SIDLIT 2026

Dr. Albrecht teaches in an online accelerated program (AOP) with an average of 85 students per class. In collaboration with Jiayi Wang, Learning Designer in Learning Technologies at Emporia State University, Dr. Albrecht has introduced innovative pedagogy for optimal student learning. Come and learn how she engages students for a face-to-face learning experience in an online course! Here is what students say about their learning experiences in these classes:

• "I really enjoyed your video lectures and the way you connected the learning content to real-life situations. I especially appreciated the examples you shared from your own experiences, as they made the concepts more meaningful and relatable. Another aspect I truly appreciated in your course was the thoughtful feedback on my assignments. Your comments were always encouraging and reflective, and they were written in a way that helped me grow as future leader while also building my confidence. Thank you."
• "This course was truly eye-opening. Completing the field experiences and intentionally reflecting on each one was extremely beneficial to my growth as a future school leader. The opportunity to shadow administrators at multiple levels allowed me to see firsthand the complexity of the principalship and the balance between instructional leadership and building management. These experiences helped me connect the coursework to real-world practice, especially in areas such as communication, decision-making, and supporting staff. Observing different leadership styles also helped me reflect on the type of leader I aspire to be and the importance of building trust and strong systems within a school. I also appreciated that the grading feedback was consistently positive, specific, and encouraging. Your feedback affirmed my thinking while also helping me deepen my reflection and consider additional leadership perspectives. Overall, this course has been one of the most valuable experiences in my program because it allowed me to learn directly from practicing administrators while reflecting on my own leadership development."
• "Dr. Albrecht is a great professor. She connects course content to real-life situations, allowing students to directly apply concepts that are taught. Dr. Albrecht provides thorough, meaningful feedback that allows students to think about what comes next, following each course assignment. Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with Dr. Albrecht and taking this course."
• "Dr. Albrecht is a professor who clearly wants to help students. She is genuinely invested in their success and works hard to support them in achieving their goals. Thanks for a great course."
• "I appreciate your clear communication and quick turnaround time getting assignments graded. Thank you!"

 
Learn how to increase connectivity among and between students and instructor for more engaged online learning in Accelerated Online Educational Administration graduate courses.  For example, peek in on how weekly Zoom meetings are organized and used to conduct collaborative team decision-making as students work together live to solve problems building principals encounter through case scenarios. Rubric design and how to grade assignments using this innovative instruction and much more will be shared.  You do not want to miss out on how to organize and grade this advanced pedagogy.  Come learn how successful this strategy is in meeting learning outcomes for students.

Have you ever suddenly found yourself in charge after your supervisor moved on to a better opportunity? That happened to me in October 2024, and I was left to keep our tech systems running smoothly.
Over the past year-and-a-half, I’ve tackled everything from failing server drives to submitting board and credit card reports. It’s been a steep learning curve, but also an incredibly rewarding one.
I’d love to share some of the lessons I’ve learned—and hear about your experiences too. What challenges have you faced when stepping into a leadership role unexpectedly?

Current work in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) emphasizes partnership with students as a high impact practice that can reshape curriculum design and review, especially in online and hybrid environments. Instead of treating students primarily as sources of survey data, partnership models invite them to co-formulate questions about learning, interpret evidence, and redesign assignments, policies, and syllabus language. This session introduces SoTL as systematic, context sensitive inquiry into student learning that is informed by prior scholarship and made public, then focuses on what changes when students and colleagues are invited into that inquiry as partners rather than recipients in distance learning contexts.
 
To make this concrete, the session highlights two simple online activities that instructors can adapt in their own courses. A feedback partnership map helps faculty move beyond sole reliance on end of course surveys by identifying alternative, dialogic ways to invite students into ongoing conversations about assignments, criteria, and learning experiences in virtual spaces. A mini-partnership studio shows how students can act as co-designers of an assignment or rubric in a shared digital space, suggesting revisions, surfacing bottlenecks, and helping articulate SoTL questions about the impact of the redesign on learning at a distance. Generative tools may appear as optional aids for organizing feedback or exploring alternative wording, but they are not the center of the work. The emphasis is on collaborative SoTL practices that deepen learning, enhance belonging, and build sustainable cultures of shared inquiry about teaching online.

As generative AI becomes easier for students and educators to access, many institutions are responding with policies, permissions, restrictions, and detection tools. While these conversations matter, they often miss a central instructional design question: What learning is the assignment supposed to protect?
This session reframes AI guardrails as a learning design issue rather than a compliance checklist. Participants will examine how AI can support learning without replacing the thinking, decision-making, practice, and evidence students are meant to develop. Using practical examples from classroom and online learning contexts, the session will introduce a guardrails audit that helps educators identify which parts of a task may be AI-supported, which parts must remain student-owned, and what evidence can make student thinking visible.
Attendees will consider how guardrails can support academic integrity, accessibility, student agency, and meaningful engagement without relying only on surveillance or tool bans. The session is designed for educators, instructional designers, faculty/staff support professionals, and technology leaders who are helping others make responsible decisions about AI use in learning environments.
Participants will leave with adaptable questions they can use to review assignments, discussions, projects, and assessments at their own institutions or organizations.

During our inaugural year in partnership with the Center on Rural Innovation’s Artificial Intelligence Consortium (CORI-AI Consortium), Emporia State University (ESU) engaged in a collaborative, community-centered initiative to advance AI literacy and institutional capacity within a rural context. As part of the “Higher Ed AI Consortiums in Rural America” project, supported by Microsoft and LinkedIn, ESU partnered with Emporia Main Street and the Emporia Public Library to design and implement a scalable and sustainable framework for AI education delivery. What transpired from this partnership was the development of a flexible “template app” that supports the delivery of repeatable workshops across diverse audiences. Grounded in a train-the-trainer framework and a growing community of practice, the model enables facilitators to maintain consistency while adapting content to local needs. The resulting model offers implications for broader adoption, contributing to workforce readiness and regional economic development in increasingly AI-integrated landscapes. This presentation shares both the process and the outcomes of this first year, highlighting lessons learned at the intersection of community engagement and the push for equitable AI understanding, usage, and exploration.