CTL – 2024-25 Seminars

Oral history is an interactive method and inquiry process on a topic, as well as how a topic is remembered. The goal of Oral History in Interdisciplinary Community College Pedagogy is to introduce the oral history methods through a series of year-long workshops. The faculty will engage in interviewing, deep listening, discussion with guest speakers, and analysis of oral history materials in their disciplines. Through this engagement, the faculty will explore how oral history practices can help recenter their teaching practices to the vantage points of individuals and communities of minority groups whose perspectives are often marginalized in published materials and media. The seminar is particularly interested in non-history disciplines, where the oral history has not been commonly adopted in teaching and research. For more information about this seminar, visit the CUNY Commons page at https://oralhistory.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

Co-facilitators: Thomas Cleary, Library, Molly Rosner, LaGuardia and Wagner Archives, Tomonori Nagano, Education and Language Acquisition

Eligibility: Full-time and part-time faculty

Support: Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full- time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $1,000. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay if eligible, or professional development funds to support conference attendance or other allowable PD activities/items.

Dates: Fridays from 10:00 to 1:00 pm on 3/21/25, 4/25, 5/16, and 6/13/25. An optional showcase event will be scheduled some time in May or June.

Inquiries: Thomas Cleary tcleary@lagcc.cuny.edu, Molly Rosner mrosner@lagcc.cuny.edu, Tomonori Nagano  tnagano@lagcc.cuny.edu

The seminar aims to introduce faculty to experiential learning (EL) and offer support with designing course activities and assignments using the LaGuardia Humanitarian Initiative (LHI) as an applied example. As an interdisciplinary, hands-on seminar, we will explore how to integrate experiential learning opportunities into our personal pedagogy. Participants will be introduced to the theory and praxis of LHI, which aligns with the Association of Experiential Education and CUNY’s vision of EL, discuss its strategic goals, and review aligned examples that demonstrate successful implementation of classroom learning in real-life settings. The seminar will foster existing and new strains of experiential learning, including curricular, co-curricular, and community outreach projects that benefit students with transfer and career readiness. In addition, through backward design workshops, participants will create discipline-specific low-stakes and high-stakes EL modules.  Finally, participants will be introduced to assessment tools at various stages of assignment implementation to gauge the effectiveness of the experiential learning assignment or activity.

Co-facilitators: Claudette Davis, Natural Sciences and Dana Trusso, Humanities

Eligibility: Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs.

Support: Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full- time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $600. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay if eligible, or professional development funds to support conference attendance or other allowable PD activities/items.

Dates:  Fridays from 11:00 -1:00 pm on Zoom on 3/14, 4/11, 5/16, and 6/6.

Inquiries: Claudette Davis cldavis@lagcc.cuny.edu Dana Trusso datrusso@lagcc.cuny.edu

At the heart of Writing in the Disciplines (WID) pedagogy lies the assertion that writing, itself, plays a key role in critical thinking. Writing can be a powerful tool to cultivate students’ engagement with course material and their understanding of their own thought processes. Writing is the medium through which students can begin to learn and deepen their understanding of discipline-specific content and modes of inquiry. It is also the medium through which they can begin to produce knowledge.

WID pedagogy holds that writing to learn and learning to write are intimately linked. When you present students with problems and ask them to identify and challenge assumptions in writing, writing itself becomes an act of problem solving. Continuous writing practice helps students improve their writing and better understand core concepts. The Writing in the Disciplines (WID) seminar will support faculty as they develop strategies to guide students to use writing to formulate and shape their ideas, and to make sense of course content. It will provide faculty with a workshop-based forum to design, adapt, and incorporate a range of writing assignments and activities into their courses. These will be discipline-specific materials, designed by faculty for the specific courses they teach. They will include in-class, ungraded activities as well as “high stakes” assignments, such as research papers, lab reports, business plans, and other materials. Faculty will receive the resources, support, and feedback necessary to explore and integrate these strategies into their courses.

Faculty will be asked to workshop their syllabi and course assignments, hold honest discussions with their peers about teaching, and develop materials that can support student learning.

Key themes to be explored will include: “writing to learn,” coaching the writing process, various assessment and grading practices and responding to student work. Together, we will also address questions about grammar, and have discussions about how to use technology effectively, including AI and Learning Management Systems (Blackboard/Brightspace) in writing pedagogy. This workshop will address the concerns of STEM, Health Sciences, Social Science, Business and Technology, and Humanities faculty. We will discuss writing about data, images, graphs, literature, history, linguistics, journals, and other kinds of informal writing, etc. The seminar will incorporate a substantial amount of new material, including deeper discussions about the affective dimensions of writing, how to think about writing across different modalities, writing and online forums/platforms, and alternative assessment practices.

This seminar is open to full-time and part-time faculty members, including those who completed the seminar five or more years ago and who wish to refresh their WID pedagogy.  We encourage any faculty member scheduled to teach a writing-intensive course for Spring I who has not completed the WID program to sign up for the seminar. Faculty members who are interested in teaching writing-intensive courses in the future must take the seminar to get certified. All urban studies and capstone classes in the college are designated writing intensive.

Co-facilitators: Karen Miller, Social Science and Joshua Tan, Natural Sciences

Eligibility: This seminar is open to full-time and part-time faculty members, including those who completed the seminar five or more years ago and who wish to refresh their WID pedagogy.

Support: Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full- time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $600. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay if eligible, or professional development funds to support conference attendance or other allowable PD activities/items.

Dates: Spring 2025.  Meetings schedules will be determined based on the availability of the participants.

Inquiries: Karen Miller kamiller@lagcc.cuny.edu , Joshua Tan jotan@lagcc.cuny.edu

Open educational resources (OER) are open access learning materials that anyone is welcome to create, use, and remix. Given the high price of commercial textbooks, free OER alternatives are one effective tool in reducing the price of higher education and increasing access to learning materials. Furthermore, OER open up more possibilities for culturally relevant and equitable educational opportunities. OER also present a unique opportunity to further develop a college-wide practice for collaborative, cross-disciplinary learning at LaGuardia. By incorporating open educational practices, faculty can meet students’ needs with greater editorial control over teaching materials. The seminar invites instructors and staff to explore their past, current, or desired use of OER at LaGuardia. Seminar co-leaders will present and discuss a variety of experiences with OER, from authoring a textbook to implementing OER in high enrollment courses. Other key topics include:

• Copyright, licensing, and citation in OER
• Publishing, modifying and archiving OER
• Accessibility and Universal Design for Learning
• Open pedagogy and student creators

Co-facilitators: Ian McDermott, Library and Joshua Tan, Natural Sciences

Eligibility: Full-time and part-time faculty and staff.

Dates: Thursdays from 3 – 4:30 p.m. on Zoom, 3/20, 4/3, 4/24, 5/8, and 5/22

Support: Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full-time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $500. Adjunct faculty may receive non-teaching pay if eligible.

Inquiries: Ian McDermott  imcdermott@lagcc.cuny.edu

The proposed CTL seminar aims to train faculty across various disciplines to integrate Career-Connected Learning (CCL) into their teaching practices, both inside and outside the classroom. The seminar will equip faculty with practical strategies to mentor and prepare students for post-graduation success. With a significant portion of LaGuardia students being first-generation college students, the seminar addresses the need to support these students in career success, while also recognizing that faculty deserve a space to prepare for this level of engagement. Data collected by the University’s Office of Career and Industry Partnerships shows that approximately 90 percent of faculty across CUNY do believe it is our responsibility to prepare students for future success in their careers, but a significant number, approximately 70 percent, believe they are not adequately trained to do so.

Key goals of the seminar include training faculty on pedagogical techniques to develop the competencies identified by the National Association of Colleges and Employers as key for student career success, revising course design to integrate CCL within syllabi, and learning pedagogical techniques for doing that.

The seminar activities, including role-play exercises to improve student communication skills, designing career-connected assignments, and collective syllabus workshopping aim to enhance faculty’s ability to translate course objectives into skills that students can articulate and apply in a variety of professional contexts. Participants will also create and share assessment methods for CCL, contribute to the 2025 Career Success Summit, and provide written reflections on their teaching practices. This seminar will be in-person, intentionally, to model the ever-increasing importance of in-person engagement for students as they navigate the professional world.

Overall, faculty should come away from the seminar understanding that we all can play an important role in career connected learning. Faculty should understand concepts such as applied learning and experiential learning; “weak ties” versus “strong ties” (in networking); and “career translation,” i.e., the practice of students taking classroom knowledge and being able to articulate the applicable skill that they have just acquired. This practice of translation will be an ongoing theme of the seminar itself, as faculty will be invited to consider their “why?”, as in what is the broader application of different skills inculcated in the classroom. (In what other contexts can a student use a “close reading” besides in a poem? What about the use of inference in geometry is useful for contracting and home design? What is the bridge between historiography and a police report?)

This seminar differs from the CTL seminar on Experiential Learning, in that it distinctly aims to train faculty to embed Career-Connected Learning in syllabi, curricula, and general pedagogy. (Experiential Learning is one of many ways to engage in Career-Connected Learning.)

Co-facilitators: Jason Hendrickson, English and Tameka Battle, Community Health and Wellness

Eligibility: Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs.

Support: Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full- time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $600. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay if eligible, or professional development funds to support conference attendance or other allowable PD activities/items.

Dates: Fridays from 10:30-1:00 pm in person on 3/14, 4/11, 5/9, and 5/30.

Inquiries: Jason Hendrickson jhendrickson@lagcc.cuny.edu and Tameka Battle tbattle@lagcc.cuny.edu

LaGuardia, as an institution, has long touted the value of diversity, equity and inclusion. In both its mission statement and strategic priorities, the college has expressed its goal of incorporating DEI initiatives “that promote a welcoming and inclusive environment where all students, regardless of their background, feel valued, respected and supported.” The language of the college is designed to embrace the diversity of our student body, and to support their growth as global citizens of the world.

However, in broader sectors of society, DEI has become highly politicized, and some have questioned whether efforts to create more inclusive environments in education and work settings have only served to sow division and exclude those who are not deemed to be members of “diverse” communities. This seminar will provide faculty with an opportunity to understand what DEI is and isn’t, how to respond to the politicization of DEI, how to incorporate DEI practices into coursework and curriculum, and how to cultivate the knowledge and skill set to create truly inclusive classroom environments. Through directed readings, discussions and activities, participants will develop and engage in strategies and best practices in their classrooms to enhance DEI work. Ultimately, this seminar will provide a foundation for campus-wide efforts, aligned with the 2025-2029 strategic plan to align our work on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.

Specifically, participants will:

1. Identify ways to alter, reorganize and/or deepen course content that is more inclusive and representative of LaGuardia’s diversity and the diversity of the discipline;
2. Facilitate culturally responsive dialogue in the classroom to better engage students and to manage “difficult dialogues” that may arise in the classroom, utilizing models of best practices;
3. Become familiar with and make use of a specific DEI model that enhances the sense of inclusion and belonging in the classroom;
4. Incorporate culturally sustaining pedagogical approaches that enhances students’ learning;
5. Identify traditional practices and strategies that exclude minoritized groups or invisible “others;” and
6. Understand how implicit bias and micro-aggressions unwittingly operate in our culture and learn how to interrupt unintentional slights and such occurrences in the classroom.

Faculty will also explore ways to acknowledge contributors to the discipline who are traditionally left out, and to examine topic areas that allow for greater inclusion of diverse populations. Reflective pedagogical practices that encourage enhanced dialogue, and bring more diverse voices into the room will be explored. Faculty will be guided in facilitating “difficult dialogues” utilizing best practices including Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD), an approach designed to help communities and organizations hold open, honest, constructive conversations about potentially divisive topics.

Outcomes:

1. Classroom Practice: By the seminar’s conclusion, participants will be expected to present an example of one key shift or change that they intend to make in their classroom (by the following semester) that provides a clear example of a practice or activity that promotes inclusion and equity.
2. Event/Showcase: Seminar participants will have an opportunity to showcase their work to the college community, providing examples of change (in the classroom) that advances diversity, equity and inclusion through participation in a CTL Showcase.
3. Scholarship: Seminar participants will have an opportunity to develop an original piece of scholarship that allows them to reflect on insights gained in the seminar. Faculty may reflect on their evolving understanding of DEI or a theoretical approach (such as shared equity leadership), how the use of an assignment or exercise enhanced classroom dialogue or effectiveness with a particular marginalized group, or faculty’s broader understanding of the value of DEI.

Co-facilitators: Vanessa Bing, Social Science, and Milena Cuellar, Math, Engineering and Computer Science

Eligibility: Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs.

Support: Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full- time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $600. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay if eligible, or professional development funds to support conference attendance or other allowable PD activities/items.

Dates: Tuesdays from 2:30-5:00 pm in person on 3/18, and 6/03 and on zoom on 4/29 and 5/13

Inquiries: Vanessa Bing vbing@lagcc.cuny.edu Milena Cuellar mcuellar@lagcc.cuny.edu