SHARON, Pa. — Tammy Divens, teaching professor and program coordinator of Penn State Shenango’s occupational therapy assistant program, recently received a 2025 Faculty Engagement Award from Penn State Teaching and Learning with Technology (TLT).
The mission of TLT is to explore new and emerging technologies and find collaborative ways to innovate and transform teaching pedagogy and learning strategies for faculty and students at Penn State. The theme of the 2025 Faculty Engagement Awards is “Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Teaching including Microsoft Copilot 365.” According to a release, faculty award recipients will collaborate with TLT to experiment with AI-driven tools to support course planning, content design and instructional delivery.
“I’ve been able to explore innovative educational technologies, collaborate with TLT, and engage with colleagues about using AI tools to enhance teaching and creativity,” said Divens, whose primary focus has been integrating generative AI into the classes that she teaches.
“I've used ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot to support course planning, improve presentations, develop new assignments, and align course content with accreditation requirements,” Divens said. “These tools have streamlined my preparation and allowed me to design more engaging and effective learning materials.”
According to Inside Higher Ed’s 2025-26 Student Voice survey, 85% of students who participated claim to have used generative AI for coursework in the last year. As part of the same survey, 43% of students felt somewhat positive or very positive about faculty use of generative AI, as long as it was done thoughtfully and made the instruction more relevant and efficient.
Divens plans to do just that.
“I have leveraged AI image generation through Adobe Express and ChatGPT to create course introduction videos and produce humorous or creative content to increase student engagement,” Divens said. “These efforts have enriched both the instructional design and the overall classroom experience.”
Faculty Engagement Award recipients work with an instructional designer and technology support staff from TLT to help identify the most effective in-class uses of a particular technology. Additionally, a TLT researcher may assess the impact of this technology and share relevant findings of the program with the greater Penn State community.