{"id":11006,"date":"2025-02-23T10:16:04","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T15:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/?page_id=11006"},"modified":"2025-02-23T10:16:27","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T15:16:27","slug":"2025ambassador-shichtman","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/engage\/ambassadorprogram\/ambassadors\/2025ambassador-shichtman\/","title":{"rendered":"SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2025: Empire – Diane Shichtman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Diane
Diane Shichtman
Empire State University<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Diane Shichtman, Ph.D.<\/strong> is a member of the Department of\u00a0Computer Science and Technology at Empire State University, currently serving\u00a0as an Academic Coordinator. She has taught online courses for most of her time with\u00a0Empire,\u00a0and in the 2024-2025 academic year is also the Center for Teaching and Learning\u2019s\u00a0AI Fellow. Dr. Shichtman has a\u00a0robust interdisciplinary background,\u00a0holding a Ph.D. in Science and Technology Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic\u00a0Institute, an MBA from the University at Albany, and an M.A. from the Program in Media Studies from the New\u00a0School for Social Research. She is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and\u00a0was an IT consultant and\u00a0an award-winning Oracle-approved instructor. Her scholarship, such as\u00a0“Using the Pandemic as a Case Study: Teaching Social and Ethical\u00a0Issues,” reflects her commitment to integrating real-world challenges into\u00a0the curriculum. She has also contributed to\u00a0thinking about the\u00a0intersection of education, digital tools, and the world of work, as seen in her\u00a0presentations on technical communication, project management, and digital humanities.<\/span><\/p>\n

I value the flexibility, accessibility, and opportunity for\u00a0education that online courses offer our students. Our students face numerous\u00a0challenges, and I want their courses to be positive experiences.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

One of the things I try to do is get my students to engage\u00a0with each other in productive, meaningful ways. Online discussions give\u00a0students the opportunity to explore ideas, see things from other points of\u00a0view, and learn how to more effectively communicate their own ideas. I promote\u00a0this by designing discussion starters that are open-ended and engage with the\u00a0students, helping them think about the questions. In their final reflections,\u00a0some of my students comment about how much they learn from discussions, seeing\u00a0through other people\u2019s eyes the ideas they are exploring.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I am interested in the design of courses from the\u00a0perspective of both students and instructors. In my role as Academic\u00a0Coordinator, I am responsible for the adjunct-ready online course masters, and\u00a0this leads me to\u00a0explore evidence-based teaching methods and consider how to\u00a0design courses that make sense to\u00a0instructors with a range of teaching styles. Courses must contain the core\u00a0material, but I also want there to be places where instructors can make their\u00a0own contributions. Teaching in a world of constant change, I am very\u00a0conscious of the need to design courses that focus on the core material, are\u00a0adaptable on the fly, and can be maintained and updated.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

My current focus is on developing AI literacy resources. I\u00a0want students to understand not only how to use GenAI, but also how to use it\u00a0appropriately and add value to their work beyond what the GenAI tools provide,\u00a0be aware of implementations of artificial intelligence other than GenAI, and\u00a0think about AI-infused environments and the ethical and social implications of\u00a0artificial intelligence.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

A quality online learning experience is important to our\u00a0students, and well-designed courses with solid instructor engagement are\u00a0crucial to its delivery.\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diane Shichtman, Ph.D. is a member of the Department of\u00a0Computer Science and Technology at Empire State University, currently serving\u00a0as an Academic Coordinator. She has taught online courses for most of her time with\u00a0Empire,\u00a0and in the 2024-2025 academic year is also the Center for Teaching and Learning\u2019s\u00a0AI Fellow. Dr. Shichtman has a\u00a0robust interdisciplinary background,\u00a0holding a Ph.D. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"parent":10809,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-11006","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11006"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11006"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11006\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11007,"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/11006\/revisions\/11007"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/online.suny.edu\/onlineteaching\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}