Voices of Impact: Iowa Adjuncts Shaping the Future of Learning
Join adjunct faculty from across Iowa for a dynamic conference designed for you! The theme is Voices of Impact: Iowa Adjuncts Shaping the Future of Learning. Explore sessions across six focused tracks:
- Teaching with Impact
- The Adjunct Experience
- Building Student Belonging
- Pathways to Professional Growth
- Collaboration and Community
- Innovative Teaching and Learning
Connect with colleagues to share experiences, spark ideas, and strengthen teaching practices while building a sense of community and collaboration.
Cost: $40 — continental breakfast and conference lunch included
Agenda
- 9 – 9:30 AM: Registration & Light Refreshments
- 9:30 – 9:50 AM: Welcome & Keynote by Lynn LaGrone, Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs, Hawkeye Community College
- 10 – 10:50 AM: Session One
- 11 – 11:50 AM: Session Two
- 12 – 12:50 PM: Lunch
- 1 – 1:50 PM: Session Three
- 2 – 2:30 PM: Wrap up & Door Prizes
Session Descriptions
Charting Your Course: Real Stories from Adjunct to Full-Time
- Presenters: Anna Laneville, Amy Boevers, Dan Nierling, Ryan Courtney, Jason Surratt, John Chiles
- Title/Position: Full Time Faculty, Hawkeye Community College
- Format: Panel Discussion
- Session One: 10 – 10:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 128
This panel will bring together current full-time Liberal Arts and CTE community college faculty who began their careers as adjuncts to share practical insights on navigating the transition to full-time positions.
Panelists will discuss strategies for professional growth and how responsibilities change when moving into a full-time role (…and how it's not just teaching more classes!).
Attendees will hear stories from people who've been there with the goal of inspiring current adjuncts regardless of their career goals.
This panel is interactive with plenty of time for questions from the audience.
Adjunct faculty will hear stories from real people who have been in their shoes and to help them to see their own potential more clearly should they aspire to go on.
Empathy and Enthusiasm in the Classroom
- Presenter: Thomas Adamson
- Title/Position: Adjunct Professor, Iowa Western Community College
- Format: Round Table
- Session One: 10 – 10:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 129
This interactive roundtable explores how empathy and enthusiasm shape meaningful learning experiences.
Participants will discuss strategies for cultivating classroom environments where students feel seen, supported, and motivated.
Drawing on practical examples and lived teaching experience, the session highlights how emotional presence, relational teaching, and authentic engagement can improve retention, participation, and student confidence.
Attendees will leave with adaptable techniques for fostering connection while maintaining academic rigor. By centering empathy as a pedagogical strength, this session reinforces how adjunct voices and practices powerfully shape student success across Iowa institutions.
AI for the AI (Adjunct Instructor)
- Presenter: Mike Wulbecker
- Title/Position: Adjunct Professor, Iowa Western Community College
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session One: 10 – 10:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 127
With AI tools increasingly shaping student work, instructors need strategies to ensure authentic learning.
This 50-minute workshop offers adjunct faculty practical techniques for designing assignments that emphasize critical thinking, personal reflection, and discipline-specific skills—elements inherently resistant to AI completion.
Participants will learn to identify vulnerable assignments, redesign them using process-oriented and personalized approaches, and implement low-stakes accountability measures.
The session includes hands-on exercises, examples, and templates, enabling instructors to leave with actionable tools for immediate classroom use.
Focusing on learning outcomes rather than policing AI, this workshop empowers adjuncts to foster integrity, engagement, and meaningful student learning in an AI-influenced classroom.
By focusing on learning outcomes rather than simply policing AI use, instructors can create meaningful assessments that engage students and preserve the integrity of the classroom experience.
Effective Lectures: More Than Just Content
- Presenter: Dr. Craig R. Leager, Ann Taylor
- Title/Position: CEO & Founder (former IHCC Executive Dean at IGCC), Dean of Arts & Sciences at Indian Hills Community College
- Format: Small Group Presentation
- Session One: 10 – 10:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 116
For adjunct faculty balancing heavy workloads and diverse student populations, the lecture remains a primary—yet often underutilized—teaching tool. This session moves beyond the "information dump" to explore how instructors can transform traditional lectures into dynamic learning experiences.
We will examine the cognitive science of student attention and introduce practical, low-prep strategies to manage cognitive load and increase retention.
Participants will explore instructional techniques that bridge the gap between delivering content and ensuring comprehension.
Designed specifically for the fast-paced schedule of adjunct instructors, this session provides a toolkit of immediate, scalable methods to boost engagement and inclusivity without increasing preparation time.
Attendees will leave with a clear framework for auditing their current lessons and the confidence to turn passive listeners into active participants, ensuring their teaching translates into genuine student success.
Formative Assessment In Online Teaching
- Presenter: Alla Manukyan
- Title/Position: Adjunct Instructor, Des Moines Area Community College
- Format: Round Table
- Session One: 10 – 10:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 117
This session focuses on the role of formative assessments in online teaching and the challenges instructors face when implementing them effectively. Through a guided, interactive roundtable format, attendees will reflect on their own use of formative assessments, evaluate their effectiveness, and identify real and potential problems, including issues related to student engagement and the unauthorized use of generative AI.
Participants will collaboratively explore strategies for overcoming these challenges and designing innovative, effective formative assessments for online teaching.
We will leave with practical ideas, adaptable strategies, and a renewed understanding of the importance of formative assessment in online teaching.
Storytelling and Sensemaking through Different Classes
- Presenter: Mary Trecek
- Title/Position: Adjunct Instructor, Associate Research Director, Iowa Western Community College
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session One: 10 – 10:50 AM
- Location: Tama 118
This session explores how storytelling and sensemaking frameworks can deepen student engagement and critical thinking. By helping students situate learning within broader personal, cultural, and disciplinary contexts, instructors can strengthen relevance and retention.
Participants will examine practical strategies for integrating narrative techniques into coursework across disciplines. The session emphasizes how storytelling fosters reflective thinking, inclusive dialogue, and deeper meaning-making.
Attendees will leave with adaptable tools for designing assignments and discussions that invite students to connect course content with lived experience—amplifying adjunct impact through intentional, student-centered pedagogy.
Innovative Teaching with ChatGPT: Examples, Ideas, and Collaboration
- Presenter: Cara Picton
- Title/Position: Adjunct Instructor, Kirkwood and Hawkeye Community College
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Two: 11 – 11:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 127
Adjunct faculty across Iowa are often the first to adapt when education shifts. Teaching across multiple campuses, modalities, and compressed terms requires flexibility, creativity, and the ability to problem-solve in real time. As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly present in higher education, adjunct instructors are not just responding to change—they are actively shaping how it unfolds in their classrooms.
This session explores how ChatGPT can function as a collaborative instructional partner rather than a shortcut or a threat. Drawing from classroom experiences in Composition courses and K–12 settings, the presentation highlights practical, everyday applications of AI that support engagement and instructional design. Examples include AI-assisted icebreakers, rapid lesson preparation, customized activity development, and creative solutions developed on short notice.
Adjunct Interview Wins: Practical Tips from Three College Leaders
- Presenters: Lynn LaGrone, Carolyn S. Gonzalez, and Anna Conway
- Title/Position: Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs (HCC), Associate Dean of Communication, Media, and English (Kirkwood), and Pathway Chair, Media Department (DMACC)
- Format: Round Table
- Session Two: 11 – 11:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 128
Whether you're pursuing your first college teaching position or seeking to expand your teaching portfolio, this session will demystify what colleges look for, highlight common interview questions, and share strategies for showcasing your teaching experience in a student-centered approach.
This will be a hands-on session designed to help current and aspiring adjuncts strengthen their interview skills and highlight what truly matters to hiring committees.
This session offers practical insights to help adjunct instructors navigate interviews with confidence and clarity. It is designed to address both the content of interview questions and the dynamics of the interview process, so participants feel more prepared, focused, and at ease when presenting themselves as teaching professionals.
We will unpack how institutions evaluate teaching effectiveness, professional experience, and "fit" with departmental and institutional values.
Participants will analyze sample questions, practice drafting responses, and consider how to connect their own experiences to student learning outcomes and institutional missions.
Cultivating Community Through Collaboration and Co-Creation
- Presenter: Natalie Deam
- Title/Position: Lecturer, DMACC and Iowa State University
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Two: 11 – 11:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 117
Young creatives too often struggle alone, feeling that their work isn't seen and their voice isn't heard. Putting student artists and writers in touch helps them develop visual and written communication skills and fosters community through interdisciplinary co-creation.
As a multi-disciplinary educator teaching in both Art and English departments, translating ideas and pedagogy across disciplines has allowed me to reach wider audiences and has helped my students develop more versatile creative practices.
This presentation will survey recent research on the impact of creative collaboration for college students, share strategies on how to build cross-disciplinary creative communities in asynchronous teaching environments, and highlight testimonials from young creatives who have collaborated on strategies for clarification and innovation.
Drawing on recent research on the powerful impact of creative collaboration for college students, this presentation will explore how to establish creative networks for students and adjuncts across departments.
Increasing Engagement in the College Writing Classroom with Team Based Learning
- Presenter: Bruce Elgin
- Title/Position: Adjunct Professor, Kirkwood
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Two: 11 – 11:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 129
This session will focus on adapting the popular teaching methodology Team Based Learning (TBL) to the writing classroom, with the goal of increasing engagement, retention, and confidence in college writing students.
We will focus on specific adaptations of TBL techniques to improve learning outcomes for even the most unprepared students and will discuss how this approach can be used at any stage of the learning and writing process.
Attendees will leave with a concrete, easy to implement teaching strategy that will not only improve the classroom experience for students but will reduce the instructor's prep time and improve their interactions with students.
Transferring Responsibility for Learning from Teacher to Student
- Presenter: Kimberly Muta
- Title/Position: Adjunct Instructor, Metropolitan Community College and Iowa Western
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Two: 11 – 11:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 118
The Gradual Release of Responsibility Instructional Framework by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher moves responsibility for learning tasks from the teacher to the student. The process moves the student toward independence in incremental steps. It begins with a focus lesson through activities like lecture and/or modeling (the focus of the presentation), continues into guided instruction as the class learns together, then moves to productive group work as students practice with each other, and finally independent practice as students take responsibility themselves. You might know this framework by the popular "I do, we do, you do."
The instructor of this presentation will take the class through the process of Gradual Release with a lesson on writing character description, in addition to teaching the class about the framework itself.
During the session, participants will work in small groups and individually to practice the modeled skill and to brainstorm ways to use the strategies in their classrooms.
Dual Roles: How Being an Adjunct Instructor Should Shape Administration
- Presenter: Michael Gau
- Title/Position: Dean, Adjunct Instructor, Northeast Iowa Community College
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Two: 11 – 11:50 AM
- Location: Tama Hall 116
It is not uncommon for administration in community colleges to serve as adjuncts also. This presentation will focus on how the adjunct experience has and should shape administration's decisions, policies, and day-to-day administration of programs. The focus will be on the important role of adjuncts, and how administration should shape actions and policies to meet the needs and wants of adjuncts, from the perspective of someone who serves in both roles. Objectives include providing insight into how serving as an adjunct instructor can shape and influence administration actions and policies.
The future of community college education continues to rely on meaningful participation of adjuncts and my presentation centers on the value, perspective, and needs of adjuncts in continuing to support community college education.
The session will involve an open discussion on how adjunct instructors are experiencing the administrative roles of scheduling and communication at their respective institutions.
What I Wish Someone Had Told Me: Navigating Online Teaching as an Adjunct
- Presenter: Honoria Balogh
- Title/Position: Dean of Academic Affairs, Iowa Valley Community College District
- Format: Round Table
- Session Three: 1 – 1:50 PM
- Location: Tama Hall 127
Your online course is often a student's first impression of college, and as an adjunct, you play a key role in shaping that experience. While all Iowa community colleges offer training and support for online instructors, you may find that some of the most important learning happens once your course actually goes live, often while clicking through your course and wondering, "Is Canvas supposed to do that?" or "How many reminders is too many reminders?" From figuring out tech systems to managing student communication, you often learn the unwritten rules of online teaching through experience. This facilitated roundtable is designed to be an informal conversation. You are invited to share your experiences teaching online, exchange practical strategies and tips, and reflect on what you wish someone had told you before your first online class. The goal is to learn from one another, validate shared experiences, and leave with new ideas.
SLOs, PLOs and Assessment of Learning, Oh My!
- Presenter: Dr. Craig R. Leager and Amy Taylor
- Title/Position: CEO & Founder (former IHCC Executive Dean at IGCC), Dean of Arts & Sciences at Indian Hills Community College
- Format: Small Group Presentation
- Session Three: 1 – 1:50 PM
- Location: Tama Hall 116
Does your classroom assessment truly reflect the goals of your program? This session demystifies the relationship between SLOs and PLOs, ensuring faculty teach with profound and lasting impact. We will explore the science of alignment, using Bloom's Revised Taxonomy as a lens to evaluate and sharpen the rigor of your assignments. Participants will engage in a "rigor audit" of common assessment tasks, learning how to bridge the gap between delivering content and measuring genuine mastery. By focusing on quality over quantity, you will discover how to design assessments that are both meaningful for the student and manageable for the busy instructor. Join us to transform your assessment practice into a powerful vehicle for shaping the future of learning.
From High School to College: Shifting Students' Mindsets around Learning, Feedback, and Accountability
- Presenter: Robert Taylor
- Title/Position: English Instructor, Kirkwood Community College and Solon Community Schools
- Format: Round Table
- Session Three: 1 – 1:50 PM
- Location: Tama Hall 128
More high school students are enrolling in college-level classes across the state, and one of the struggles students face in transitioning from high school to college is taking more responsibility for their learning. How do instructors feel about this shift? How do they address this shift in their classes without compromising their expectations? The focus of this roundtable is to share our experiences with high school students in college-level classes and to gain insight into how other instructors have shifted their thinking around teaching this newer demographic. I will outline this changing reality and share my experiences, both as a concurrent enrollment instructor and as an adjunct professor teaching introductory writing classes at Kirkwood and Solon High School.
Innovative Strategies for Curriculum Reformation through Teaching and Learning
- Presenter: Dr. Nick Payton
- Title/Position: Consultant and Owner, Assistant Professor of Human Services, Visiting Instructor of Social Work, Field Liaison, Adjunct Instructor, Simpson College and University of Iowa
- Format: Round Table
- Session Three: 1 – 1:50 PM
- Location: Tama Hall 117
Adjunct faculty across Iowa play a critical role in advancing student-centered learning and social justice–informed teaching practices. This interactive session explores Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as a practical framework for adjunct instructors to create inclusive, engaging, and equitable learning environments that support improved student outcomes. Grounded in the conference theme "Voices of Impact: Iowa Adjuncts Shaping the Future of Learning," the session highlights how everyday instructional decisions made by adjunct faculty can meaningfully influence student engagement, access, and success. Participants will examine how UDL supports student-centered learning by emphasizing flexibility, accessibility, and shared responsibility in teaching and learning. Drawing on current research and practitioner-informed examples, the session connects UDL principles to social justice pedagogy, universal course design, and institutional practices and policies.
Using Social Contracts to Promote Civic Literacy
- Presenter: Dennis Shaw
- Title/Position: Educator, Des Moines Area Community College, Winterset Community Schools
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Three: 1 – 1:50 PM
- Location: Tama Hall 129
The Social Contract, by Locke and Rousseau, is drawn into action by the instructor who outlines that a community of learners will function best when they all help create the environmental "norms" in which to function. Over the course of the semester, students gain confidence as the teacher consistently refers to the contract, reinforcing its concept as it pertains to democratic communities and American institutions. This builds strong relationships, shared expectations, student management of behavior, and empowers students to engage deeply and courageously with the most challenging issues in political life. This session centers on how we can use social contracts to establish clear expectations and structure for dialogue, reduce stress about conflict management, and help create an arena for productive discussions. In doing so, we can help students begin to see political learning not as threatening to their identity but as an opportunity to grow intellectually and civically.
How Piano Lessons Helped Me Teach A Lecture Class
- Presenter: Hanna Stolper
- Title/Position: Piano Instructor, Hawkeye Community College
- Format: Individual Presentation
- Session Three: 1 – 1:50 PM
- Location: Tama Hall 118
Do your students know how to study? This session will provide helpful tips that are taught in Music Pedagogy classes that can be transferred into the classroom of non-music disciplines. The goal of this presentation is to spark ideas about how to keep the classroom engaging and teach the students how to study the material they are learning. It can be easy to only focus on lecturing to our students about the material they are learning, and we can often forget that they may not have all the tools necessary to study your subject, especially if it has nothing to do with their major. We will discuss ideas about how to get students more engaged in class as well as more eager to study the material you've given them.
