NMC's Center for Teaching and Learning

New Faculty Orientation
2025-08-13 10:00 - 12:45 (America/New_York) | TJNIC 14
NFI Orientation Agenda 2025

Canvas Day Camp!
2025-08-13 13:00 - 16:00, 2025-08-14 09:00 - 15:00 (America/New_York) | TJNIC104/105
https://nmc.zoom.us/j/95547068719?pwd=[REDACTED]

August PD: AI Literacy for Faculty and Students
2025-08-20 12:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | Osterlin Building/Library, 4000 College Ave, Manistee, MI, United States
Save the date for our August PD workshop: AI Literacy for Faculty and Students. See the full agenda here. Whether or not we use AI, faculty have a responsibility to know what AI is, how it works, and how it impacts learning. Dr. Caitlin K. Kirby of Michigan State University and our own NMC presenters (Ryan Bernstein, Mark DeLonge, and Nicco Pandolfi) will share “use-now” information and strategies on the following:

Understanding AI basics
Modifying assignments for the AI environment
Writing effective AI syllabus policies
Sharing AI resources for students

We’ll start with lunch at noon in the old library area of Osterlin. The advising office promises that orientation will be over at noon. Workshop sessions will be upstairs in Osterlin. Please bring a laptop or notebook for hands-on work.
Attendance at August PD is contractually required of full-time faculty. Adjunct faculty are encouraged to come and paid for attendance. Staff are welcome, as always, but please RSVP for our lunch order.

Canvas Kick-Off
2025-08-21 09:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | TJNIC 04/05
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Ben Post is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.Join Zoom Meetinghttps://nmc.zoom.us/j/95547068719?pwd=[REDACTED]
Meeting ID: 955 4706 8719Passcode: [REDACTED]
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Meeting ID: 955 4706 8719
Find your local number: https://nmc.zoom.us/u/aOfyOXELN
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Canva Graphic Design Basics
2025-09-03 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Detroit)
Flyers, newsletters, presentations, infographics, mind maps—you name it, Canva can help you design it. With thousands of beautifully crafted templates and intuitive drag-and-drop tools, Canva makes it easy to bring your ideas to life. In this hands-on session, you’ll learn how to customize layouts, edit images, work with text, and make the most of Canva’s built-in magic. Whether you’re designing for your classroom, your team, or your next big idea, you’ll walk away with creative tools and confidence to match.
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

AI Prompting: Crafting Conversations with AI
2025-09-05 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Detroit)
Are you curious about AI and how it can help you? Learn about working with the AI Large Language Models (LLM’s like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.ai) to brainstorm, summarize, explain topics, find information on the web, and respond to complex prompts. Come to this session where you will see a demonstration and get hands-on practice in AI Prompting!
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

CIE Friday Forum
2025-09-05 12:30 - 14:00, 2025-10-03 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Toronto) | TJNIC 106/07
Join the Center for Instructional Excellence for lunch and professional development programming on the first Friday of the month. Everyone is welcome. Please RSVP to help us make an accurate lunch order. If you forget to RSVP, still come!

Failure to Attend Survey Due
2025-09-09 10:30 - 11:00 (America/New_York)

Failure to Attend Due
2025-09-09 10:30 - 11:00 (America/New_York)

Canva Graphic Design Presentations and Canva AI
2025-09-09 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Detroit)
Focusing on presentations and the use of AI, you will learn to apply the skills you have learned in Canva Basics to develop graphically pleasing presentations including video and audio, as well as using features such as drawing, resizing designs, magic features, text-to-image features, instant styles, and layouts. You will learn how to use AI to start the development of your presentations and how to upload existing presentations for further development in Canva. This is for use in class, on Instagram, on campus monitors, and more!
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

AI Toolkit: Applying AI to your Workflow
2025-09-12 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Detroit)
This is a workshop designed to explore LLM’s (like Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity.ai) to streamline routine tasks, create educational content, and improve communication. You will learn how LLM’s can be tailored to your specific role and area of expertise. (Please take AI Prompting before signing up for this class.)
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

New Faculty Institute
2025-09-12 14:00 - 15:30 (America/Toronto), 2025-10-10 14:00 - 15:30 (America/New_York) | IC 123

Canva: Branding with the NEW NMC Brand (for employees with Canva Teams Accounts)
2025-09-16 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-24 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Detroit)
Ready to bring our new NMC brand to life? This class will show you how to use Canva to create on-brand flyers, presentations, infographics, social posts, and more. You’ll learn how to access branded templates, apply approved fonts and colors, and maintain a consistent, professional look in everything you design. Whether you’re promoting an event, sharing a report, or building a slideshow, this session will give you the tools to create polished, brand-aligned materials with ease.
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

CIE Coffee Club
2025-09-19 10:00 - 11:00, 2025-10-17 10:00 - 11:00 (America/New_York) | Library Reading Room
Supporting Honors Contracts and Phi Theta Kappa

Presenters: Katy Knight, Lindsey Dickinson, Mark Howell

Exploring the Evolving AI Landscape
2025-09-19 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Detroit)
This advanced workshop is designed for faculty and staff who are already familiar with AI LLM’s and basic AI prompting but want to deepen their understanding of the newest developments in AI. Participants will explore powerful new tools and features—including Gemini Flash 2.5 Image, ChatGPT-5, Study and Learn, Agent Mode, storybooks, and real-world applications that are reshaping education and productivity. (Please take AI Prompting before signing up for this class or ask athornton@nmc.edu for a waiver, if you are familiar with AI Prompting.)
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

Google’s Notebook LM and Study & Learn in Gemini/ChatGPT
2025-09-23 12:00 - 13:00, 2025-09-29 15:00 - 16:00 (America/Detroit)
Anyone who works with students should learn how to use Google Notebook LM, a powerful tool that can automatically generate summaries, briefing documents, and even podcasts from your uploaded materials. Your personal data remains private—Notebook LM does not use your content to train its models, and your sources stay secure unless you choose to share them. This session also provides an introductory overview of the Study and Learn features in Gemini and ChatGPT, which enable AI-assisted research, personalized study tools, and more efficient, guided learning experiences. Faculty and staff will leave with practical strategies for integrating these tools to support student success.
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

Mastering Google Email and Calendar
2025-09-26 12:00 - 13:00 (America/Detroit)
Feeling a little lost with Gmail and Google Calendar? You’re not alone! These tools are a huge part of our daily lives at NMC, and mastering them can make a big difference.In this training, we’ll dive into the features that make communication and scheduling a breeze. We’ll show you how to take control of your inbox with Gmail’s labels, filters, and settings. You’ll also learn to streamline your schedule with Google Calendar, including how to use multiple calendars, duplicate events, and customize your settings.
To register via NEOED Learn, please follow these instructions: NeoEd Learn – Registering for Courses Instructions – for Quick Bytes
All courses are offered via Zoom. Please ensure your camera is on during our session to support collaboration and connection.

Early Alert Survey Due
2025-10-03 10:30 - 11:00 (America/New_York)

Canvas Training w/ Q&A
2025-10-09 15:00 - 16:00 (America/New_York) | Timothy J. Nelson Innovation Center & Library (IC) Room 104/105

Canvas Training w/ Q&A
2025-10-17 09:00 - 10:00 (America/New_York) | Osterlin Building/Library, 4000 College Ave, Manistee, MI, United States
The purpose of this one-hour session will be to address best practices for course building and settings, effective use of the SpeedGrader, and the ins-and-outs of cross-listed sections (what we called META’s in Moodle).
The session will conclude with a Q&A.

CIE Friday Forum: Practical Approaches to Controversial Discussions with John Zachman
2025-11-07 12:30 - 14:00 (America/Toronto) | Osterlin 205
Talking to others with different ideologies is challenging in these polarized times. If it’s difficult for us, how do we begin to help students engage with ideas and people they disagree with? And how do we respond to spontaneous discussions of controversial issues in the classroom?
Dr. John Zachman spent his sabbatical investigating these tough questions and developing practical answers. He joins us to share his research in his presentation, Democratic Deliberation in the College Classroom: Practical Approaches to Promoting Rigorous Analysis of Controversial Issues. Topics covered in his talk will include:

Current obstacles to engaging in deliberation with others.

The importance of developing in our students the ability to rationally analyze controversial issues.

Why engaging students in thoughtful analyses of key issues is essential to the health of our political society, as well as to their own personal autonomy.

A sampling of pedagogical approaches that will help to overcome the obstacles our students face in engaging with ideas that they see as hostile to their beliefs and their identities.

While John’s research is centered in his discipline of political science, he will offer strategies for guiding discussions of controversial topics that arise organically in any classroom. For instructors in the technical fields, he has suggestions for guiding discussions around ethical issues. Even if none of these situations apply, John says his presentation will be relevant to all faculty who are interested in “the broader liberal arts mission of colleges and universities.” We wholeheartedly agree!
Lunch is at 12:30 with the presentation at 1. See you in Osterlin on Friday!

New Faculty Institute
2025-11-14 14:15 - 15:45 (America/Toronto) | IC 123
14 Nov. 2025 NFI Agenda Welcome to the New Faculty Institute, a monthly meeting hosted by the Center for Instructional Excellence for new full-time and adjunct instructors. Our meetings feature guests from around the college who share guidance on the logistics of teaching at NMC. I line up guests for our meetings, but your input will guide future programming. Tell us what you need to know, and we’ll find the person who can give us the answers. But we are as much about creating relationships as about sharing information. We hope that the friendships you make in your “newbie” cohort will last throughout your career at NMC. NOTE: Adjunct instructors are welcome! You are paid a $25/hr stipend for attending the New Faculty Institute. — Janet Lively, CIE Director

CIE Coffee Club: Practical Approaches to Controversial Discussions with John Zachman
2025-11-21 10:00 - 11:00 (America/Toronto) | Library Reading Room
Join us to continue the conversation with Dr. John Zachman on discussing controversial issues in these polarized times. John began sharing his sabbatical research on the topic at the Nov. 7 Friday Forum, but will focus on classroom strategies at the Coffee Club.
Whether or not you were able to attend the Friday Forum, you will benefit from John’s discussion of pedagogical approaches to ease the obstacles our students face in engaging with ideas that they see as hostile to their beliefs and their identities.
We’ll have coffee, of course, and treats. See you fireside!
