CTL – Seminars 2023-24
2023-24 SEMINARS OVERVIEW
The applications 2023-24 CTL professional development opportunities are now open.DEADLINE Monday, May 15, 2023
For detailed descriptions, see below or download the 2023-24 Professional Development Opportunities.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 $600. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Monthly Fridays in person from 11:00 to 1:30 pm with lunch provided, on 9/22, 10/13, 11/10, and 12/1; Asynchronous work due on: 9/29, 10/20, 11/, and 12/8. |
Inquiries | Lilla Toke Robin Kietlinski |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Eight meetings on the third Thursday of the month from 1:00 to 4:00 pm (maybe HyFlex) on 9/21/23, 10/19/23, 11/16/23, 12/14/23, 3/21/24, 4/18/24, 5/16/24, and 6/20/24. An optional showcase event will be scheduled some time in May or June. |
Inquiries | Thomas Cleary Molly Rosner Tomonori Nagano |
Eligibility | The seminar is open to 15 faculty and student-facing staff. |
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 the equivalent as non-teaching pay or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | The fall seminar dates are Wednesdays, from 3:30 to 5pm on 9/13, 9/27, 10/4, 10/25, and 11/29. We will offer the seminar again in the spring. |
Inquiries | Koun Eum Ellen Quish Paul Arcario |
ePortfolio practice at LaGuardia helps students reflect on their learning and make connections across their courses and co-curricular experiences while learning about their discipline and careers. Although ePortfolio work starts strong in the FYS, many students engage less with their portfolios after completing the FYS. In response, a recent grant-funded Academic Affairs initiative is supporting ePortfolio Design Studios for students. In these sessions, students share their ePortfolios with faculty and former students to receive feedback on how to strengthen the content so it may be shared with professionals in their industry or faculty at transfer institutions. The first ePortfolio Design Studios included students in Education, Business, Natural Sciences, and Computer Science.
This CTL seminar will support faculty interested in planning ePortfolio-related assignments, activities, or co-curricular opportunities beyond the FYS and before Capstone courses to support students’ ongoing exploration of academics and careers while reflecting on their experiences at LaGuardia. These assignments and activities can also prompt students to work on their ePortfolios in preparation to participate in an “ePortfolio Design Studio,” where they will receive $100 gift cards for their efforts. Seminar participants will be expected to participate in at least one ePortfolio Design Studio session during the year; participation in a Design Studio along with their seminar work with ePortfolio team members and a peer mentor will inform discussions about the support needed around ePortfolio use at LaGuardia. Participants will be encouraged to implement activities in Spring 2024 as part of their seminar engagement and participation.
The goals of this seminar are:
- To identify one or two courses after the FYS where ePortfolio can strengthen transfer and career readiness;
- To create an assignment, class activity, or co-curricular activity around career readiness that prompts students to work on their ePortfolios leveraging the content produced in the FYS course and in preparation to be part of the ePortfolio Design Studio sessions;
- To identify and recommend ways to support students’ ePortfolio engagement at the program level and beyond the FYS. If the participant has program oversight responsibility, participation in this seminar will allow planning for a program-wide implementation.
Co-facilitators: Caterina Almendral, Education and Language Acquisition, J. Elizabeth Clark, English, Pablo Avila, CTL, David Brandt, CTL
- This is an in-person year-long seminar that meets on Fridays from 10 to 12:30 pm on the following dates in fall 2023: 9/29, 10/27, 11/17, 12/1.
- A Winter Institute and Spring 2024 meetings are TBD based on participants’ availability.
Eligibility | This seminar is open to all faculty who teach courses in the middle in their respective programs (beyond the FYS and before the Capstone course) and who want to strengthen the use of ePortfolio in those courses. |
Support | Contingent upon attendance and active participation in all seminar activities, each Academic Affairs full- time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $1,500 or 1-hour of Reassigned Time. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | This is an in-person year-long seminar that meets on Fridays from 10 to 12:30 pm on the following dates in fall 2023: 9/29, 10/27, 11/17, 12/1. A Winter Institute and Spring 2024 meetings are TBD based on participants’ availability. |
Inquiries | Pablo Avila |
Through LaGuardia’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program, LaGuardia faculty are paired with faculty abroad to design a shared unit that is integrated in their respective courses. Their students then engage virtually in collaborative tasks, using digital tools, such as Zoom, Slack, and Padlet. By emphasizing intercultural empathy, respect for diversity and perspective taking, COIL cultivates the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, and it underscores LaGuardia’s commitment to global learning and students’ career readiness.
The seminar will introduce participants to COIL pedagogy and support them in developing COIL projects with their international faculty partners. Offered jointly with the COIL team at Queens College, this seminar also seeks to strengthen transfer pathways between LaGuardia and Queens. Faculty teaching courses articulated with Queens College are encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to first-time COIL participants. Prior to the seminar, each faculty participant will work with the COIL team to locate a partner from an international institution. During five 1.5-hour seminar sessions in Fall I, 2023, they will be guided to develop content for their COIL units in accordance with their course learning outcomes, select relevant technology platforms, and develop assessment tools informed by LaGuardia’s Global Learning Core Competency.
Seminar facilitators will support faculty throughout their implementation of COIL projects in Spring I 2024. Ongoing team mentorship will be complemented with two 60-minute check-ins for several teams at a time to allow for productive collegial support. At the end of Spring I 2024, COIL faculty and students will participate in COIL Faculty & Student Showcase. Possible QC campus visit for students and faculty might take place during or after implementation.
Co-facilitators: Olga Aksakalova, English, Anita Baksh, English, Pablo Avila, CTL
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs. Priority will be given to first-time COIL participants. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Fridays from 9:00 to 10:30 am on 10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 11/10, and 12/8. |
Inquiries | Olga Aksakalova Pablo Avila |
We have previously offered the seminar Language Across the Curriculum, but this year the seminar will have a specific focus on STEM pedagogy. STEM faculty often don’t have the pedagogical tools to support multilingual and linguistically diverse students. This seminar will help instructors move from a “language-blind” to a “language-aware” approach to teaching and learning.
We will explore the role of language diversity in the STEM classroom and how to use that diversity as a tool for teaching and learning, instead of an obstacle. Topics of interest include:
- How can I effectively help students understand word problems?
- How do I draw on my language background in the classroom?
- How can I build an inclusive classroom environment while also teaching my subject?
- Given the parameters of my class, how do I assess linguistically diverse students?
The main goal of Language across the Curriculum is to contribute to developing a multilingual campus environment which understands multilingualism as a resource in teaching and learning and invites all students to build on their language skills.
Co-facilitators: Leigh Garrison-Fletcher, Professor of Linguistics and ESL, whose research focuses on second language and literacy acquisition, and Lucy McNair, Professor of English, whose work focuses on translation and multilingual writing.
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs. Priority will be given to STEM faculty. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Spring 2024, Wednesdays, exact dates TBD |
Inquiries | Leigh Garrison-Fletcher Lucy McNair |
“A Deep Dive into Advising and AI” will review advising-related information (from our website, program handbooks, office manuals etc.). The information may include program-based advising recommendations, FAQs related to academic programs and processes, instructions on administrative processes such as appeals and waivers, and support services for students. With this information in mind, we will answer the following question: What is the best way to streamline information gathering, and how best can we disseminate this information to students, faculty, advisors, & staff? We will consider existing technology, including Ask LaGuardia, and explore other options, including Chat GPT and other language learning models.
We will hold a TBD kick-off in February and will hold 4 sessions in Spring I, with anticipated asynchronous work. Planned outputs may consist of formalizing a process for information collection, tagging information for efficient retrieval, and a white paper with written recommendations and implementation plans for tools to use going forward.
Co-facilitators: Joshua Goldblatt, Academic Affairs, and Elizabeth Jardine, Library
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs, up to two per department. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible |
Dates | In-person Kick-off: Friday, February 9, from 9:30-3:00 pm (session may be shortened; lunch included)Monthly Fridays, remote from 9:30-11:30 am on March 15, April 12, April 26, and May 24. |
Inquiries | Joshua Goldblatt Elizabeth Jardine |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Spring 2024. Meetings schedules will be determined based on the availability of the participants. |
Inquiries | Karen Miller Joshua Tan |
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: This seminar is co-led by Assistant Professor Joshua Tan, Natural Sciences, Associate Professor Ian McDermott, Library, and a facilitator from MEC TBD, all of whom have experience developing and teaching with OER.
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty and staff. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | This seminar meets via Zoom. Dates are TBD |
Inquiries | Ian McDermott |
Have you ever been frustrated when students don’t remember what they were taught last semester? Or last week? This workshop will consider how a focus on development can help us create activities that will help students learn and develop. Development is an often-neglected concept in education, too often used only to indicate students who “need more.” Sociocultural perspectives, however, tend to focus on “learning and development” as separate but always related processes, framing education as a way to promote both. This perspective moves theories of pedagogy away from traditional transmission models involving individual minds. Through a shared interrogation of our own practices and exploration of basic sociocultural concepts such as scaffolding, zone of proximal development, collaborative processes, and higher psychological functioning, this workshop provides an opportunity to (re)think about what and how we do in the classroom.
Specifically, we will examine college and learning as a way to nurture the development of “higher psychological functioning,” not just as a place to learn specific material. “Scaffolding” will be discussed as a way to support students in gradually mastering activities and producing assignments that create students’ learning and development, rather than simply assessing them. The concept of ”zone of proximal development” will be explored as a tool of assessment as well as a guide in designing instructions that lead to meaningful learning and nurture greater development. Finally, we will reflect on how this approach to learning and development promotes inclusive and equitable pedagogical practices and addresses the educational needs of all learners.
Co-facilitators: Lara Beaty, English and Dušana Podlucka, Social Science
Eligibility | All faculty and staff. |
Dates | Wednesday, October 25th from 2:30 to 4:30 pm. |
Inquiries | Lara Beaty Dušana Podlucka |
Research and anecdotal evidence from LaGuardia faculty suggest that only a small portion of students read the assigned readings and struggle with comprehending the text and its integration into writing, especially discipline-specific assignments. Faculty commonly expect students to come to class with reading skills and habits necessary for successfully mastering the course content.
Moving away from remedial to socio-cultural perspectives of reading and learning, this workshop will provide a snapshot of how to address the above-mentioned issues through the immersion of participating faculty in creating and practicing reading strategies that facilitate the development of students’ metacognitive and discipline-specific reading skills. Participants will have a chance to sample strategies that:
- promote students’ engagement with assigned readings and, consequently, students’ participation in class, overt teaching of critical reading skills, and reading comprehension
- increase the frequency and intensity with which students approach assigned readings.
The workshop will also provide an overview of a possible future seminar on designing and integrating reading assignments into the curriculum and provide space for participants to generate topics of interest for future seminar focus and activities.
Co-facilitators: Xin Gao, Natural Sciences, Jose Fabara, Education and Language Acquisition, Dušana Pudlucka, Social Science
Eligibility | All faculty and staff. |
Dates | Friday, November 3rd from 10:00 to 12:00 pm. |
Inquiries | Lara Beaty Dušana Podlucka |
When basic housing needs—running water, heat, and a bed—are unmet, academic success suffers. This workshop explores the causes and consequences of homelessness as experienced by unhoused students, and institutional and pedagogical solutions.
“Giving Shelter” is a two-session workshop that explores the causes and consequences of homelessness as experienced by LaGuardia’s unhoused students and offers intentionally designed institutional and pedagogical solutions by a community of informed educators and activists.
When basic housing needs—running water, food, heat, and a bed—are unmet, academic success suffers. Community activists and LaGuardia staff will address the scope of homelessness among CUNY’s community college students, identify the effects of housing insecurity upon physical, emotional, and cognitive well-being, and present current and projected solutions to the cycles of poverty and housing instabilty that effect a thriving education.
The “Giving Shelter workshop follows the problem-based inquiry model created by former LaGuardia Philosophy coordinator John Chaffee in Critical Thinking. It includes:
- Description of the problem of housing instability: its causes and consequences, possible solutions, and potential benefits to our community of educators and learners;
- Critical discussion with diverse campus and community representatives; and
- Perspectives and information relevant to housing instability and accessibility supported by reliable and credible references and resources.
Co-facilitators: Rhonda Mouton, Student Affairs, Michele Piso Manoukian, CTL
Eligibility | All faculty and staff. |
Dates | October 13, and November 10, 2023 from 10:00 to 12:00 pm hybrid |
Inquiries | Rhonda Mouton Michele Piso Manoukian |
Previous Seminars - 2022-23
- Research and discuss concepts of decolonization, share and comment upon each other’s work, and swap syllabi and resources.
- Create and offer examples of pedagogical practices and classroom experiences that, across disciplines and programs, question, resist, and counter universalist Eurocentric traditions, world views, and hierarchies.
- Implement a solid, organized, meaningful, and practical discipline-based assignment that draws upon seminar discussions and resources.
- Describes your discipline-based project
- Discusses evidence-based learning outcomes in your course
- Contributes to new knowledge about classroom design and implementation.
Eligibility | Faculty and staff representing departments or programs in Academic Affairs and ACE |
Support | Contingent upon consistent attendance and participation, and completion of a paper for In Transit, each Academic Affairs full-time faculty participant will receive a stipend of $1,200. Adjunct faculty may receive the equivalent as non-teaching pay or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | In Spring 1 the seminar meets on Fridays from 10:00-12:00 on the following dates: March 24, April 28, May 19 and June 16 TBD: Fall 2023, (including Fall 2). We will discuss seminar meeting times based on the interest/ schedules of participants and the Humanities Alliance Fellow. |
Inquiries | Michele Piso Manoukian |
- Designing learning materials for accessibility
- Addressing barriers that may inhibit or prevent student learning
- Investigating ableism and challenging assumptions about dis/ability
- Working with accessibility as a tool for equity and social justice
- Connecting with colleagues in different disciplines and programs
Eligibility | Full and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs or ACE, staff from any credit or ACE program who work directly with students. STEM faculty are especially encouraged to apply. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Fridays 10 am – noon:
|
Inquiries |
In this year-long seminar, designed to assist LaGuardia faculty with their scholarly writing, faculty scholars seek to complete current academic writing projects and place them in external, peer-reviewed journals. LaGuardia faculty scholars from various disciplines—ranging from Accounting to Communication Studies, from Mathematics to English, from Library Science to Sociology—come together to read, critique, and support one another’s writing within their respective fields. Previous FSPW participants have benefited from the peer support structure of this seminar and have successfully revised and submitted work subsequently published in peer-reviewed journals.
The seminar is facilitated by Nancy Berke (ENG).
Please note: The Faculty Scholars Publication Workshop will be conducted in person. Workshop participants will be informed of any changes as they arise.
Eligibility | Open to all Academic Affairs and Adult and Continuing Education faculty. |
Support | The workshop does not provide financial compensation. |
Dates | In-person meetings on Tuesdays, 3:30–5:30 Fall 1 2022:
Spring 1 2023:
|
Inquiries |
Globalization has blurred the boundaries between nation-states leading to new understanding of the terms “global citizenship”, “global awareness”, as well as evoking the need to “ethically” engage with the other. But how does global learning facilitate global citizenship?
The Global Learning Focus Seminar (dates below) will provide an opportunity for interested faculty to design, revise, and share activities that engage students in understanding and framing global issues in both local and global contexts. The creation of discipline-based global learning activities will be guided by the fundamental performance criteria articulated in LaGuardia’s Global Learning Rubric.
Seminar participants may wish to revise assignments or create new activities, for example, experiential learning assignments or Urban Studies assignments focusing on global issues. Essential to our hands-on workshops is a charrette-guided critique of assignments aimed at strengthening students’ ability to identify, recognize, frame, and articulate global issues in diverse contexts. Assignments will integrate program-specific learning objectives, align with a designated competency, and allow for use in both face-to-face and online modalities.
Above all, participants’ global learning assignments will reflect commitment to strengthening student’s comprehension of how diverse cultural and ethical perspectives are shaped by and within global contexts.
Co-facilitators: Tuli Chatterji, English, and Monika Ekiert, Education & Language Acquisition
Eligibility | Faculty representing departments or programs 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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Via Zoom from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on the following Fridays:
Fall 1 2023:
|
Inquiries |
Through LaGuardia’s Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) program, LaGuardia faculty are paired with faculty abroad to design a shared unit that is integrated in their respective courses. Their students then engage virtually in collaborative tasks, using digital tools, such as Zoom, Slack, and Padlet. By emphasizing intercultural empathy, respect for diversity and perspective taking, COIL cultivates the principles of diversity, equity and inclusion, and it underscores LaGuardia’s commitment to global learning and students’ career readiness.
The seminar will introduce participants to COIL pedagogy and support them in developing COIL projects with their international faculty partners. Offered jointly with the COIL team at Queens College, this seminar also seeks to strengthen transfer pathways between LaGuardia and Queens. Faculty teaching courses articulated with Queens College are encouraged to apply. Priority will be given to first-time COIL participants. Prior to the seminar, each faculty participant will work with the COIL team to locate a partner from an international institution. During five 1.5-hour seminar sessions in Fall I, 2023, they will be guided to develop content for their COIL units in accordance with their course learning outcomes, select relevant technology platforms, and develop assessment tools informed by LaGuardia’s Global Learning Core Competency.
Seminar facilitators will support faculty throughout their implementation of COIL projects in Spring I 2024. Ongoing team mentorship will be complemented with two 60-minute check-ins for several teams at a time to allow for productive collegial support. At the end of Spring I 2024, COIL faculty and students will participate in COIL Faculty & Student Showcase. Possible QC campus visit for students and faculty might take place during or after implementation.
Co-facilitators: Olga Aksakalova, English, Anita Baksh, English, Pablo Avila, CTL
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs. Priority will be given to first-time COIL participants. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Fridays from 9:00 to 10:30 am on 10/6, 10/13, 10/20, 11/10, and 12/8. |
Inquiries | Olga Aksakalova Pablo Avila |
“A Deep Dive into Advising and AI” will review advising-related information (from our website, program handbooks, office manuals etc.). The information may include program-based advising recommendations, FAQs related to academic programs and processes, instructions on administrative processes such as appeals and waivers, and support services for students. With this information in mind, we will answer the following question: What is the best way to streamline information gathering, and how best can we disseminate this information to students, faculty, advisors, & staff? We will consider existing technology, including Ask LaGuardia, and explore other options, including Chat GPT and other language learning models.
We will hold a TBD kick-off in February and will hold 4 sessions in Spring I, with anticipated asynchronous work. Planned outputs may consist of formalizing a process for information collection, tagging information for efficient retrieval, and a white paper with written recommendations and implementation plans for tools to use going forward.
Co-facilitators: Joshua Goldblatt, Academic Affairs, and Elizabeth Jardine, Library
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty in Academic Affairs, up to two per department. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible |
Dates | In-person Kick-off: Friday, February 9, from 9:30-3:00 pm (session may be shortened; lunch included)Monthly Fridays, remote from 9:30-11:30 am on March 15, April 12, April 26, and May 24. |
Inquiries | Joshua Goldblatt Elizabeth Jardine |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | Spring 2024. Meetings schedules will be determined based on the availability of the participants. |
Inquiries | Karen Miller Joshua Tan |
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: This seminar is co-led by Assistant Professor Joshua Tan, Natural Sciences, Associate Professor Ian McDermott, Library, and a facilitator from MEC TBD, all of whom have experience developing and teaching with OER.
Eligibility | Full-time and part-time faculty and staff. |
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 or a PD fund if eligible. |
Dates | This seminar meets via Zoom. Dates are TBD |
Inquiries | Ian McDermott |