Spring 2022 Faculty Workshop Series

Beyond the Breakout Room: Group Work for Online to In-person Teaching

Facilitators: Maddy Lafuse (PhD candidate in History) and Chandni Tariq (PhD candidate in History)

Group work is one of the most difficult challenges of teaching online. Please join us for a discussion of techniques and tools that support meaningful group work in online classes. Emphasis will be placed on low-stakes, easily graded activities that assist in student participation and learning. This workshop will also focus on discussing how to move forward as we slowly transition from teaching online to in-person. This will be a space to reflect on what it means to cultivate meaningful student engagement for the purpose of your course through group work.

Building Community Beyond the Classroom

Facilitators: Lisa Babel (PhD candidate in Developmental Psychology) and Dongwoo Kim (PhD candidate in Philosophy)

How can we build rapport with our students, encourage peer connection, and promote classroom engagement? What in-class exercises and out-of-class activities will encourage community, promoting positive school experiences for both faculty and students? Join us to discuss what’s working, what’s not working, and brainstorm what can still be done both virtually and in-person, to continue to build community at Bronx CC. (presentation slides)

How to Teach Difficult Texts through Interpretive Discussion

March 2, 2022

Facilitator: Pedro Monque (PhD candidate in Philosophy)

While students are likely to forget most of the specific facts they learn in a class, they tend to remember and be transformed by the key concepts they have mastered (for example: gerrymandering or ableism). Yet, teaching a discipline’s central concepts is difficult because these are closer to skills, to be incorporated into our thinking in various ways, than to definitions which can simply be memorized. What’s more, the texts where we find important concepts can be difficult to read or interpret. This workshop will provide tools for teaching difficult concepts through Sophie Haroutounian-Gordon’s idea of “interpretive discussion.” We will look at how to craft discussion activities and reflective writing assignments that facilitate learning difficult concepts. I will use examples from having taught five times a class on theories of human nature that involved teaching difficult concepts each week (such as the social model of disability and the spurious logic of scientific racism). (presentation handout)

Writing through Infographics for the Sciences

March 16, 2022

Facilitator: Irina Mindlis (PhD candidate in Psychology)

Infographics are a way for students to engage in research, brief & targeted writing in the sciences that helps them focus on key messages – and it reduces grading time. Join us for a workshop on teaching, creating, and assigning infographics to students, including grading rubrics. (presentation slides)

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