Event Description

Online & DIstributed Learning Dean Weston will kick off the 2025 Online Summit with a presentation on distance education efforts across the District, updated numbers on our students, and support for the 25/26 year.

About our Presenter

Brian Weston started working in California Community College’s as an American Sign Language Interpreter and progressed into Information Technology and Teaching. Brian serves as the Dean of Online & Distributed Learning at San Diego Community College District. He leads the Districtwide Distance Education Steering Committee, Educational Services Software Workgroup, and Student Textbook Affordability Committee for the district. His focus is enhancing online programs and course offerings while ensuring that students have access to necessary college services.

Event Description

In this interactive keynote, we'll cover what the rise of Generative AI programs like ChatGPT and Claude mean for the future of authentic assessment. We'll begin by covering some basics of the technology, with a specific focus on the challenges it brings for assessing students' knowledge and skill. After that, we will cover a menu of options for adapting our own assessments for AI  — including AI-embedded assignments, process-focused assignments, and more. Our goal is to improve our assignments, both my making them more pedagogically sound and by discouraging the over-use or misuse of AI.

About our Presenter

Jason Gulya, PhD is a professor of English and Communications at Berkeley College, where he teaches both online and in person. At Berkeley, he is the chair of the AI and Academic Integrity Committee, as well as a member of the AI Task Force. He has worked with dozens of colleges and universities, as they try to figure out what AI means for the  classroom. Gulya co-wrote a book titled “Artificial Intelligence, Real Literacy” in 2025, and is currently writing a book on process-focused teaching for the Age of AI. He has been featured in Chronicle of Higher Ed, Inside Higher Ed, Forbes, Business Insider, and other publications.

Event Description

Join us for an informal College Chat with your Online Faculty Mentor! This is your opportunity to connect directly with your college’s mentor to discuss what’s happening in online education at your campus, share ideas, ask questions, and learn about upcoming initiatives.

Each college in the San Diego Community College District has its own Online Faculty Mentor who supports faculty in online teaching and learning:

• City College, Aileen Gum (English)
• CE College, Lisa Acierno (Basic Skills)
• Mesa College, Kim Lacher (English)
• Miramar College, Open Position

Come join the conversation and connect with your campus community!

About our Speakers

Visit the Online Faculty Mentors page to find your mentor and learn more about the support available at your college.

Event Description

Join a dynamic panel of faculty from across the district as they explore how assessment practices are evolving in today’s digital learning environment. Panelists will share innovative strategies, practical tools, and lessons learned for creating meaningful assessments in online courses.

Speakers

• City College, Oscar Preciado (English)
• City College, Marc Biagi (IT & Computer Science)
• CE College,  Ernesto Garcia (Basic Skills)
• Miramar College, Rodrigo Gomez (English)
• Mesa College, Kim Lacher (English)

Event Description 

How are students faring with the new digital landscape of tools at their fingertips? Listen in as we ask questions about their experiences with online course assessments.

Speakers

• Rodrigo Lopez
• Maria Rodriguez Rivera
• Amber Eich

Event Description

Designing courses that prepare students for the future (which contains technologies and other changes we cannot foresee) begins with a foundational question about our course goal and then aligning our assessments with that goal. These assessments engage students with skills that they will need in their future and minimize cheating. 

About our Speaker

Suzanne Wakim has been teaching since 2000 and has taught almost all of the classes in the Biology Department.  Suzanne has taught, designed and created many different biology courses for biology majors, non-majors and pre-health professional students.   Having taught such a wide variety of classes and modalities has helped Suzanne develop a flexible teaching approach and an understanding of the varied types of approaches that work (or don't) for a given topic.

Suzanne has been teaching online since 2010 and has developed 3 online courses for Butte College. She developed the first online biology course ("Current Issues in Biology”) in the department in 2010. She has also developed an online version of "Human Biology” and “honors biology”. For more information about Suzanne’s approach to online learning, peruse her online teaching portfolio.

Her passion for education and biology has resulted in the creation of truly unique learning experiences for students. Suzanne has also collaborated on writing teaching resources, student resources, textbooks, and state assessments. As an instructional trainer, Suzanne helps mentor and guide new instructors.

Event Description

Dean Weston's concluding words for our 2025 DE Summit.

Congratulations to our raffle prize winners who joined us on-ground and online:

• Ric Matthews
• Philippe Patto 
• Lisa Burget
• Donna Macaspac
• George Bonilla  
• Kim Sweeney
• Jessica Wang
• Dawn Diskin
• Aurelia Yee
• Myong Seok 

Hosted by

Online Learning Pathways Team