Several members of the Distance Learning Team attended TEACHx 2025 on May 21st and 22nd. The conference, presented by Northwestern IT’s Teaching and Learning Technology Team, showcased innovative approaches to higher education instruction and student support. As in previous years, the conference was informative, thought-provoking, and very well run. Congratulations to Rachel Goc of TLT, who was the lead for this year’s very successful event. Here are some of our favorite TEACHx sessions.
AI-Powered Learning Tools
-Dan Murphy
- In the session, “From Knowing to Doing: GenAI-Powered Study and Time Management Support” presented by Rachel Goc (Learning Engineer, Northwestern IT Teaching & Learning Technologies) and Chamille Lescott (Assistant Professor of Instruction, McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science) presented their work on the Personal Academic Wildcat Support (PAWS) project. PAWS is designed to help students evaluate the study and time management strategies they use to prepare for exams. It is essentially a very detailed prompt that can be used with popular AI chatbots. The student interacts with the chatbot in a dialog. The output from the prompt is a series of follow-up questions and clarifying statements to encourage students to reflect on their study habits. The prompt is not designed to produce a verbose response or provide specific instructions for students. The developers do not make the claim that PAWS will replace a tutor, study coach, or instructor, instead it is designed to get students to consider the effectiveness of their study habits.
- Shayan Bafandkar (Ph.D. Student) and Alireza Talebpour (Assistant Professor), both from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, conducted a session, “PAPPL: Introducing the Personalized AI-Powered Progressive Learning System.” PAPPL is an AI-Powered assessment tool that can provide personalized feedback based on a students’ incorrect answers. Additionally, it provides instructors with analytical tools to monitor student performance. PAPPLE is a Python app that makes use of ChatGPT to process text entry responses and generate relevant feedback and hints for students. With the incorporation of AI into their assessment platform, the instructor (or exam developer) does not have to write feedback or hints specific to each question or wrong answer. It is also easier to create questions that require a text entry response because the AI can interpret the various text values students may enter. There is no need to anticipate all the variations of the correct answer for these types of questions. Bafandkar and Talebpour presented the beta version of PAPPLE. I hope to see an open source or commercial version very soon.
Why Accessibility Matters
-Nathan Schmidt
Judith Risch’s “Why Digital Accessibility Matters Today” was very helpful in my overall understanding of accessibility, in particular its historical and modern contexts. Accessibility standards are a relatively new field since I’ve started working for Northwestern less than a year ago, so learning about the past and present standards and their impact gave me a better vision of my role at the University. For instance, the information about accessibility-related lawsuits (and how there are law firms that actively search for failings in accessibility on university websites) helped drive home the potential ramifications, and I appreciated her advice that schools need to meet the government’s standards before they’re officially enacted. She also provided some useful information on terminology, which will prove useful as I continue to expand my role in supporting Northwestern’s accessible learning.
Storytelling Frameworks to Drive Engagement
-Jackie Wickham Smith
Brian Klaas’s presentation, “From Plato to Pixar: Using Storytelling Frameworks to Drive Engagement”, was well-attended by distance learning staff, and for good reason! Brian supported the audience in brainstorming elements of a good story, communicated reasons why people shy away from using storytelling as a teaching tool, and shared several examples of storytelling enhancing data communication.
Brian invited attendees to create their own story based on one of two frameworks: The Hero’s Journey or The Pixar Framework. The Hero’s Journey framework is well-known and has many forms; the version this presentation focused on had only three steps:
- Departure/Separation: Where we were. What’s the context?
- Initiation: Trials and challenges. What did you do and how did you do it? What are the issues we should be concerned about?
- Return: What we learned and how the world is changed. This is how you show the benefit(s) and why this is important.
The Pixar Framework reflects the storytelling used in Pixar’s popular movies and was documented by lead storyboard artist Emma Coates:
- Once upon a time – Context of the world – the problem
- And every day – Everyday life in that world – existing solutions; why they didn’t work
- Until one day – Incident that launches the story – new solution
- And because of this – The character’s journey – how things changed
- And because of that – The character’s new journey – how things improved
- Until finally – Resolution of the story – current outcome
The presentation inspired discussion among the learning design team about how we can encourage faculty to use stories, both in course design and teaching.
TEACHx 2025 was a great opportunity to attend engaging sessions, meet educators and technologists from other institutions, see the latest vendor offerings, and reconnect with current and former Northwestern colleagues. We all hope to be a part of TEACHx again next year, as we continue our journeys with Northwestern and Distance Learning.