This session will begin with welcoming remarks from the SUNY Provost. Highlights from digital innovation initiatives across the SUNY Provost’s Office will be provided. Specific updates will be shared from SUNY Online, including the state of online education in SUNY, how services are evolving to support the new Digital Learning Environment, accomplishments of the past year, and plans for the coming year.
DAY 1: Wednesday, February 26, 2025 Opening Remarks – Special Guest 10:00 – 10:30AM
DAY 1: Wednesday, February 26, 2025 11:30AM – 12:30PM
Supporting Online Coaching at SUNY: Exploring Academic & Learning Outcomes for Online Students
This session will present findings from the MDRC/SUNY research project on online student coaching, exploring how different coaching models impact student success at three SUNY campuses. Attendees will gain valuable insights into effective tools, resources, and strategies designed to support online students in reaching their academic goals.
DAY 1: Wednesday, February 26, 2025
1:30PM – 2:30PM
The intention of a “community of practice” is to share what you know for the benefit of all in the community. The SUNY Effective Online Practices Award Program collects, shares, and showcases the online best practices, strategies, and innovative online teaching and learning activities of exemplary SUNY online practitioners from across the SUNY system.
All online effective practices submitted are made available to the community for review and consideration.
The community of online practitioners has the opportunity to vote on their favorite online effective practices.
Those online effective practices that earn the most votes from the community are recognized with an award and become part of our effective practices repository, with ties to the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR) and the OSCQR rubric .
Building an Accessibility Strategy . . . One Candy at a Time
Wait, did you read that right? Does it actually say “building an accessibility strategy one candy at a time?” It sure does! There is a lot that we can learn from candies that are commercially available about what it means to have accessible, inclusive learning environments in higher education. This is particularly important the closer we get to April 2026 when most publicly funded institutions will have to follow the web accessibility rules announced by the Department of Justice for Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
During this workshop, you’ll address your sweet tooth as we explore common components of accessible learning environments that not only benefit students with disabilities in higher education but all students. From procurement to assessment and evaluation to content development and deployment to planning for individual needs through accommodations, let’s explore the sweet ways to bake accessibility into all phases of learning to create welcoming environments where students can learn and demonstrate that learning in meaningful ways.
Neurodivergent learners have unique skills and abilities that set them apart from neurotypical learners. If supported effectively, neurodivergent learners tend to excel, especially in the STEAM fields, and their unique skills can lead to significant contributions in these areas. In fact, companies are actively seeking out neurodiverse talent. In 2017, The Harvard Business Review published an article titled “Neurodiversity as a Competitive Advantage”. Yet neurodiverse learners are often ‘high risk’ regarding completion of a degree. Which makes it even more important for educators to provide methods for accommodating these individuals who will play a critical role in our future society.
A major factor for the high-risk classification of neurodivergent learners is due to their unique learning needs not being met. Providing adequate accommodations is not straightforward because many neurodivergent learners do not have an official diagnosis. In fact, there are many cases in which people haven’t recognized they are neurodivergent until adulthood (Polyzoi, Ahnemark, Medin, & Ginsberg, 2018; Happe & Frith, 2020). This makes it even more critical that we as educators take the necessary steps to ensure their time in academia truly does accommodate every learner.
While there are some small actions that can be taken to accommodate neurodivergent learners such as replacing multiple choice exams with other formats such as essays that allow neurodivergent learners to explain their viewpoint, these are only a small step in the overall learning process. But we need to create a dynamic in which neurodivergent learners are supported throughout the learning process rather than simply making small adjustments along the way.
In this session, attendees will gain an understanding of what neurodivergence is, explore case studies to gain insights into the neurodivergent students’ experience, and learn valuable strategies for fostering neuro-inclusive learning environments.
Megan Kohler, Learning Designer & Lecturer John A. Dutton e-Education Institute, Penn State.
DAY 2: Thursday, February 27, 2025
10:15AM – 11:15AM
Share a mini presentation! Show, demo, or talk about your own innovation, best practice, cool tool, project, program, initiative, or idea (in online course design, instructional technology, online faculty development) in 3-minutes, or less.
Please add your name and a bulleted list/summary of what you plan to share, including links if any 🙂 http://bit.ly/unsession2025
DAY 2: Wednesday, February 27, 2025 1:30AM – 2:30PM
This session will feature accelerated online course models from various SUNY campuses who will share their experiences and perspectives. Our dynamic panel features a faculty member, instructional designer, director of online learning, academic advisor, student support coach and a student who will share their firsthand experience.
Attendees will learn about opportunities and challenges for implementing, teaching, learning, and supporting students in a fast-paced online learning model.
Day 2: Thursday, February 27, 2025 2:30PM – 3:30PM
SUNY Online Teaching Ambassadors have been nominated by their campus for this recognition as exemplary online educators, who are both enthusiastic and effective in online teaching, and honored for their positive contributions to the field of online teaching in SUNY.
This recognition session at the Summit includes a reading of the names of the 2025 Ambassadors, the campus they are affiliated with campus, and their nominator.
Those Ambassadors able to attend in person and virtually will be acknowledged and highlighted.
DAY 2: Thursday, February 27, 2025 3:45PM – 4:45PM
Adapting to Innovation: Strategy and Capacity Building for AI and Beyond
There is one constant in innovation: change. New technology-influenced opportunities are consistently introduced in our ever-evolving society. How an institution assesses readiness for adoption and strategically considers the pathway for implementation of new innovations is critical to sustainable success and digital growth.
This session will give an overview of the Adapting to Innovation concept, explain the need for building institutional capacity, provide practical examples of programs, and services being developed by the THECB Division of Digital Learning to facilitate this process, and share with participants openly licensed resources developed by THECB in partnership with Texas institutions, which can be used and adapted to address this need in other states.
