Professional Development Plan

Submit Mesa AI Summit proposal ⚠ Mar 30, 2026, Session: Building Career Tools That Outlast the Semester. Full proposal and abstract →

Notification by April 1, 2026, Watch email. If accepted, confirm attendance and prepare demo materials.

If accepted: prep for May 18, Lead with the problem, not the tool. The Canvas access gap and the missed connection between courses and student services are things every faculty member will recognize. Start there before showing Render.

Prep list:
· Live demo of Render using the sample dashboard with anonymized student data
· Brief slides: origin story (the Canvas gap), course competency alignment in AVC 248, iterative design process
· Usability testing findings from student group and Career Services (Mollie)
· The career services data connection and why it matters institutionally
· A “what could this look like in your discipline?” moment, give attendees 5 minutes to sketch one phase
· Shareable link: singletrackmom.github.io/render

Attend Mesa AI Summit, May 18, 2026, Full day, 8:30am–3:30pm, Mesa CC Southern & Dobson. Even if not accepted, attend to network. Connections here support the AI CoP launch in September.

Log in PD Log after the event, Copy this summary: Presented “Building Career Tools That Outlast the Semester” at the 2026 AI Summit, Mesa Community College (May 18, 2026). Live demo of Render, an AI-powered career dashboard prototype built for AVC 248 at GCC, showing how a course tool can bridge competencies to student services including a live data connection to GCC Career Services. 50-minute session with Q&A; mixed audience of faculty, instructional designers, and administrators from across the Maricopa district.

EDUCAUSE AI for Instructional Design Jun 16–25, ✅ Registered. 5 modules, ~5–6 hrs, live sessions 6/16, 6/18, 6/23 & 6/25 (2:30–3:30 PM ET). Earns a verified digital microcredential. Directly usable as AIAC session content.

Anthropic Academy, Teaching AI Fluency (~4 hrs, free). Start with AI Fluency Foundations. Use as AIAC Session 1 assigned reading for members.

Google Generative AI for Educators (2 hrs, free certificate). Do this yourself first, then assign to AIAC members as a shared first-session baseline.

Google AI Essentials Certificate (Coursera, ~10 hrs), Earns a Credly digital badge for LinkedIn. Complete after Google Educators course.

Create Surveys with Qualtrics, Guided Project (Coursera, ~2 hrs). Foundation for needs-assessment methodology. Do both Qualtrics projects back to back.

Customer Satisfaction Survey in Qualtrics (Coursera, ~2 hrs). Builds research skills for student-services needs assessment.

Become a Product Manager, Udemy (~10 hrs, ~$15 on sale). First half in May, finish by July. Core PM vocabulary: user stories, personas, product requirements, roadmapping.

Read Inspired by Marty Cagan (Kindle ~$20). Parts 1–2 in June, finish by August. Map every concept to your GCC experience as you read.

Programming for Everybody, Python Course 1 (U. Michigan / Coursera, 4–6 weeks). Course 1 only. Foundation for understanding what these tools will be built on.

Microsoft Learn, AI for Educators (~4 hrs, free). Copilot is free through GCC’s M365. Good fill-in content while planning AIAC.

Andrej Karpathy “Intro to Large Language Models” (YouTube, 1 hr), Context windows, embeddings, tokens, fine-tuning vs. prompting. Gives you vocabulary to talk to EdTech engineers.

Watch for NAAIC AI Leadership Institute, Cohort VI (Fall 2026). 6-month program: AI Ethics Certification, expert coaching, peer network. Check if Maricopa institutional membership applies for pricing.

Write AIAC charter, session calendar, and resource repository, Draft proposal is live: Faculty AI Advisory Committee Proposal ↗. Use ASU AI CoP toolkit and OLC CoP Playbook as templates. Share AIAC draft with CTLE Director before launch.

Launch Faculty AI Advisory Committee (AIAC) at GCC, Session 1: Google AI for Educators as shared baseline. Month 2–3: joint faculty + student services session on AI tools for student support. Document attendance and outcomes.

Attend NAAIC National AI Summit Oct 14–16, Chandler, AZ. RSVP now. Present AIAC work if possible. Meet student success tool developers, great for networking.

Submit OLC Accelerate proposal, CFP opens March 17, 2026. Submit AIAC + student dashboard work. Likely deadline May–June 2026.

Archive past semester posts, Remove or de-attribute work from previous semesters. This resolves the primary FERPA concern (cross-semester student visibility). Establish a channel structure that separates current critique from permanent community channels.

Recruit Disability Services as embedded partner, Approach Disability Services with a clear ask: a staff presence in a designated channel as a resource connector, not a record-keeper. Model after the existing tutoring and career services integrations. Then do the same for Counseling Services.

Launch monthly industry speaker series, One industry professional per month in a Discord Stage channel or linked from Discord announcements. Coordinate with Career Services (Mollie) on employer relationships. Students submit questions in advance via a dedicated channel. Ties directly into Render pilot (Fall 2026).

Add student club channels, Create #ArtClub (linked to GCC Art Club, where you are alternate faculty advisor) and #GenerativeAIClub (new club in exploration). Club channels bring additional student-led activity and cross-program connection that doesn’t depend on faculty facilitation.

Structured employer portfolio reviews, Invite employers and career services into the server for periodic portfolio review events visible to the full community, not just graduating students. Connects to Render (Fall 2026 pilot) and AVC248 capstone.

Explore AI-powered community assistant, A Discord bot using the Claude API that can answer FAQs (office hours, deadlines, course resources), surface job postings, and surface events. No student data collected. Potential AIAC demo and conference proof-of-concept. Start with a scoped prototype.

Document and propose as a conference session or white paper, Frame: “From Critique Channel to Campus Community: Building Student Services into Where Students Already Are.” Possible venues: Mesa AI Summit (May 2026), OLC Accelerate (Nov 2026), EDUCAUSE Annual (Sep 2026). Possible research thread on Discord as a connectivist student services platform.

Research UX courses at Arizona universities, ASU, U of A, NAU course banks. What exists, what gaps are present, how your course would be distinctly positioned in the DMA curriculum.

Complete UX & Design Toolkit, Jira, Figma, JTBD, Scrum ceremonies. This is the foundation for the course you’re building and a portfolio resource for students.

Draft UX course outline and SLOs, Position as replacement for AVC 283. Ground in Nielsen Norman, Figma, JTBD, and real-world portfolio projects. AI-integrated throughout.

Submit to Instructional Council, New course proposal to replace AVC 283 with a UX course in the Digital Media Arts curriculum.

Track retention data, document evidence that the new AI tools improved student retention at GCC. Collect Jan–May 2028. This is the outcomes story for the work.

SQL for data analysis, Mode Analytics tutorial (free). First 3 sections minimum. Useful for analyzing product and student data directly.

Finalize the portfolio, student dashboard (AVC 248), AIAC leadership, prototypes, conference presentation, retention data, and Coursera certificates gathered in one place.

Sharpen product and analytics skills, product-management frameworks and mock practice (Exponent, Pramp) to keep the toolkit current.

Disseminate findings and keep growing, share the work and pursue new opportunities for impact in AI and learning.

Write PM Case Study 1, One real GCC decision in PM language: Problem → Users → Constraints → Solution → How You’d Measure Success. LMS adoption is a natural starting point.

Explore Canvas AI Community, Read 10 threads. Note 3 educator pain points as product discovery practice: what problem is being described, who has it, how severe is it?

Write an AI EdTech product teardown, Pick a tool you use daily (Canvas AI, Grammarly, Copilot). Structure: user problems solved, technical constraints, what you’d prioritize as PM. Portfolio piece.

Build a mock product roadmap, 5 product ideas that improve onboarding, adoption, or retention for an EdTech platform. Rank by impact/effort. Portfolio piece.

Set up Google Analytics 4 on a GitHub Pages site. Understand events, funnels, retention metrics. PMs live in dashboards, get comfortable with GA4.

Publish a LinkedIn article, frame around a specific insight from AIAC or dashboard work. Visibility in the EdTech community matters.