Category: In the Classroom

Student Agency and the Labor of Grading

Outreach: How can a critical approach to grading foster student agency and make grading a more meaningful, intentional process? This workshop will build on the ideas presented in the Towards Generative Assessment workshop and offer concrete practices to include students in the grading process in ways that offer multiple pathways for engagement and opportunities for …

Resocializing Reading

“In the official university,” write Tonika Sealy Thompson and Stefano Harney, “reading is outsourced…The classroom is a reading-free zone.” I suspect we all have experienced this phenomenon all too often as both students and teachers. Reading is what we do outside the classroom; we’re expected to come to class already having read, already having done …

Who Am I When I Teach?

Considering who and how you would like to be as an instructor is a critical step in developing your pedagogy. The version of yourself that you bring to class each day is known as your “teaching persona.” It is subject to change and will constantly evolve as you go through your teaching journey. In this …

Using NYC Data for Culturally Responsive Teaching

Culturally responsive teaching requires a learning space that is grounded in local, real-world, and collaborative contexts. These pedagogical approaches help our students find connections and relevance between course content and their backgrounds, communities, and identities. In this workshop, we will discuss facilitating student learning through data that is relevant to their lives and to New …

Questions are the answers: A pedagogical tool for interactive classrooms

Asking questions is a useful strategy for uncovering student thinking and generating instant feedback in classrooms. This workshop will provide practical tips to promote student engagement and help instructors design effective questioning strategies that lead to increased participation. Attendees will experiment with and explore the effective use of questions for inquiry-based learning and will develop …

Student Agency & the Labor of Grading

Practical Guide to Active Learning in STEM Classrooms

This workshop aims to provide a practical guide to promoting student-centered teaching practices and help instructors design for full participation and learning in their roles as science educators. Participants will discuss, explore and experience equitable active learning in the workshop. Finally, they will be able to design and share activities while receiving feedback from their …

Learning Can Be Fun! Creating Low-Stakes Assignments

Assignments can be used to inspire curiosity, help students build community with each other, and provide tools to think critically beyond the classroom. They don’t need to be obligatory benchmarks; in fact, assignments can even be fun! In this workshop, we understand “fun” as a form of joy, mobilization, and engagement in the learning process, …

Speech Communications in the Virtual Classroom

In spring 2020, many of us were pushed to communicate and conduct classes through our electronic devices. The move to the virtual classroom, however, was not a simple 1:1 shift. Our interactions are being flattened to different degrees by video, audio, and textual modes that may or may not be happening at the same time. …

Using Online Polls to Promote Active Learning and Student Engagement

“Technology doesn’t inherently improve learning; it merely makes possible effective pedagogy, and only when it is consonant with an instructor’s educational philosophy and beliefs and reinforced by other components of the total course” (Beatty, 2004, p. 08) Have you ever introduced a new concept in your classroom and asked the students what they think …