Room: E-Building, E-217
Presenter(s): J. Elizabeth Clark (English), Kasey Powers (CTL and Social Science), Benjamin Taylor (Natural Sciences), Tonya Hendrix (Natural Sciences)

Over the past year, a group of faculty members drawing from the humanities, social sciences, and sciences engaged in a CTL seminar that focused on the liberal arts at LaGuardia. A key component of this seminar was the development of a new midpoint course for all liberal arts students, LIN150: Research in the Liberal Arts. The course will be an urban studies course and will assess the global learning competency. Integral to this course is engaging students in the scope of liberal arts research as it applies to the humanities, social sciences, science, and mathematics. To accomplish this, faculty teaching the course will have students participate in co-curricular activities, in which data will be collected. Given the interdisciplinary nature of this course, the data collected will be representative of each discipline within the liberal arts. In addition, the scope of each co-curricular activity is intended to encompass the urban studies aspect of the course, but will also be connected to a larger, global problem (e.g. water conservation, food scarcity, climate change). In this workshop, faculty will work in cross-disciplinary groups to collaborate and brainstorm a variety of co-curricular activities. Additionally, groups will conceptualize the types of data that can be collected for each activity and how the co-curricular event will connect to the urban studies and global learning aspects of the course.

Room: E-Building, E-225
Presenter(s): Marsha Oropeza (CPL), Christine Pardo (CPL), Nedelka Sotelo(CPL), Tomonori Nagano (CPL and ELA)

In this presentation you will learn about Credit for Prior Learning (CPL) and its expansion at LaGuardia through the Credits for Success initiative. With funding from Robin Hood Foundation, LaGuardia established the Office of Credit for Prior Learning which leverages CUNY’s new Credit for Prior Learning policy to pioneer a college completion and workforce development equity agenda.  Through Credits for Success, LAGCC’s goal is to establish a network of guided pathways that incorporate an ACE-to credit pipeline for New Yorkers who have some college (stop-outs), and/or have accumulated educational debt. The Credits for Success initiative have expanded our culture of collaboration between Academic Affairs and Adult and Continuing Education to also include building direct pipelines with community-based organizations in Queens. Learn how the CPL office supports this academic process by providing oversight of the CPL policy and advocacy on behalf of our students, as well as expanding the knowledge and value of CPL with the LaGuardia community. Most importantly, you will hear from students who have directly benefited from CPL and how it shaped their success and trajectory at LaGuardia.

Room: E-Building, E-227
Presenter(s): Jessica Kindred (Social Science)

Reflecting on the pandemic, we watched the unfolding of a revolution of student culture in the application of WhatsApp from international family use to class group use. The success of LaGuardia students graduating was attributed to adaptation to zoom and blackboard, but in fact we lost many students in that first semester before What’s App swept across the educational landscape from the ground up. It was this cultural transfer of Whats App use by which students created the pandemic hallway, the network, and the success of schooling in the pandemic through the ability to socially connect.
Being Them is an activity that can be adapted to any learning area to unify the learning goals with the social needs of students. This workshop will demonstrate this activity and its flexibility to any area of content, and provide a toolbox for its implementation.

Room: E-Building, E-229
Presenter(s): Dušana Podlucká (Social Science)

As a faculty participating in the the CUNY-wide, NSF-funded research study Faculty Development and Student Engagement in Data Analysis (FDSEDA): Building Capacity in Numeracy among Underrepresented Students and its Data Analysis Research Experience (DARE) Program focusing on the infusing quantitative reasoning and data analysis in the curriculum in this presentation I will share my students’ and my experiences of implementing DARE assignment in Social Psychology course. In the first part of the presentation I will explain goals and objectives of DARE assignment which focuses on strengthening quantitative skills of the students. Those include students’ ability to design survey questions and collect data using Google forms; work with spreadsheet software to manipulate and analyze data; prepare bivariate pivot tables using Excel or Google sheets; convert raw numbers from tables to percentages; prepare graphs in Excel/Google sheets, such as stacked bar charts; and write appropriately about quantitative data, including tables with percentages. Participants of the workshop will have an opportunity to try out their quantitative skills and data interpretation and thus better understand some of the challenges of learning and teaching quantitative reasoning. Finally, I will share my DARE project and discuss its  impact on students’ mastery of quantitative skills, their engagement, learning and development, and my own pedagogy. For example, DARE assignment created context for collaborative learning, promoted accessibility of learning, and resulted in other transformative changes in students and my teaching.

Room: E-Building, E-253
Presenter(s): Milena Cuellar (MEC), Ellen Quish (Academic Affairs), Reem Jaafar (MEC)

LaGuardia Community College’s priority is to serve a diverse body of students and build an inclusive community, as stated in our mission and strategic plan. This presentation is designed to advance abilities and awareness for cultivating inclusive learning environments, with examples in the STEM disciplines. However, these ideas and practices are valuable to individuals in all fields and aspects of education. During the session, we will collaboratively learn from each other how to cultivate an inclusive teaching environment for all our students. We will engage in a dialogue related to diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, collaborating to establish a vocabulary related to inclusive teaching practices. We will explore ways of understanding how our identities, power, and experience influence student learning outcomes, as well as how students’ learning experiences inform their identities. We hope to inspire participants to challenge themselves in meaningful ways by critically and purposefully reflecting on their own practices, biases, and assumptions. We will conclude by presenting ideas on how to center diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in our teaching and interactions with students and other community members. Participants will be involved in several activities during which they will share their ideas in groups and with the larger group, using physical materials like post-its and drawing boards, as well as online polling tools.

Room: E-Building, E-258
Presenter(s): Tameka Battle (Health Science), Maureen Doyle (Health Science), Jason Hendrickson (English)

This interactive “fish-bowl” forum focuses on the role of the complex, multidimensional, term, “Career Readiness.” Considering the college mission, the shifting terrain of higher education, and existential challenges to CUNY (e.g. enrollment, retention, post-pandemic attitudes toward higher education), it is imperative that the college community reckon with this idea. What does career readiness mean, conceptually? Is it a conduit or impediment to student success? What does it mean in practical terms for how we serve our students, be it in our programs, classrooms, mentorship capacities, or everyday interactions? What is the legacy of career readiness at LaGuardia, its pitfalls, and what is its potential, moving forward? In our session, discussants will begin a conversation about the term and open the conversation to the audience. Discussants will also share their work and vision as members of CUNY’s Career Success Fellows Program.  

Room: E-Building, E-260
Presenter(s): Natural Science: Preethi Radhakrishnan Holly Porter Morgan Ingrid Veras Christopher Farley; Kevin Mark Nutrition/Culinary Arts: Nicolle Fernandes Administration: Cristina Natale

The land is the real teacher. All we need as students is mindfulness.” – Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass. The term student engagement can be described as a students’ individual commitment to learning captured through participation, commitment and investment. There are several aspects to this type of engagement namely, behavioral, cognitive, emotional and agentic engagement. In this workshop, we will focus on agentic engagement and how it might be fostered through experiential learning internships focused on service-based learning, being part of a college-wide sustainability council and the climate reality club. The common thread in this workshop is engaging students to become the next generation of stewards of the land in learning about the climate crisis and engaging in climate justice, sustainable practices.

Room: E-Building, E-262
Presenter(s): Jennifer Mitchell-Mayer (LCSW)

In this engaging workshop, participants will explore themes around ‘vicarious trauma’ or ‘compassion fatigue’ and identify indicators of feeling burn out. This workshop will explore how to address feeling overwhelmed, and effective strategies that faculty can use to address their own self care, so that they in turn can best support their students success. The workshop offers concrete and applicable tools and resources that faculty and staff can utilize to ensure their own positive mental health and prevent vicarious trauma. 

Room: E-Building, E-264
Presenter(s): Bryant Caba and Yevgeniya Granovskaya, Center for Career and Professional Development (CCPD) 

“Career readiness is a critical part of students’ postgraduate success in the workforce. The National Association of Colleges and Employers’ 2022 Student Survey found that graduating seniors who used career center services received more job offers on average, compared to their peers who did not.” (Mowreader, A., 2023).  In this session, we will introduce the student services provided by CCPD and ways to collaborate and enhance student engagement. We will introduce our online tools (Career Connect and Career Coach), revisit successful collaborations and review ways to engage with the center.  

Room: E-Building, E-265
Presenter(s): Malgorzata Marciniak and Yun Ye, Department of Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science

In this presentation, we will introduce a pedagogical practice to incorporate digital graph and game play in student projects. The project implementation provides students with immersive learning experience including visionary and tactile stimulation through use of technology. Examples of three student projects are demonstrated to showcase the common procedures in our study on inclusive education. They are the chromatherapy project designed for students to understand the psychological effect of light colors, the artistic graphing project designed for students to create holiday decorations using computer coding skills, and the priority switch project for students to learn the math concept of speed and resource allocation via game play.