Workshops I 

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LaGuardians and Technology: The Use and the Effects of Social Apps and other Technology in the Classroom  

Technology has revolutionized the ways in which people adapt to and thrive in changing conditions in the environment. This is even more apparent in the classroom where it can be used as a tool for students to play a more active role in the acquiring and application of knowledge.  This workshop seeks to show how students are empowered within the classroom through their use of social apps, and consequently become more motivated to learn.  Presenters will share their experiences in the classroom, demonstrating innovative use of a variety of software applications and internet tools to promote greater student participation in the classroom. These tools encourage teamwork, and help students acquire concrete technical skills that have real world applications. 

Presenters:   Andrea Francis (Business & Technology), Nicole Lytle (Business & Technology), Raj Bhika (Business & Technology), and Michael Philogene (Business & Technology)

Room:   E265

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The 21st Century Learner at LaGuardia Community College:   Student Perceptions of Secondary and Post-Secondary Education 

This study addresses factors that have contributed to students’ decisions to attend LaGuardia Community College.  It is based on the premise that many students are inadequately prepared to attend college due to a variety of reasons including lack of sufficient preparation in high school.  The focus of this investigation included a questionnaire distributed to students which asked about their perceptions of the following:  preparation in college, level of satisfaction with their secondary education, level of motivation to attend college, family educational background, academic aspirations, and type of schools attended, in addition to collecting socio-demographic information.  The results of the study are quite revealing.  Our presentation will focus on discussion of the data which reveal potentially meaningful information about the educational background, perceptions and aspirations of 21st Century higher education learners at LaGuardia Community College.

Presenters:   Janet Michello, (Social Science) & Danubia Matute-Aleman, (LaGuardia Community College Student)                                                           

Room:    E264

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Meeting Students Where They Are:  

Integrating Social Media into our Classrooms, Departments, Programs and Services  

With over 500 million Facebook users as of 2010, social media is here to stay. It’s where all of our students are and it’s about time we meet our students where they are. This workshop will introduce the ideas behind integrating social media into your area. We will take a look at how others have effectively used social media to engage their students and discuss how we can do the same. By the end of this workshop, every person will be able find ways to incorporate social media into their existing programming, curriculums, and offices.

Presenter: Anthony Hargraves (Student Life)

Room:   E266

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Technology for Teaching Hybrid/Online Courses 

More and more courses at LaGuardia are being offered online. Online teaching mostly can be done in a synchronous or asynchronous form.  An online session is synchronous when the online presence of both the professor and students is required at specific time, while asynchronous teaching refers to case where students can follow a lecture or complete an assignment at their own pace.  Depending on which kind of online teaching is desired, an appropriate technology has to be carefully chosen.  In this talk, we will present and demonstrate multiple technology tools that can facilitate online teaching.

Presenter:   Omar Ait Hellal (Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science)

Room:   E229

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Fostering Co-Curricular Interdisciplinary Seminars to Promote Student Learning  

This presentation will inform, discuss, and inspire  ideas for faculty to work together to create interdisciplinary co-curricular projects that will engage students in making connections across disciplines and empower students as informed, proactive critical thinkers.  This workshop directly addresses and encourages a holistic approach that presents education in a way that encourages and promotes student learning through co-curricular activities.

Presenters:   Leslie A. Aarons (Humanities) & Judi O’Toole (Natural Sciences)

Room:   E262

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The Student as Hero:   The Transformative Journey from Entry to Transfer and Beyond  

College is a time of hope, of venturing into the unknown and confronting the promise of growth. But for community college students, the desire for stronger insights into the world and personal identity is always at risk. Many cross the classroom threshold; few survive its trials.

In 2010, 70% of LaGuardia’s entering class aspired to a Bachelor’s degree or higher. Unfortunately, chances are that within six years only 25% will overcome the academic, financial, and personal threats to completing an Associate’s degree.  If students are to fulfill their aspirations to graduate and transfer, a hero’s persistence is not enough. As interrelated agents of change, faculty and staff share responsibility for clarifying concepts and perceptions about transfer. Together we can serve as guides to understanding the goals of graduation and transfer, not as end points but as dimensions of a holistic process initiated at orientation and integrated into all phases of college life. Planning for transfer should begin in the first semester and not the last.

In the Office of Transfer, the watchwords explore, aspire, transform shape our advice to students whose differences in background, strengths, and goals influence where, why, and if they will transfer. In today’s workshop, we will describe our interactions with students, and discuss student choice theories, external and internal factors affecting transfer, and psychosocial variables related to student decisions and behaviors. We will also share resources that can aid faculty and staff in discussing transfer goals with first-year students. 

Presenters:   Michele Piso (Center for Teaching and Learning) and Bernetta Parson (Transfer Services) Bita Adabi (student, York College) and Shawn Jackman (student, LaGuardia).

Room:    E260

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Empowering 21st Century Learners by Empowering 21st Century Teachers:  Exploring a Transformative Approach to Teaching the Whole Student  

The opening sessions’ theme, “ The 21st Century Learner:  A Holistic Approach”, asks “(how) we connect with students to empower and encourage them to become fully present and active in the learning process and in so doing, provide them with the skills necessary to achieve success not only in academia, but also throughout life.”  In our view, this empowerment entails creating spaces in classrooms and curricula that allow for critical practices and habits in mind that nurture life-long learning.  For 21st century teachers preparing students to participate in and negotiate in increasingly complex world of technological and global inter-connectedness, moving beyond traditional educational frameworks that construct students as passive “receivers” of knowledge is critical.  While LaGuardia encourages teaching practices that challenge us to resist such passive models in favor of active learning, this is easier said than done.

Traditional education ideologies are powerful and pervasive.  Their narrow focus on students’ academic skills directs our attention to filling deficits.  Moving beyond such practices requires us to identify and build upon our students’ strengths and resources.  So how can we as a College and as individual instructors collaboratively and productively resist deficit ideologies and cultivate teaching practices that empower students’ identity development along side their academic success?  Adapting the theoretical perspective offered by Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT), this workshop provides a transformative approach to teaching the whole student.  We model how this framework can be applied to the classroom, our students describe their experiences, and we invite participants to brainstorm/share their own applications.

Presenters:   Eduardo Vianna (Social Science) and Maria Jerskey (Education and Language Acquisition)

Room:   E258

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Faculty-Student Collaborative Research and Student Success in STEM  

Success rates of American students, especially the students from underrepresented minority groups, are not very encouraging in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) disciplines. Additionally, and perhaps consequently, there has been a decline in number of students entering into STEM.  Obama’s administration has taken several measures in an effort to increase the number of American students in STEM. While these efforts are appreciable, there is a strong need to initiate programs that would enable students to achieve greater success in STEM. One method to achieve this goal is to promote collaborative research in the STEM fields. Offering opportunities of collaborative research to undergraduate students, especially at community colleges, may result in motivating them to excel in STEM fields and thus achieve higher successes, which will enhance their success for transferring to senior colleges. Undergraduate research also positively impacts on achieving greater learning outcomes, increased retention, and integration into successful professions.  Research allows students to experience authentic scientific activities such as, building hypothesis, designing an experiment, interpreting unexpected results, and reviewing literature. Research activities also result in students gaining confidence in their ability to think like scientists and foster interaction between students and faculty. Thus, engaging students in a meaningful research experience early in their academic careers can have lasting effects on immediate student success as well as long-term development of a community of innovative, enthusiastic teachers and scientists. This workshop will present examples of involvement of students in collaborative research activities and its impact on student success.

Presenters: Maria Entezari (Natural Science) and Karim Sharif (Natural Science)

Room:   E213

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Destination Graduation – The Next Phase  

In this workshop we will present the major findings of Destination Graduation and describe the next steps including 45 credit designation and faculty advising as a central part of the process. 

Presenters:   Michael Rodriguez (Humanities), Jane MacKillop (ACE) Edward Goodman (Business and Technology)

Room:   E216

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Strengthening Core Learning: Addressing Core Competencies in the Disciplines  

In 2012-2013, a new seminar is being developed that is oriented toward addressing core competencies in the disciplines. This workshop will offer a preview of that seminar and help to deepen the on-going, college-wide discussion of these issues. Presenters will be seminar leaders, each of whom is co-running a small group that focuses on a single core competency: Reading, Critical Thinking, Quantitative Literacy, and Research. 

This workshop will be interactive. We will invite all participants at the workshop to try out integrative strategies and sample assignments as a jumping-off point for a deeper conversation about these questions.

These competencies have guided curriculum development in General Education and our majors, informed effective faculty seminars such as Writing in the Disciplines, and shaped our assessment process. The Strengthening Core Learning seminar will help faculty integrate combinations of key competencies into their courses. It will build on the proven practices and design of LaGuardia's Writing in the Disciplines program to help faculty incorporate writing into their courses and adapt it to disciplinary needs. And at the same time, through readings, discussions, and activities focused on developing low-, middle- and high-stakes assignments, it will help faculty use the writing process to deepen learning and help students build and integrate other competencies.

Presenters:   Karen Miller (Social Science), Phyllis van Slyck (English), Chris Schmidt (English), John Chaffee (Humanities), Michelle Pacht (English), Evelyn Burg  (Communication Skills), Justin Rogers-Cooper (English), and Yelena Baishanski (Mathematics, Engineering and Computer Science)

Room:   E225

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Connect to Learning and LaGuardia’s Leadership for Strengthening the National ePortfolio Conversation and Building a Model of Exemplary ePortfolio Practices  

LaGuardia leads a three-year, FIPSE-funded collaboration, the “Connect to Learning” project, which is designed to strengthen reflective ePortfolio practices on multiple campuses and generate a national developmental model of best practices.   Moving from learning design to professional development, implementation and assessment, LaGuardia helps campus teams build student success with digitally-enhanced integrative learning pedagogies.  Working with 25 colleges, from Boston University to Virginia Tech to Salt Lake Community College, the project has produced and internally published a model of successful ePortfolio practices. In this session we will discuss the preliminary findings of this research project, focusing on ways in which the C2L Model can map out for faculty, staff and administrators the multiple and complex factors that impact our students' learning.  Project leaders and LaGuardia faculty will discuss the C2L Model, showcase examples of reflective pedagogical practices, point out linkages and connections to strategies in overall ePortfolio implementation, and share findings from the research.

Presenters:   Bret Eynon (CTL), Judit Torok (CTL), Raj Bhika (Business and Technology)

Room:    E227

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ePortfolios and Peer Mentoring – Putting the Whole in Holistic  

This presentation explores how two transformative and holistic educational models in the forms of ePortfolios and peer-mentoring are used hand-in-hand to provide LaGuardia students a means to construct and make meaning of their own learning. Influenced by Aristotle’s paradigm of “archons,” peer mentoring at LaGuardia is realized through the ePortfolio studio hours, taught by student teachers, called ePortfolio consultants.

The studio hour as a program is an integral backbone of the ePortfolio Initiative at LaGuardia, for it is here where the actual design and development of ePortfolios is done. The process behind the development of ePortfolios and the resulting products themselves are a case study of how both the student teachers and their students can make meaning of their own learning. The learning dynamic that happens within the digital landscape of an ePortfolio provides a strong argument for how peer-mentoring and ePortfolio makes transformative learning predicated on reflection, critical thinking and social networking pedagogy possible.

As peer-mentors, consultants help students, especially the new ones, navigate their way around the College and ease the pangs of adjustments and acclimatization inherent during the first year.  Using their own experience as former LAGCC students, ePortfolio consultants are also in the best position to share common sense and practical advice to students, having successfully traversed the path of ‘been there, done that.’  Moreover, in their capacities as supplemental instructors,  ePortfolio consultants act as academic liaisons between faculty and students, making the connection between the so-called lecture and ePortfolio laboratory components of certain courses visible and whole.

Presenters: Maria Romano, Pablo Avila, and Mercedes del Rosario (Center for Teaching and Learning),

Room:   E251

*****

“Assisting the Distressed Student” – A Holistic Team Approach to the Identification and Prevention of a Student in Crisis

As a member of the faculty/staff here at LaGuardia Community College, you are constantly interacting with students.  At times you may encounter a student undergoing an overwhelming amount of stress.  Many students experience serious and painful crises in their lives that can interfere with their education and negatively influence their behavior.

The most recent information that we have gathered at LaGuardia indicates that around mid-terms and finals there is increased likelihood that you will encounter emotionally troubled or highly stressed students in the classroom or across you desk.  It is important to remember that most of these students are not really different from other students and staff.  Most are experiencing situational frustrations, pressures, conflicts, and in their own way are asking for help.  As faculty, staff or administrator interacting with students, you are in an excellent position to recognize behavioral changes that characterize the emotionally distressed student. Your ability to recognize the signs of emotional distress and to acknowledge your concerns directly to him/her is often noted by students as the most significant factor in their successful problem resolution.

This presentation is designed to give you some useful techniques in dealing with distressed or difficult students.  Participants will be introduced to animated software called Kognito, which will introduce basic skills that will help you understand the warning signs that tell you a student may need some help and direction.  Included in this guide are brief descriptions and comments on possible interventions and referral resources, and an introduction to our Campus Prevention System (CAPS) that will assist us to work with students that are in continuous crisis.

Presenters:  Matthew S. Joffe (Student Services and Disabled Student Programs), Jhony Nelson (Disabled Student Programs), Regina Varin-Mignano (Student Services and Disabled Students Program)

Room:             E 212

The 21st   Century Academic: Open Access as Good Citizenship in the Information Age  

Part of being a 21st  century learner means contributing to the wider conversations taking place outside of the formal academy. Faculty can model this behavior by sharing their knowledge via open access. Open access can mean many things, from textbooks that are free and available to anyone, to subscription journals that permit authors to publicly archive their own articles online. The goal of open access, like the goal of education, is to make knowledge widely available to as many people as possible. One of the most effective ways to teach students to lead is for LaGuardia faculty to take a leadership role in the information revolution. Academic publishing is becoming an increasingly expensive prospect with end-users, like faculty and students, often seeing diminishing returns from the huge financial investments made by themselves and their institutions. Open access represents a way for faculty to reclaim their work and model how they make connections within their discipline. 

This workshop will discuss open access, defining it and explaining how it impacts the work of faculty and the learning environment of students. It will also show participants how to find open access content, like articles and textbooks, how to determine to what extent their work can be shared with a broader audience, and how to avoid being taken advantage of by predatory publishers.

Presenters: Ann Matsuuchi (Library), Steven Ovadia (Library), Alexandra Rojas (Library), and Catherine Stern (Library) 

Room:   E101-B

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The Emerging ‘One Health’ Approach to Global Health: Are there Implications for Higher Education?  

Technology and human development, biomedical research, agriculture and environmental concerns are impacting our lives, those of non-human animals around us, and the ecosystems in which we live.  Ethical questions are generating the need for understanding and collaboration across disciplines and the call for a global health paradigm that considers animals, ecosystem and human health is gaining support.    

The idea of a unified approach to animal, environmental, and human health is not new but resolutions by such important bodies as the American Medical Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and the Wildlife Conservation Society over the past decade have highlighted the important and urgent need for such an approach in confronting the many ecological and health challenges facing us in the 21st Century.  

This session will highlight One Health as it relates to various disciplines and consider ways in which its holistic, interdisciplinary framework may serve particularly well in educating students to face the myriad of challenges in our world today.

Presenters: Susan Kopp (Health Science), Catherine Reid (Health Science)

Room:   E250

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Diverse Student Needs Demand Differentiated Instruction:  How formative assessments can be used to inform instruction  

This workshop will highlight how the Communications Skills Department has integrated differentiation of instruction to meet the diverse needs of our multilingual, multi-level developmental learners.  In classroom instruction, Michelle Amos will discuss her use of formative assessments to create and recreate learning groups focused on individual skill needs and share learning outcomes based on this intervention construct. Additionally, she will share research supporting successful strategies for implementing differentiation across subject areas.  In tutoring lab support for student learning, Joseph Evering will present strategies used by tutors to informally assess student needs for individualized and small group study sessions.  He will share strategies for designing effective instructional materials as implemented in both the tutoring lab and in creating passages for the ACT Reading Preparation Manual.  Presenters will lead participants in consideration of how differentiation might be integrated into their curriculum design.  

Presenters:   Michelle Amos (Communication Skills), and Joseph Evering (Communication Skills)

Room:   E252

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CUNYFirst Orientation Workshops for Faculty 

 CUNYFirst orientation workshops for faculty will provide hands on review of key features faculty will use in this new system for the Fall Semester, which includes:  My Schedule, My Textbooks, Class Roster, Grade Rosters, and Verification of Attendance Rosters.   It is required that faculty claim their CUNYfirst accounts before attending a workshop.  A separate lab will be available with support staff to assist faculty in this step.  The orientation workshops will occur in 3 different rooms at staggered start times, to allow for flexibility so that faculty have time to claim their accounts if they have not done so previously.  The location and schedule of workshops and "account claiming lab" is shown below: