Faculty Professional Development Opportunities for Summer 2025 are listed below. We are offering a limited number of on campus/Zoom options. Our On Demand trainings are always available 24/7!
Quality Matters: Improving Your Online Course - Summer 2025
Participants in this workshop will share strategies for meeting essential Quality Matters standards in their online or hybrid courses and also complete a self review of their course applying these standards. Participants MUST have taught a hybrid or online course in the past 18 months. Workshop materials are provided. This is an official Quality Matters workshop and is offered asynchronously and runs May 15-June 5.
In Person/Zoom Trainings
Faculty have a lot on their plates such as delivering content, grading, and supporting students. Adding accessibility can feel like just one more thing. But what if it's the key to better learning and navigating for everyone? Join us for a practical and eye-opening session that shows how accessible course design goes beyond compliance. We'll explore how small changes can make a big difference, walk through an easy-to-follow accessibility workflow, and share real examples of how inclusive design supports all students. Whether you're just getting started or leading accessibility efforts, you'll leave with ideas and tools to make accessibility doable, easy and efficient in Talon! (1 hour)
Join our comprehensive PDF Remediation session designed to empower you with the knowledge and skills needed to make your PDF documents accessible to all. In this hands-on workshop, you will learn the ins and outs of PDF accessibility and how to tag scanned PDFS. (1 hour)
Using AI in education is no longer a choice. In this hands-on and helpful session, you'll learn how to use populat AI tools like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Claude to make your work easier and more efficient. We'll show you how AI can help you write clear measurable learning outcomes, create rubrics, design quizzes and other course content, and improve accessibility. You'll also see how AI tools made for specific teaching tasks can support your work. We'll show real examples like the "scenario crafter" and "image descriptor" and how they were created without needing any programming skills. By the end, you'll leave with simple, ready-to-use tools that save time and support your teaching goals. No tech experience needed - just bring your curiosity! (1 hour)
On Demand Trainings (offered via Discover)
This one hour course will walk you through the process creating an alignment document. Rooting every aspect of the course—materials, activities, and assessments—in the learning outcomes, results in a minty fresh learning experience, where clarity and purpose refresh the student's journey like a cool, invigorating breeze. (1 hour)
This intro session to Panopto, Kirkwood's video platform, will provide the steps needed to deliver, make and manage videos. We will cover accessing Kirkwood's Panopto site, using the Panopto web-based Capture program, the feature-rich video player, and how to best share videos in your Talon courses or anywhere. (1 hour)
Kirkwood serves many students from diverse cultural backgrounds. This course will help you better understand cultural differences and provide practical skills for improving cross-cultural interactions inside and outside the classroom
Creating effective assessments is a key element of course design. This course will explain best practices and examples for implementing different types of assessments across all delivery mediums. Please note – these practices are focused on course-level assessment only. This course does NOT cover college-wide assessments or assessment data. (1 hour)
If you are interested in adopting OER (Open Educational Resources, free alternatives to traditional textbooks), but don't know where to start, this is the course for you! You will walk away from this course with a solid understanding of what constitutes an OER, the benefits to students and faculty, the basics of open licensing, and the best ways to locate OER for your courses.
In this session you will be introduced to Honorlock, our remote proctoring partner. You'll come away with all of the skills and knowledge needed to enable and configure Honorlock for Talon and third party exams (1 hour).
Imposter Syndrome and Stereotype Threat are two powerful psychological phenomena that affect performance, confidence, and well-being across academic, professional, and personal settings. Throughout this course, we'll explore what these experiences are, how they develop, and most importantly, how to recognize and navigate them effectively.
In this session you will review the current accessibility issues present in your PDF documents, learn how to address these issues, and implement fixes. Accessibility means removing barriers individuals might face when interacting with your materials. We will show you how to use Ally, a tool built into Talon, to scan and review current materials. And we'll demonstrate how Adobe Acrobat Pro can be used to address any issues. (1 hour)
In this session you will review the current accessibility issues present in your Powerpoint documents, learn how to address these issues, and implement fixes. Accessibility means removing barriers individuals might face when interacting with your materials. We will show you how to use Ally, a tool built into Talon, to scan and review current materials. And we'll demonstrate how Microsoft Powerpoint can be used to address any issues. (1 hour)
Review the current accessibility issues present in your Word documents, learn how to address these issues, and implement fixes. Accessibility means removing barriers individuals might face when interacting with your materials. These individuals will encounter different barriers due to permanent or temporary disabilities, neurodivergent conditions, and learning preferences. (1 hour)
Creating an inclusive community and sense of belonging in the classroom requires the instructor and other students to recognize and confront their own conscious and unconscious biases. This on-demand course will provide practical suggestions for managing bias in the classroom.
Microaggressions are everyday slights, insults, invalidations and offensive behaviors experienced by individuals from marginalized groups. This course will help you recognize microaggressions, their impact on students/colleagues, and how to respond.
This self-paced on demand course introduces you to writing effective alt text to make online content more accessible and foster a stronger sense of belonging. You'll learn when and how to describe images like photos, charts, and logos so all students, including those using screen readers, can fully engage with your course materials. By the end, you'll know how to write clear, useful alt text and create accessible content that supports all learners.
The 4 Connections are an evidence-based approach that can be integrated into your teaching strategy to enhance student success, retention, and inclusivity. This course will explain each of the 4 practices and provide practical examples of how Kirkwood faculty are implementing these strategies based on feedback from Kickoff Day in August 2023.
This course features 3 Kirkwood faculty members walking you through their online and hybrid courses in Talon, focusing on some best practices for structure, layout, design, aesthetics. (1 hour)
The Transparency in Learning and Teaching (TILT) framework is an evidence-based strategy to improve accessibility, equity and connections with students. It is rooted in the idea that increased clarity in communicating the purpose, task, and criteria for course activities and assignments improves student success. This course explains the rationale and research behind the framework as well as practical examples that can be implemented into your courses.
Time management isn't a skill though that comes easily to everyone or is often explicitly taught. According to a 2023 survey by Inside Higher Ed/ College Pulse, 47% of undergraduate college students find it a challenge to balance schoolwork with other responsibilities. This session will look specifically at time management and the challenges that students at community college can face while navigating their personal lives and their commitment to their education.
In this session, you will be introduced to the Talon Instructor Dashboard reports. The data can help you take actions to fix hidden course issues, or connect with students in need of support. You might also come away with additional report requests to be added to the dashboard, or special reports your program would find useful.
This webinar will showcase how to implement Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles effectively in the classroom. Participants will learn strategies for creating inclusive, accessible, and engaging learning environments that cater to diverse student needs. By exploring case-based scenarios, attendees will see practical applications of UDL in real-world settings, focusing on how to support students throughout their learning process and beyond traditional assessments.
Communication - something we all do and seek to improve. This course offers practical tips for communicating with clarity, empathy, and confidence across all types of interactions with students.
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How do I facilitate a PD course?
If you are interested in facilitating a professional development course through AISD, that's great! We welcome you to share your expertise with others! You'll need to complete the Facilitator Proposal Form in NeoEd. Login to MyHub and NeoEd. Then, ...
Where can I find professional development courses?
Most Professional Development opportunities are available in NeoEd. You can login to NeoEd by going to MyHub, clicking on NeoEd under My Links. From there, click on Training on the left hand menu, and Course Catalog to view all offerings. You can ...
Where can I find on-demand professional development courses?
Discover Kirkwood AISD has an on-demand library of internal, asynchronous courses available in Discover. You can access Discover through Talon in the Instructor Resources widget (see screenshot below). More information about the on-demand library can ...
What are Teaching Squares?
Teaching Squares A Teaching Squares Project builds a teaching community of four faculty through classroom observations and shared reflection. The structure emphasizes learning from other instructors, instead of evaluating or judging. Each of the four ...
Where can I find course development documents (alignment and time-tracking)?
Follow the links below to Google Drive. Use the File menu and choose Download to save the documents to your computer. Once completed, create a hidden module in your Talon course and upload these documents to the course. The documents will help make ...