus community in person if possible.

Wichita State will offer only the Blackboard Ultra course format after spring 2024 semester, and that’s going to mean a lot of work getting ready for summer and fall for many professors, but the December issue of “Teaching Today” has the basic information needed to get started.

Many professors mistakenly believe they are in Blackboard Ultra but are actually teaching Classic courses. Please have a look at this month’s “Teaching Today” to learn more. For questions, reach out to the Office of Instructional Resources at OIR@wichita.edu.

The Office of Instructional Resources is happy to announce the dates for the January Academic Resources Conference (ARC). Join online via Teams during the week of Jan. 8-12 to hear about things like:

• Helping students save money on textbooks
• Building and running Blackboard classes in Ultra
• What’s new with generative AI
• Supporting students through culturally responsive practices (in partnership with the College of Applied Studies)

This January, it will also offer two hybrid sessions, so those who have been wanting to join the ARC in person, there will be a couple of options. At noon Wednesday, Jan. 10, participants can attend a panel discussion on the impact of generative AI on business and work, and at 2 p.m., participants can listen to Dr. Jennifer Friend, dean, College of Applied Studies, Dr. Bobby Berry, assistant dean, and Dr. Sara Mata, executive director of Hispanic Serving Initiatives, discuss culturally responsive practices. Later that afternoon, make time for the WSU Faculty Mixer, a fully in-person event hosted by Provost Shirley Lefever and taking place at the WSU Connect building (the old Wonder School building, just west of Woolsey Hall).

Ready to learn more? Check out the January ARC schedule today.

Each month, the Office of Instructional Resources (OIR) publishes Teaching Today, a teaching-focused newsletter for instructors at WSU. For March’s issue, OIR handed the reins over to the Retention Faculty Fellows for a takeover.

March’s issue took longer than expected due to a shift to Microsoft Sway. Readers don’t need any special software or access to continue reading, but for any issues, contact OIR at OIR@wichita.edu.

Each month, the Office of Instructional Resources (OIR) publishes Teaching Today, a teaching-focused newsletter for instructors at WSU. For February’s issue, OIR highlights many things it loves, including free training resources, Blackboard Ultra updates, an archive of available data sets and more.

OIR asks readers to share Teaching Today with a friend and to reach out if they think there is something it should cover. Contact the OIR at OIR@wichita.edu.

Thanks to COVID relief funds, Wichita State has been able to offer free human captioning on Panopto videos for the past three years. The funding has since been spent, and the service will discontinue as of the last day of February.

Human captioning services through Cielo24 will not be available in Panopto as of March 1, but AI-generated captions will remain available in Panopto. Any questions about how to access AI-generated captions can be directed to the Office of Instructional Resources at OIR@wichita.edu.

Each month, the Office of Instructional Resources (OIR) publishes Teaching Today, a teaching-focused newsletter for instructors at WSU. For the first Teaching Today of 2023, it is taking a look back at the January Academic Resources Conference (ARC) with links to all available session recordings.

OIR has organized all its sessions by topic so they are easy to find. Nearly all of the January ARC23 sessions are there, but a few will not be available until the February issue because of necessary editing.

It hopes readers enjoy the look back at the ARC and are able to catch up on any sessions they missed. Suggestions for topics for the May ARC or in future issues of Teaching Today can be sent to the OIR at OIR@wichita.edu.

Free artificial intelligence (AI) tools that can write full essays are now here. In the past two months, free online AI tools have gone from being able to write reasonable paragraphs from a simple prompt to producing full essays with citations on more complex topics. These tools will continue to develop rapidly, and professors, advisors and others who work with students need to be aware of these tools and what they can do.

During the week of Jan. 9-13, there will be several online presentations on topics associated with artificial intelligence, and we hope instructors and student-facing staff can make time to attend at least one of these sessions:

• 10 a.m. Jan. 9: President Muma will be discussing Digital Transformation at WSU, and he will be followed by John Jones, who will provide further context for discussions about AI and related topics. Here is the Outlook Invite for President Muma’s discussion.
• Noon Jan. 10: WSU will be hosting a panel on partnering with AI for creative pursuits such as writing and visual art. There will be a related discussion of the academic integrity implications of AI as well. Here is the Outlook Invite for the Creative Use of AI panel.
• Noon Jan. 12: A panel of WSU experts will discuss “Academic Honesty in the Age of AI.” The panelists will explain the issues and take questions from the audience. Here is the Outlook Invite for Academic Honesty in the Age of AI.
• 2 p.m. Jan. 12: There will be a book discussion of “Robot Proof: Higher Education in the Age of AI” WSU libraries has a digital copy available. And if you do not have time to read a book right now, you can get what you need from this 30-minute podcast interview with the author Dr. Joseph Aoun.