Meet the educators, scholars and artists leading the conversations, along with full descriptions of their presentations and practical takeaways. Use this guide to discover sessions that match your interests and plan your conference experience.
To view a simplified schedule at a glance, including room numbers, access the Professional Development Day Showcase Schedule.
Session 1 — 10-10:50 a.m.
Teaching English Grammar Using Open Educational Resources and Heuristics
This session will introduce the new open educational resource (OER), English Grammar Foundations, and explain how it is designed to support grammar instruction through discovery-based heuristics rather than rule memorization. Participants will learn what heuristics are, why they reduce anxiety around grammar for both students and teachers, and how they frame grammar as a process of inquiry rather than a set of absolute truths. The session will focus on practical ways to use the OER text alongside heuristic procedures to teach English grammar, with concrete examples that show how students can investigate patterns, test hypotheses and develop grammatical understanding through guided discovery.
Global Narratives in the Classroom: Teaching World Literature and Film
This session explores how studying world literature and film teaches students to connect form (how something is made) with content (what it means). We will examine how stories are structures, how film techniques shape our understanding, and what literary forms can do that other disciplines cannot. By looking at specific examples from global texts and films, we will practice analyzing the building blocks: story construction, visual composition, and how language works sentence by sentence and scene by scene. The goal is to develop skills that literature and film uniquely teach: reading how artistic choice creates meaning, tracking how storytelling techniques produce emotional and intellectual effects, and understanding how representation itself works.
History Day: Developing Student Skills for Historical Research
This session will cover National History Day and the processes involved in helping students study the past to inform the present. For teachers, this session will help demonstrate the importance of their participation in National History Day. The research skills their students will develop and hone during the research process, public presentations and feedback from professional historians all serve to make history students better at engaging critically with the past.
The Creative Process in Practice
Casey McGarr, MFA
Magdalena Aguinaga
Ali Ahmad
This session examines how ideas evolve from initial inspiration to completed work. It emphasizes creativity as an iterative process shaped by brainstorming, ideation and refinement rather than a single moment of insight. Ultimately, it highlights the value of persistence and hands-on exploration in bringing concepts to life.
Session 2 — 11-11:50 a.m.
Maps as Primary Sources in the Classroom
Mylynka Kilgore Cardona, Ph.D.
This hands-on session provides a takeaway lesson on using maps as primary sources for teaching history. Utilizing maps allows students at all levels to think critically about human interactions, see the results of political changes at the macro and micro levels and use maps as primary source texts. Applied lesson is adaptable for all levels of instruction.
Implementing Collaborative Writing Practices in Multilingual Classrooms
This session begins with an overview of collaborative writing (CW) and an introduction to diverse modes of CW. It then focuses on how to design, implement, and assess CW activities in multilingual classrooms. Participants will engage with current pedagogical knowledge on CW and examine practical strategies that can be readily adapted to their own teaching contexts.
Is Reading Obsolete? Attensity and the Suffering of Close Reading in the Classroom
This session explores the power of close reading and the attention movement in the English classroom at a moment when students are immersed in AI tools, short-form media and constant digital distraction. It examines slow, careful engagement with literary texts as a method for rebuilding students' capacity for sustained attention and critical thinking. I argue that English pedagogy must re-center the act of reading—teaching students how to read deeply and slowly—before teaching them how to delegate reading to machines.
Ready for Your Next Step in Theatre?: Higher Ed and Your Future
Whether you are a K-12 educator, an active member of your area theatre company, need to remain at your full-time job or are interested in a traditional in-residence program, the Master's program at East Texas A&M University offers flexibility and individualized options for you! Our graduate program offers a well-rounded, comprehensive curriculum, through which you will take advanced classes in directing, performance, theatrical design, playwriting, history, theory, management and more! This session includes detailed information about the Master's degree program at ETAMU, including information on what a Masters in Theatre can do for your career, a program overview, course scheduling and how to apply.
Practiced-Based Research in Art
Laurel Jay Carpenter, Ph.D.
Devin Blanch, MFA Candidate
Creative practice-based research explores a specific and evolving “research question” via art-making processes and/or the product of a creative endeavor. It is commonly employed in projects which construct the terminal degree in art practice. MFA candidates undertaking practice-based research are expected to review both academic and non-academic resources in order to provide contextual evidence to support their studio investigations, and to create a new body of exhibition-ready work while incorporating a lens (scholarly or otherwise) that enables reflection. Although the making is forefront in the research, contemporary theory, critical discussion, and in-field investigations delve methodologies commonly used in the arts, including material, experiential and interdisciplinary approaches.
Studio Graduate Coordinator Laurel Jay Carpenter offers a brief introduction to practice-based research in the arts, and current MFA candidate Devin Blanch shares his current work in conceptual sculpture using construction waste materials as an expression of our communities, our families and ourselves.
Session 3 — 1-1:50 p.m.
Open Pedagogies in English, TESOL, Bilingual Education and Foreign Language Teaching
This hands-on workshop explores how Open Pedagogical practices can transform language instruction by positioning students as creators rather than consumers of knowledge. Participants will discover practical strategies for implementing renewable assignments, open educational resources (OER) and collaborative projects that extend learning beyond the classroom walls. Participants will examine real-world examples of renewable assignments in language classes, collaboratively design an open pedagogy project for their own teaching context and explore platforms and resources for implementing OER. Through peer discussion and guided reflection, teachers will troubleshoot common challenges and share innovative approaches to student co-creation of knowledge.
Applied Criminology and Critical Issues in Modern Policing
This session profiles the Master's Degree in Applied Criminology and its program components. It details the program's focus areas, their structure, and the approach taken by faculty to deliver the quality of instruction that have earned it a distinguished ranking by the U.S. News and World Report for several years in a row. The highlight of this session is to showcase the work of several students and recent graduates of the program, who will present these projects and discuss their potential for real-world application. These presenters were picked for the specialized roles they play in their respective police agencies, reflecting some of the most critical and pressing issues in American policing today. Students discuss how their coursework and related term projects translate into refined forms of problem-solving in their profession.
Playing the Classroom: Gamified Approaches to Teaching
People love playing games. Whether it's sports, gambling, video games, board games or a simple game of tag, humans seem drawn to competing against others in fun and relatively low-stakes ways. While people often think of education in opposition to the freedom of play, you can draw on that human love of play in your classroom by incorporating gamified pedagogical strategies. From designing daily activities to restructuring course assessment, drawing on concepts of game theory allows you to teach students how to design their individualized playthrough of their own education. In this hands-on session, you'll hear some of the basic theory behind gamified teaching before experiencing a version of it yourself as you work with your peers to find ways to gamify your own classroom.
How AI Models Language and What You Should and Shouldn't Expect
This session will cover the development of the core models in Artificial Intelligence with a focus on human language interaction. Based on this foundation, you will understand their fundamental strengths and weaknesses. The intention is to provide you with an introduction to the basic inner workings, so you become an informed professional who can evaluate AI applications for tasks in your language classroom, independent of hype or doomsaying.