Certificates, Training, and Professional Development

“We have a world to conquer…one person at a time…starting with ourselves.” — Nikki Giovanni

Professional Development

Dr. Gaines is committed to learning and applying new knowledge and skills to advance her teaching and research. She makes it a duty to participate in professional development, training, and certificate opportunities. Please see some certificates below.

2025 AI Fundamentals for Faculty Course

This 6-week comprehensive program has equipped attendees with valuable insights and practical knowledge on ethically integrating AI into teaching and research. Throughout the course, participants explored various ethical considerations, best practices, and innovative applications of AI that can enhance the educational experience and drive impactful research.

2024 Summer Faculty Development Institute,

Hispanic Serving Institution Track

This opportunity exposed educators to Dr. Gina Garcia’s Multidimensional Conceptual Framework for Understanding Servingness in Hispanic Serving Institutions. Attendees expanded their knowledge on Universal Design for Learning and teaching practices to best serve students who attend a Hispanic Serving Institution.

Hispanic Serving Institution Faculty Learning Community

This semester-long professional development helped to advance the concept of servingness on campus and in the classroom. It also created innovative classroom practices that benefit Hispanic Serving Institution students.

University of Central Florida’s Digital Learning Day

UCF’s Digital Learning Day was a professional development day for UCF faculty and staff. Participants attended multiple sessions that taught different ways to incorporate technology in the classroom. These included how to include multimedia content in online courses, how to make courses more accessible, and how to use memes and graphics to encourage student engagement. Participants were also introduced to resources that can be used in the classroom, such as the DIY center (captioning videos), 360 video recording, and 3D printing.

University of Central Florida National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Competency Faculty Champions Program

The NACE Competency Faculty Champion program equips participants with career-ready skills and connects students with career services, support, and resources.

IDL 6543: Interactive Distributed Learning

Offered by the University of Central Florida, this faculty professional development course provided necessary tools for teaching online, and allowed learners to create and implement advanced development strategies for delivering online courses.

Resilient Course Design Institute

SJSU’s Resilient Design Program taught effective and inclusive pedagogy for online and in-person/face-to-face instruction.

San Jose State University Teach Online Summer Certificate Program

This program taught educational technologies for teaching online. With it, instructors can implement active learning strategies for students, create low-stakes assessments, and incorporate universal design for learning online.