Please join us for an official welcome by Maggie Debelius, Director of Faculty Initiatives at CNDLS, followed by a virtual keynote by Flower Darby, Associate Director of the Teaching for Learning Center, University of Missouri.
Let’s face it. Teaching these days is tough. We’re exhausted, burned out, and frustrated by the societal challenges we’re navigating today. Yet our work is important, meaningful, and worthwhile. We’re changing lives and helping dreams come true. Topics covered in this talk will include the number one finding from almost a century of research on human flourishing, a theoretical framework to help us promote well-being for everyone in class, and practical, evidence-based strategies for every class (online or in-person), every discipline, and every mode. Based on Flower’s new book, The Joyful Online Teacher: Finding Our Fizz in Asynchronous Classes, this session will help us see how to promote flourishing—our own and our students’—and rediscover the joy inherent in transformational teaching and learning.
Associate Director of the Teaching for Learning Center, PhD Candidate, University of Missouri
Flower Darby celebrates and promotes effective teaching in all modalities to advance learning outcomes for all students. She’s an Associate Director of the Teaching for Learning Center at the University of Missouri. Prior to that, she held roles such as Assistant Dean of Online... Read More →
Embodying Georgetown's mission of cura personalis, the Engelhard Project is an innovative approach to integrating student wellbeing into learning environments.
Thank you to the Engelhard Project for sponsoring Flower Darby's talk on Monday of TLISI!
Monday May 18, 2026 11:00am - 12:30pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
AI has introduced significant complexity for online asynchronous courses, a reality with which this session will discuss. Led by instructional designers, this session will offer strategies and practices for instructors to incorporate into their online courses. The session will build on use cases and examples, developing participants' capabilities through hands-on practice. We will focus on Gemini, Georgetown's enterprise AI software, but include a discussion of education in an environment of ever-expanding tools.
Associate Dean of Learning Design (SCS), CNDLS, Georgetown University
Anna oversees the design, development, delivery, revision, and maintenance processes for online, multimodal, and technology-enhanced in-person courses and programs for the School of Continuing Studies. Anna has worked as an educator and instructional designer for over a decade. Prior to Georgetown, she spent eight years of her professional career working as a language and culture instructor, curriculum developer, and learning consultant for the Department of State’s Foreign Se... Read More →
Instructional Design and Technology Specialist, CNDLS, Georgetown University
Anya’s passion for education has driven her career, starting as a language instructor and later transitioning to the curriculum design space. Anna is an experienced instructional designer with a proven track record of working in the higher education and government sectors. Anna... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 1:00pm - 2:15pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
This session will give an overview of the data services and software supported by the library that can be used to enhance classroom instruction. The intended audience for this session is instructors who teach with data and instructors who are interested in bringing new data literacy concepts into the classroom. At the end of the session, participants will have an understanding of a range of data tools, where they can be applied in beginner-level and advanced instruction, and how the library can support data-intensive instruction.
Abby works with students, faculty, and staff on enhancing their work with digital tools for data management, analysis, and visualization. She teaches workshops open to the entire Georgetown community every semester, as well as in-class guest lectures, and is available for one-on-one... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 1:00pm - 2:15pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
This session explores how a new course empowers first-generation, low-income (FGLI) seniors from the Georgetown Scholars Program (GSP) to thrive in their post-college transition. Designed as a bookend to a first-year course, Mastering the Hidden Curriculum, aimed at uncovering the hidden curriculum of college, this team-taught course is centered on exploring career, intersecting identities, financial literacy, and values-based decision-making, all through an FGLI lens. This session will outline the design, development, implementation, and findings from this collaborative endeavor.
Audience: Anyone that works with students. Our course and material is geared towards bridging class to post-graduate life. It is not one academic discipline, it is life skills and navigating post-grad decision-making from a grounded perspective that is aligned with the individual’s goals and values.
Program Coordinator / Course Fellow, Georgetown University
Aranza joined the Red House in 2023 as Project Coordinator, where she supports evaluation of the implementation and development of courses and pilot programs. She also organizes and documents an equity-centered working conference that fosters rich discussions and strategic planning... Read More →
Sheila Walsh is a CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER® professional and faculty member at Georgetown University, where she teaches financial literacy and decision-making, including The Hidden Curriculum of Post-College Life, a pioneering course preparing students for the realities of adulthood... Read More →
Dr. Shree Whitaker Taylor is a strategic and innovative leader recognized for transforming complex challenges into actionable solutions that drive mission impact and organizational success. With a strong foundation in applied mathematics and analytics, she is highly skilled at translating... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 1:00pm - 2:15pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
This session explores the diverse roles Artificial Intelligence can play in academic research. The presentation walks through every stage of the research process, from research question formation and literature review to experimental design. We will highlight use cases collected from across Georgetown that can be replicated using secure tools, and are applicable in both the humanities and the sciences. Furthermore, we will examine qualitative and quantitative research, data analysis, code assistance, digitization, translation, and accessibility. We will ask critical questions about AI's usefulness and limitations, and discuss the necessary guardrails we can implement to keep research rigorous and replicable. Participants will leave equipped with practical strategies and an ethical framework to evaluate AI's usefulness in their own research.
Digital Learning and AI Specialist, Georgetown University
Ella supports faculty at Georgetown by sharing resources and a frame of thought about the role of AI and other digital technologies in education. In her role as the CNDLS digital learning and AI specialist, she facilitates workshops, evaluates new tools and consults with faculty on... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
Mentorship is not a program or a checkbox. At its core, it's the decision to see and nurture potential in others before they see it in themselves. This session invites faculty, staff, and student instructors to explore mentorship not as a supplemental practice, but as a foundational pedagogy. It aims to clarify how mentorship can become central to teaching, offering participants practical methods and concepts for embedding mentorship into everyday educational practices. Drawing on years of curriculum design, community development, and work with first-generation students at Georgetown University, presenter Donovan W. Forrest will facilitate an honest, practical, and deeply human conversation about what it means to teach with mentorship at the center.
Participants will examine the barriers that prevent mentorship in academic settings, time, hierarchy, cultural distance, and institutional design, and will leave with concrete strategies to address them. The session will help attendees identify challenges, share solutions, and develop personalized mentorship approaches. Through storytelling, reflection, and peer exchange, participants will see how reaching back to unseen or underprepared students generates momentum for the whole learning community.
This session is designed for anyone who has ever wondered whether they are doing enough for the students who need them most. The intended audience includes faculty across disciplines, academic support staff, advisors, and student instructors, anyone who influences a learner's trajectory, whether they call themselves a mentor or not.
For Donovan W. Forrest, MPA, the true strength of an educator lies in making individuals feel seen and then illuminating what's possible for them.That belief has sustained his career. As Elective Faculty at Georgetown University's Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, he designed... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
In an era where students are constantly immersed in high-stimulation digital environments shaped by platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, educators face a growing challenge: how to sustain attention in spaces that are not designed to compete with algorithmically optimized content. As one might argue, for many students today, Google has become their “first professor,” reshaping expectations around how information is accessed, delivered, and engaged with. This session explores a central thought experiment: Can the strategies used by content creators to drive engagement in the attention economy be adapted to improve student engagement in the classroom? Drawing on techniques widely used in digital content creation (attention hooks, open loops, rapid pacing, segments, social proofs, storytelling, and feedback-driven iteration) this session reframes teaching as an exercise not only in knowledge delivery, but in attention design, offering a practical “translation layer” between the attention economy and the classroom. To put these ideas into practice, participants will break into small groups and compete in a rapid “hook” challenge: each group will be randomly assigned a subject from a different discipline and given 60 seconds to design and deliver a 1–2 minute opening that captures attention and makes the room care, followed by a live vote on which group most effectively applied the strategies.
Zaria Khan is an IT Audit and Cyber Risk professional and emerging educator focused on advancing excellence in teaching and learning within technology disciplines. Currently at Capital One and formerly with the U.S. Government Accountability Office, she brings real-world experience... Read More →
Monday May 18, 2026 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT Zoom Virtual Session(Zoom links can be found under each session's description.)
