Digital Discernment: Navigating Life, Faith, and Technology

Dr. Ott is a highly respected scholar and nationally recognized expert in a number of ethical discourses. As a feminist and Christian ethicist, Dr. Ott specializes in technology, children and youth, sexuality, pedagogy, and professional ethics. She has authored several books, including Christian Ethics for a Digital Society and, most recently, Sex, Tech & Faith: Ethics for a Digital Age

Digital Discernment at Home, School, and Church

In this session we will be discussing the implications of Dr. Ott’s presentation with regard to raising children and youth. This session will be conversational, inviting local ministry leaders, seminarians, parents, and educators to discuss how information about “Digital Discernment” might inform how they shape the digital world of the children in their lives

Digital and Information Equity: Discerning the Issues & Solutions in Seattle

Seattle\u27s economy is fueled by the tech industry, yet many citizens do not have access to internet service, devices, and basic technology training. Join librarians and Information Studies professors Kristen Hoffman and Liz Gruchala-Gilbert in exploring Digital and Information Equity in Seattle — what it is, who is impacted, and what solutions are being implemented

Improvement of Sepsis Management through Nursing Education on Medical-Surgical Floors

Executive Summary Background and Significance: Sepsis and septic shock are the leading cause of death worldwide, and sepsis is the 10th cause of death in the United States (Deutschman et al., 2020; Rhodes et al., 2016; Serrano-Smith et al., 2016). Sepsis and septic shock are major healthcare problems and account for a significant financial burden on the American healthcare system (Downing et al., 2019a). Despite the multiple efforts to enhance sepsis recognition and management in hospital settings, higher rates of poor health outcomes associated with sepsis are still prevalent in medical-surgical units. Sepsis in patients in medical-surgical units often goes undiagnosed with delayed response and treatment (Rhodes et al., 2016; Schorr et al., 2016). Education to improve sepsis recognition and treatment is vital to enhancing sepsis survival rates. Continuous nursing education is central to bedside nurses recognizing signs and symptoms of health problems and providing prompt, safe, and effective nursing care. Purpose statement: This project aimed to evaluate two educational methods to determine the most effective method for improving nurses\u27 understanding of sepsis and prompt initiation of sepsis orders. An in-person sepsis training was provided to a cohort of acute care nurses. Pre- and post-intervention surveys were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the two educational modalities on nurses\u27 understanding of sepsis and sepsis orders, prompt providers\u27 alert, and initiation of sepsis workup and treatments. Methods: This is a quality improvement and program evaluation project with a quantitative study method and quasi-experimental pretest-posttest design. The study goal was to determine if there is a difference between online and in-person education. Two methods of instruction, online and in-person, are independent variables; the dependent variables are knowledge acquisition and knowledge retention about sepsis among acute care nurses. Pre- and post-intervention surveys were used to assess the relationships between the variables. Results/Outcomes: The project results were slightly better for in-person teaching on improving nurses\u27 knowledge about sepsis and initiating sepsis orders. The project showed nurses\u27 preference for learning through a combination of in-person and online educational strategies. In addition, participants expressed their interest in learning various other topics related to sepsis patient care management and recommended including simulations and annual refresher sessions. Sustainability: Based on the project\u27s outcomes, several recommendations were made to the sepsis committee. The proposals include incorporating sepsis education into nursing educational sessions. The sepsis training for acute care nurses should be provided through a combination of online and in-person education. In addition, teaching sessions should include case studies and annual refresher sessions for bedside nurses. Educational materials can be based on online modules, PowerPoint presentations, and visual aids created for this Doctor of Nursing Practice project. Implications: In the post-Covid-19 changing healthcare environment, a focus on sepsis education will become fundamental in identifying and improving sepsis outcomes. This DNP project hopes to raise awareness of the importance of sepsis training among acute care nurses, as the early recognition and initiation of sepsis bundles and treatments can significantly improve sepsis survival outcomes for hospitalized patients

Discerning Climate Change Information and Responses

Climate Change can feel like an overwhelming topic. We will discuss good strategies for intaking news, discerning truth, responding, and maintaining hope and agency. How can lament, anger and grief be helpful? This will be a lecture format with a Q&A

Digital Detox: Art and Embodiment

As communication technologies become more and more pervasive, penetrating our private spaces, and moving entire communities into virtual space, the art world responds by creating ever more embodied, visceral and interactive experiences. In this breakout session, SPU Art History Professor Katie Kresser will interview multimedia artist Daniel Chang about both his work in digital media and his recent performance piece, Breath of God: Please Remove Your Shoes, staged at Biola University. In this interactive piece, which included elements of sound, light, and movement, Chang hoped to create a physical experience of journeying and transition that would help visitors detox from the harms of Covid-era “digital” isolation

Back to AI, Faith, and the Future

Four years ago, a group of SPU professors got together to study artificial intelligence and faith. They created a year-long research project to explore the impact of AI from various disciplinary perspectives and from the perspective of Christian faith. The project culminated in a collection of essays published as AI, Faith, and the Future: An Interdisciplinary Approach. Since the appearance of their book, due to the availability of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, AI has become a hot topic. In this session, contributors to the book will revisit and update their thoughts about AI, faith, and the future

Leveraging Ancient Wisdom to Steward AI Opportunities

Drawing on the six-year participation of AI and Faith in this global conversation, this talk discusses how Christians can better engage the AI ethics debate at scale through traditional and new story telling techniques that leverage the Bible’s powerful stories of fall and restoration; soulful integration of mind, heart, and strength; and the fundamental importance of incarnation

Discerning the Past Online

This session will look at representations of events and figures from ancient history on various online platforms and at how we consume them. Not only will we consider whether the representations are accurate or fictional, we will also look at their aesthetics and visual rhetoric

Culturally Responsive Teaching and Learning Achievement

Over the last decades the United States demographics reflect an increase in student diversity and multilanguage learners have changed the landscape of the education system. Educators are having a difficult time connecting, reaching, and teaching many of these diverse and multilingual learners. As a result, culturally and linguistically diverse students are not successful in school and are pushed out of secondary schools at an alarming rate. The United States educational system faces a glaring discrepancy of teacher and student demographics. In America 84% of teachers are White not Hispanic, only 6% of teachers are Latino/Hispanic, 8% are Black and less than 1% are Asian. In contrast only 46% of students are White, 28% percent of students are Hispanic/Latinx, 15.6% are Black and 4.8% are Asian. (National Center for Education Statistics [NCES], 2022). The purpose of this research study is to further explore the effects of Culturally Responsive Teaching (CRT) on culturally diverse students and their academic achievement in intermediate students when their teachers have high cultural competence. Culturally responsive teaching centers the learners’ culture, racial identity, language, and ways of being in their instruction, curriculum, and assessment practices. The researcher conducted a quantitative causal-comparative retrospective research study to find relationships and differences between teachers’ cultural competence and percentage of students meeting standards on the Smarter Balanced Assessment (SBA). Third through fifth grade teachers were surveyed to measure their cultural competence using the Educators Scale of Student Diversity (ESSD) instrument. Teachers scored into one of two groups: group one, high cultural competence, and group two, low cultural competence. Next, a series of independent samples t tests and Pearson r correlations were performed to determine if there was a difference in teachers’ cultural competency and student performance. The overarching hypothesis was that if teachers have high cultural competence students will pass the SBA at a higher percentage. No significant differences or relationships were found between teachers’ level of cultural competency and student performance