Digital Learning Mentors

Meet your 2024-2025 AI-Focused Digital Learning Mentors! This year’s Digital Learning Mentors (DLMs) have training, experience, and interest in exploring AI diffusion in several aspects of higher education. TLi’s Learning Design Team is thrilled to partner with the DLMs to support faculty in navigating the fast-changing AI landscape. DLMs provide a support network of peers you can contact via email or meet with in Zoom. You can reach out to a DLM to:

  • Ask questions about specific AI tools or use cases
  • Talk through an idea and discuss steps to implement 
  • Discuss a challenge you’re facing
  • Explore ways to engage with your students about AI use and information literacy
  • Seek suggestions for resources

Below, each DLM has shared more about their interests and expertise. You’re welcome to reach out to any of the mentors below.

Breeann Austin

Library

Breeann Austin - Instruction and Assessment Librarian

As a librarian I am passionate about improving information literacy skills in all of its forms, and this includes AI literacy. I am especially interested in how we can use (and not use) these tools in lesson planning, research, and accessibility. Please reach out to me if you have any questions on how to use the AI tools I've listed in my toolkit. I can help you navigate a tool, evaluate the information they produce, design an effective prompt, and much more. I'm interested in how we can help students understand how to use and not use AI. So I would welcome the opportunity to brainstorm and assist in designing lesson plans and activities discussing AI resources to students. So please let me know if I can help you explore AI and hopefully I can learn something from you as well.

Kristen Linton

Health Science

Kristen Linton - Assistant Professor in Health Science

Ask me about: integrating AI into teaching, research, and service. I have used AI to improve my teaching to be more engaging by creating AI patients for students to interact with. I have used it for data analysis and literature reviews. I have used it to synthesize meeting notes to recommend program learning outcomes too.

Benny Ng

Chemistry

Benny Ng - Lecturer Chemistry

As one of the AI-DLMs, I am happy to discuss and explore a wide range of AI-related topics with my fellow faculty members. I am particularly interested in brainstorming and using AI in all disciplines.  The development of AI is so rapid that one can feel suffocating and overwhelming.  I am here to support you to play with different tools in order to improve teaching and learning effectiveness as well as learning outcomes.  Finally, I am eager to learn from you about your experiences with AI.

Former Mentors

Leslie Abell

Sociology

Leslie Abell headshot

Dr. Abell joined the CI faculty in 2014 and regularly teaches core curriculum courses, such as Statistical Applications in the Social Sciences, Writing in the Social Sciences, and Sociology Capstone as well as electives, such as Crime and Society. In the Sociology Capstone course, she often engages students in Community Based Research with local community partners or partners on campus.

She has participated in a variety of professional development programs, including ISLAS, several Faculty Inquiry Projects (FIPs), THRIVE, and is a current participant in ACUE’s Effective Online Teaching Practices. Her research interests include family relationships and desistance, true crime, and the scholarship of teaching and learning.

Maria Ballesteros-Sola

MVS School of Business & Economics

Photo of Maria Ballesteros-SolaAsk me about course backward design, flipped classroom, interactive sessions both online & face to face, interactive activities in the classroom, case method teaching, online experiential and service learning, affordable course materials & #OER, scaffolded assignments. Please reach out and if I don’t know the answer to your question we will figure it out and learn together.

Stacey Beauregard

English

Photo of Stacey BeauregardI'm always happy to talk about: course and module organization (including scaffolding and creating effective workflows), designing for multiple modes of engagement, peer feedback, student-to-student interaction in asynchronous courses, and efficient individual engagement with students. I'm also interested in creative approaches to online teaching, and would be happy to be a sounding board for brainstorming creative assignment, assessment, or design ideas.

Tom Clobes

Health Sciences

Photo of Tom ClobesMy teaching approach includes (1) individualized instruction, (2) innovation, and (3) humanized elements, and a focus on diversity and inclusion to meet the needs of a diverse student body. I am huge advocate of directly reaching out to struggling students (i.e., missing class, not submitting assignments, low grades), using video feedback to supplement written feedback for low performing students and humanizing elements in asynchronous classes.

Diana Lenko

MVS School of Business & Economics, MBA Program

Photo of Diana Lenko

As a part-time lecturer, I understand the ongoing struggle to seek information about professional faculty development and the challenge of bouncing ideas off each other. I am very motivated to build the community and help point you to the right path to get information.

I am learning as I go. I am very open to trying new things. Please reach out to discuss ideas for student engagement; course organization, and planning; finding the right balance between synchronous and asynchronous sessions; staying connected with virtual office hours; using Zoom to ensure active online learning.
I feel strongly about developing and promoting alternate assignments that foster lasting, meaningful, and joyful engagement in my class.

Danna Lomax

School of Education

Photo of Danna Lomax

I welcome the opportunity to collaborate on anything you want to explore in support of students. As a Canvas builder in the k-12 world, I have experience with backward mapping from outcomes and creating course modules in a variety of subject areas.

My interests include centering student voice, making space for courageous conversations and building community through a variety of assignments that incorporate multiple perspectives and Social and Emotional learning experiences. I love Community Circles! Also, given that some of our students are emergent bilinguals, in my courses, I focus on language acquisition. I work to incorporate supports for students to acquire language and strategies, as well as content knowledge into my courses.

Melissa Miller

Liberal Studies/SOE

Melissa Miller headshot

I've taught for 14 years in K-8 Public Education and as a lecturer for 13 years at CSUCI (Liberal Studies/SOE). I am an Induction Mentor for Ventura Unified School District, CUE Presenter for Technology Uses in Education, and a Canvas Presenter.

Robin Mitchell

History

Robin Mitchell headshot

Robin Mitchell is an Associate Professor of History at the California State University Channel Islands (CI). She received her master’s degree in Late Modern European History from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her doctorate in Late Modern European History from the University of California, Berkeley, with a Designated Emphasis in Women, Gender, and Sexuality. Her dissertation investigated the correlation between representations of black women in France and the aftermath of the Haitian Revolution. In addition to numerous published journal articles, Professor Mitchell’s first book, entitled VÉNUS NOIRE: Black Women & Colonial Fantasies in 19th-Century France was published with University of Georgia Press in January of 2020.

William H. Munroe

Chemistry

Photo of William H. MunroeI’m happy to discuss many items that could be beneficial for your teaching. Topics that I may be able to help you with include assessment ideas on Canvas, community building for online courses, flipped classrooms, OER materials, and other ideas to help with student engagement for online courses.

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