2021 Teach@CUNY Mid-Winter Institute

Welcome to the Teaching and Learning Center’s Teach@CUNY Mid-Winter Institute, scheduled for January 25-29th, 2021. This institute is designed to provide structure, support, and community for those planning or revising courses for the Spring 2021 semester, and is open to anyone teaching at CUNY.

The Institute will feature three types of programs: Workshops, led by TLC Fellows, which are formally-structured opportunities for thinking about specific approaches to teaching this spring; Co-Working Sessions, which are looser, open moments for folks to work on specific elements of their courses in the company of and in consultation with others; and the Innovative Pedagogy Series, co-sponsored with CUNY’s Office of Academic Affairs, focused on teaching using the open platforms offered at CUNY: the CUNY Academic Commons and Manifold.

A list of all Institute events are below, followed by detailed descriptions. Registration is open at http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21. You will receive a separate Zoom link for each program for which you register (these will be emailed a day before the event)

We hope to see you there! If you have any questions, feel free to reach out the TLC director Luke Waltzer at lwaltzer@gc.cuny.edu.

Monday, January 25th

Workshops

Open Pedagogy: Rethinking Experiential Learning Assignments

Date & Time: Monday, January 25, 12:30-2pm

Led by: Inés Vaño-García

In this workshop, participants will explore experiential learning in online courses using an open pedagogy approach. Though teaching online comes with many challenges and struggles, it can also create new opportunities to connect virtually with communities and institutions, and facilitate engagement beyond the university.

Participants will explore strategies in several model projects and initiatives created within the CUNY community. Such strategies include: incorporating student-driven approaches that highlight students as knowledge producers, designing publicly-engaged final projects or artifacts, working with students to imagine audiences beyond the class, and other creative approaches.

Participants are encouraged to bring (rough) ideas and/or an assignment that they would like to modify for the online Spring semester to share and discuss with the group. Using peer-to-peer learning, we will explore and build upon these ideas together.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Co-Working Sessions

Open Syllabus Writing

Time & Date: Monday, January 25th, 10:30-12pm

Log in to a Zoom to work on your syllabus with others. There will be no structure to the session, but attendees will be welcome to ask questions of each other and request feedback on their course plans.

Innovative Pedagogy Workshop Series

Open Pedagogy with the CUNY Academic Commons & Manifold

Led by: Laurie Hurson & Robin Miller

This three-part webinar workshop series introduces and supports faculty teaching with the CUNY Academic Commons and Manifold. Interested faculty can attend all sessions or a single session as desired.

The first workshop will introduce the CUNY Academic Commons and Manifold, two open teaching platforms available to everyone in the CUNY community. Possibilities for teaching with the platforms and course models will be presented. Faculty will then break into groups to get started working on a specific platform.

The second workshop in the series dives more deeply into each of the platforms. Faculty working on the CUNY Commons will begin developing their course site or group. Faculty working on Manifold will learn how to create a project, add a text, add supplementary resources (audio, video, and image files), and create a reading group for use in the classroom. Both workshops will take place in a single zoom session, splitting time between platforms, more information in schedule below.

The third and final workshop in the series provides participants with hands-on support and offers an opportunity to share plans and ideas for teaching with these open tools.

This workshop series is part of the GC Teaching and Learning Center’s Mid-Winter Institute and CUNY Central Office of Academic Affairs (OAA). Innovative Pedagogy workshop series. The Innovative Pedagogy workshop series aims to recognize and support excellence and innovation in teaching by CUNY faculty, and to improve pedagogy at scale across the University.

Schedule

Monday, January 25th, 12-2pm

• Workshop 1: Introduction to the CUNY Academic Commons and Manifold

Wednesday, January 27th, 12-3pm

• Workshop 2a: Building & Customizing your Course on the Commons ( 12-1:30pm)
• Workshop 2b : Creating Texts for Teaching with Manifold (1:30-3pm)

Friday, January 29th, 12-2pm

• Workshop 3: Discussion & Support Session for Innovative Pedagogy with the Commons & Manifold

If you have any questions, please get in in touch with series organizers via email: innovative.pedagogy@cuny.edu

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Tuesday, January 26th

Workshops

Teaching Labs and Pandemic STEM Teaching

Date & Time: Tuesday, January 26th, 1-2:30 PM ** MOVED TO FRIDAY, JANUARY 28, 1PM**

Led by: Atasi Das

COVID-19 has significantly altered the way we live, teach, and learn. For those of us in STEM fields, this has often meant developing creative approaches to teaching labs remotely. You may be spending lots of time trying to develop effective teaching aids, including lecture sheets, adjusting your approaches from direct use of instrumentation and other tactile activities, or incorporating the use of lab simulation software.

This workshop will focus on developing pedagogical strategies that can support lecture/lab instruction in an online context. We will explore ways to increase opportunities for student learning and feedback that foster students’ understanding, and consider ways to effectively engage students across lecture and lab. You will have an opportunity to engage in a collaborative discussion of digital and pedagogical tools that stand in for or support the hands-on element of STEM classes.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Mental & Emotional Well-being in 2021: Grounding and Planning

Date & Time: Tuesday, January 26th, 1-2:30

Led by: Talisa Feliciano

The transition to distance learning has impacted mental and psychological well-being of CUNY students, faculty, and staff  in the context of a global pandemic, impacts that will continue in the spring semester. This workshop series will explore how CUNY educators can adopt some of the concepts of trauma-informed pedagogy in order to better serve themselves and students as we prepare for another semester of distance learning. This is part one of a two part series on “Mental & Emotional Well-being.”

The initial workshop will ground participants in some of the key theoretical concepts of “trauma informed pedagogy” and ask participants to reflect on these concepts. Participants are invited to view an introductory video on trauma-informed pedagogy from Professor Mays Imad of Pima Community College before attending the workshop.

This workshop encourages participants to reflect together on the long term trauma impacts of the Coronavirus pandemic in NYC. At the end of the meeting participants will be encouraged to create a wellness plan for themselves, focused on their roles as educators. Participants are invited to also participate in part 2 of the series “Mental Wellness & Emotional Well-being in 2021: Strategies & Practices for All Educators” scheduled for Thursday 1/28 at 3pm in order to develop related concrete strategies and practices.
To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Developing an Access Statement & Disrupting Deficit Narratives on Disability and Chronic Illness in the Academy

Date & Time: Tuesday January 26th, 2-3:15pm

Led by: Sakina Laksimi-Morrow and Jesse Rice Evans

Students and instructors alike have a wide range of disability, chronic illness, and mental health issues that shape their daily lives and the ways that we are able to participate in teaching and learning. This space will provide an opportunity for instructors who have themselves have a disability and/or a chronic health issue, including chronic mental health condition, to participate in discussion about their needs and experiences in the academy. Conversation will be followed by an invitation to collaborate asynchronously on access statements that can be integrated into syllabi. These access statements will represent the diverse, fluctuating, complex and sensitive needs of students and instructors. They are also statements that are created by and for people who navigate a variety of medical conditions. These conversations offer an opportunity to disrupt deficit and limiting narratives about disability and center access in pedagogy.

Cultivating Student Participation Using Online Polls  

Date & Time: Tuesday, January 26th 5:30-7pm

Led by: Fernanda Blanco-Vidal

You probably have had classes during which most of your students do not turn on their cameras, or you ask questions and no one responds, or moments that you try to promote participation and the same four or five students respond. As educators, we know how active engagement and participation are important in the student’s learning process, but how to promote engagement among reluctant students? In this workshop, we will share our experiences and frustrations eliciting participation in zoom and other online spaces. We will explore why students may be reluctant to speak publicly, and brainstorm forms of participation. From that, we will explore ways to use online polling software – a real-time interactive tool – that can be used in different ways to promote student’s participation using, for instance, their cellphones. We will explore how these live audience interaction [youtube.com] tools can be easily integrated with student workflows and technologies, promoting and cultivating engagement beyond the usual raise-your-hand and speak. During this workshop, we will be modeling these strategies by using the online polls among ourselves and learning the basics of how to create and navigate using those tools.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Co-Working Sessions

Open Syllabus Writing

Date & Time: Tuesday, January 25th, 10:30-12pm

Log in to a Zoom to work on your syllabus with others. There will be no structure to the session, but attendees will be welcome to ask questions of each other and request feedback on their course plans.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Wednesday, January 27th

Workshops

Practicing Ritual as a Way to Build Community in the Classroom

Time & Date: Wednesday, January 27th, 4-5:30 PM

Led by: Chy Sprauve

Rituals are habits. Many of our habits (eating, sleeping, etc.) are essential for survival. Since habits are so formative, employing them in the classroom can also have an impact on how students feel about a learning space. In this workshop, attendees will participate in two reflective activities, drawing and journaling, to explore habits that bring them positive results. After a discussion about their habits, participants will choose one specific outcome they discussed in the previous activity and work to develop a ritual they might develop with their students in the spring semester.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Co-Working Sessions

Drop-in Office Hours

Time & Date: Wednesday, January 27th 10:30-12pm

TLC staff will be available during this time for pop-in consultations.

Taking Care of You: Boundaries, Time Management, and Other Ways to Be Kind to Yourself

Date & Time: Wednesday, January 27th, 11:30-12:30pm

Led by: Fernanda Blanco-Vidal and Miranda Fedock

Are you exhausted or overwhelmed? Losing track of time? Struggling to “keep it together” and wondering how anyone else is? It’s not just you! You don’t need us to tell you that 2020 was exceptionally difficult. Now more than ever, CUNY educators need a robust self-care toolkit to survive (and perhaps even thrive) through the next semester and beyond, including time management strategies and other practices.

Don’t let yourself run on empty! We warmly invite you to come join our informal gathering. We’ll talk about what self-care is and isn’t, and why it matters for us as educators; and we’ll exchange and brainstorm a bunch of ideas to better take care of ourselves right now and throughout the upcoming semester, especially with regards to our teaching. We’ll share thoughts about drawing and respecting boundaries, managing our time in the ‘new normal,’ and building self-kindness into our classes. This space will be open, friendly, and flexible. Come hang out with us, and let’s practice taking care of ourselves.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Abolitionist Pedagogy Working Group Open Meeting

Time & Date: Wednesday, January 27th 1-2pm

The Abolitionist Pedagogy Working Group at the TLC spent the past semester unpacking the meanings behind abolitionist pedagogy. This upcoming semester, we aim to create and promote practices shaped by abolitionist pedagogy to explore in the CUNY classroom.

This session will be an open meeting of the group where we will discuss two texts: We Want to do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom by Bettina L. Love and Pleasure Activism by adrienne maree brown. We welcome any faculty members interested in participating in the conversation to join us.    

Assignment Charrette

Time & Date: Wednesday, January 27th 4-5pm

Led by: Luke Waltzer

Have assignments on which you’d like to get feedback? Sign up to work in small groups of faculty to offer in-depth feedback on each other’s assignments. Each participant will have a few minutes to introduce his/her submitted assignment(s) and request particular help with problems or aspects of designing or implementing it and/or with assessing students’ work.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Innovative Pedagogy Series

Building & Customizing your Course on the Commons (Session 1)

Time & Date: Wednesday, January 27th, 12-1:30pm

Led by: Laurie Hurson

Creating Texts for Teaching with Manifold (Session 2)

Time & Date: Wednesday, January 27th, 1:30-3pm

Led by: Robin Miller

The second workshop in the series dives more deeply into each of the platforms. Faculty working on the CUNY Commons will begin developing their course site or group. Faculty working on Manifold will learn how to create a project, add a text, add supplementary resources (audio, video, and image files), and create a reading group for use in the classroom. Both workshops will take place in a single zoom session, splitting time between platform workshops with a short break in-between.

This workshop series is part of the GC Teaching and Learning Center’s Mid Winter Institute and is co-hosted as part of the Innovative Pedagogy workshop series offered by the CUNY Central Office of Academic Affairs.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Thursday, January 28th

Workshops

Mixing Synchronous and Asynchronous Instructional Modes

Time & Date: Thursday, January 28th, 4-5:30 PM

Led by: Laurie Hurson and Luke Waltzer

Balancing and managing workload in online courses is always a challenge, and that’s been even more true since spring 2020. Certain kinds of learning are best done in synchronous design, such as discussion and collaborative knowledge-building, which offer peer to peer interaction and benefit from immediate feedback. Other learning, such as reading, writing reflective essays, and doing research, benefits from the flexibility offered by asynchronous design. Given that all students this semester are being forced to take courses online whether they have the resources sufficient to support this work or not, a measure of flexibility is called for across every class, and creative approaches to classroom structure which purposefully connect asynchronous and synchronous moments can be quite beneficial.

In this workshop we will explore together how to balance synchronous and asynchronous modes of instruction, with special attention to both the goal of flexibility and the workload implications for both faculty member and student.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Mental and Emotional Wellbeing in 2021: Strategies and Practices for All Educators

Time & Date: Thursday, January 28th, 3-4:30 PM

Led by: Miranda Fedock

In a post-2020 world, how can we as CUNY educators better support our students’ and our own emotional needs? What are some practical ways to promote mental and emotional well-being for our students and ourselves in the upcoming semester, while respecting our personal and professional boundaries and limitations? Why should we even consider this?

Building on concepts introduced in Tuesday’s Mental and Emotional Well-being in 2021 workshop,  this session will provide hands-on opportunities to discover and employ teaching practices that help cultivate students’ and instructors’ emotional wellness. We will share concrete practices that participants can use in their classes and broader strategies to adopt in this semester and beyond. Centering the principles of trauma-informed pedagogy, we will discuss and practice using diverse techniques to help students develop emotional resilience and prevent emotionally depleting our students and ourselves, while remaining aware of the limits of our scope of practice as educators. We will explore techniques such as conducting regular check-ins, increasing opportunities for student choice, and using content warnings, among many others. Participants will leave this workshop with a better understanding of why emotional and mental well-being matters in higher education, and with a toolkit of actionable ideas to try out in their teaching. Participants will also have the opportunity to revise one personal class artifact of their choice, integrating particular practices and strategies as desired.

This workshop is part two in our two-part series on mental wellness & emotional wellbeing in 2021. Part one emphasizes theoretical framing and self-reflection; this part focuses on teaching practices and strategies. While we encourage interested folks to attend both events, you are welcome to attend only one.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Co-Working Sessions

Drop-in Office Hours

Time & Date: Thursday, January 28th, 10:30-12pm

TLC staff will be available during this time for pop-in consultations.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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Friday, January 29th

Innovative Pedagogy Series

Discussion & Support Session for Innovative Pedagogy with the Commons & Manifold

Time & Date: Friday, January 29th, 12-2pm

Led by: Laurie Hurson and Robin Miller

The third and final workshop in the series provides participants with hands-on support and offers an opportunity to share plans and ideas for teaching with open platforms.

This workshop series is part of the GC Teaching and Learning Center’s Mid Winter Institute and is co-hosted as part of the Innovative Pedagogy workshop series offered by the CUNY Central Office of Academic Affairs.

To register: http://cuny.is/tcuny-winter-21.

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