CUNY graduate students are often assigned to work as teaching assistants or lab instructors in support of large lecture classes. These assignments come with both opportunities and challenges for both the instructor and students. This workshop is designed to support teaching assistants and lab instructors in navigating their roles, and to aid in the development …
Category: Course Planning
Bridging Lecture and Lab
Science courses are typically split between lecture and laboratory instruction. Lecture is used to provide students with foundational, structured knowledge, and labs allow students to make direct observations and develop specific scientific skills within the discipline. The division between these two experiences is often heightened when the lecture and lab components of the same course …
Approaches to Course Design
In this workshop we will discuss how to effectively approach course design and planning, and we will workshop your ideas and discuss syllabi for courses attendees are going to teach over the summer or next year. Whether youโre designing a course for the first time, or looking to improve a course youโve taught before, this …
Incorporating Cultural Content in the Language Classroom
Many language instructors enter the classroom for the first time without knowledge of language acquisition principles. They are often asked to design their classes based on a textbook that doesn’t speak to students’ experiences and fails to appeal directly to them. New instructors often feel pressured to teach following a grammar-oriented approach that seems to …
Expanding your Pedagogical Toolkit
Looking for new and creative instructional practices to enliven your classroom? Interested in learning new ways to structure your studentsโ engagement with course materials? Energetic class discussions can help connect emerging thinking to the reading students are doing. A supportive classroom community can reduce anxiety about learning, and create space for reflection and intellectual engagement. …
Museum Pedagogy
Over the past generation, museums have undergone an enormous transition. No longer simply repositories of artifacts and authority, they are now, as the Smithsonianโs Stephen E. Weil once described, โa place for somebody.” As museums have moved toward a visitor-centered approach, their education departments have professionalized and developed a series of techniques designed to engage …
Increasing Scientific Literacy
Faculty across the CUNY regularly address complex, scientifically-grounded issues such as climate change, genetically-modified foods, vaccines, and evolution. For many of these politically-charged topics, there are fundamental scientific principles that can help students to more fully understand the topic. Increased scientific literacy can help students better interact with complex social problems, and can also help …
Teaching Portfolio
As teachers, we know the value of being reflective practitioners, but the hectic pace of the semester can make it difficult to build in time for such reflection. Getting into the habit of maintaining a teaching portfolio, which is often a required component of the academic job search, can ease your entry to the job …
Troubleshooting Failure
The end of semester brings a new urgency to the classroom, and the weight of worrying that youโve not met expectations — fearing youโve โfailedโ — can be burdensome for faculty and for students. But feelings of failure also invite us to reflect upon our pedagogy and our courses, and to extract valuable lessons that …
Developing Your Teaching Persona and Classroom Community
What makes a classroom feel like a community? For many teachers, this is an ongoing goal as we work to foster an environment of interconnected learning and camaraderie. Come learn about different strategies for–and challenges to–creating this kind of active learning community in the first of our series of workshops on Community. In this workshop, …
