Being in Brooklyn is a Learning Community that thrives on collaboration. Prof. Davis and Prof. Rosen have coordinated these SPE 1330 and ENG 1101 courses to provide an integrated approach to communication.
Collaborative Activities and Approaches
- Shared OpenLab site for both courses in the Being in Brooklyn Learning Community
- Place-Based Focus, exploring Brooklyn through readings as well as first-hand experiences
- Participation in Students and Faculty in the Archives (SAFA) through the Brooklyn Historical Society
- Emphasis on the First-Year Experience, orienting students to the significance of their surroundings
- Technology-enhanced, using interactive technologies including the OpenLab, YouTube, and Google Maps
- Overlapping Assignments
- Joint Sessions take advantage of the back-to-back scheduling of SPE 1330 and ENG 1101
Students in the “Being in Brooklyn” Learning Community will have assignments for SPE 1330 and ENG 1101. Some of these assignments will overlap between the two courses, including work students do for their informative and persuasive speeches in SPE 1330 and work students do for descriptive/comparative and research essays in ENG 1101. This overlap offers students a unique experience in that their efforts will lead to more involved and developed finished work.
Introductions: Philosophy, Passion, and Vision for the Future
Students will get acquainted with the practice of overlapping assignments as we get acquainted with each other through speeches of introduction and introductory essays that use overlapping information toward SPE 1330 and ENG 1101 goals. Students will use the information they develop for these assignments in their OpenLab profiles and are encouraged to incorporate it into their ePortfolios.
Through this Learning Community, students will explore Brooklyn on foot, in the library, in writing, through speeches, and through interactive technologies. Students will have the benefit of the sustained effort for these linked assignments to produce a substantial finished product for each course. These finished products can be featured on each student’s ePortfolio.
The work students in the Fall 2011 Telling Brooklyn Stories Learning Community completed throughout the semester led to a collaborative poster at City Tech’s Student Poster Session. This is a great opportunity for students who want to share their efforts with students, faculty, and staff at City Tech.
The work students in the Fall 2012 Telling Brooklyn Stories Learning Community completed throughout the semester led to a collaborative interactive map; the Fall 2013 Being in Brooklyn Learning Community aims to improve on this assignment.
View Telling Brooklyn Stories in a larger map
Prof. Davis and Prof. Rosen welcome each other into their classrooms. They will take advantage of their back-to-back class sessions to offer students unique opportunities through collaborative joint sessions and double-period sessions. These will be indicated on the class schedules:
At the Ursula Schwerin Library: Each ENG 1101 course is required to visit the library for an introductory session about using the library at City Tech. This joint session uses both class periods to offer students a more hands-on, in-depth experience, and considers the ways in which students will conduct research for both ENG 1101 and SPE 1330.
At the Othmer Library: Both Prof. Davis and Prof. Rosen are faculty fellows on the FIPSE-funded Students and Faculty in the Archives grant. This project brings students and faculty from City Tech, Long Island University-Brooklyn, and St. Francis College into the Brooklyn Historical Society to have hands-on experience with the archival materials in the Othmer Library collections. Students will examine a variety of maps, including manuscript maps, printed maps of the Downtown Brooklyn area, and transportation maps. The visits to BHS will serve both as research opportunities and opportunities to put into practice the communication methods highlighted in SPE 1330 and ENG 1101.
