Open Pedagogy on the OpenLab

One of the things we want to do in this group is highlight assignments.  I’ve started a preliminary list below, but it’s just a start and there are plenty more out there!  Please feel free to add to it with any assignments you think would be good to highlight and archive–your own or others you’ve seen around the OpenLab.  If one of your assignments is on the list, feel free to edit or expand!

Unphotographable
This assignment asks students to write a post in the style of unphotographable.com, describing in rich detail a moment they experienced–a textual version of a photograph not taken.

Matt Gold and Johannah Rodgers, ENG 1101 (Composing Abstractions & Reading and Writing in a Digital Age)


Concierge marketing video
Students imagine they are the concierge of a Brooklyn boutique hotel, and create and post a video promoting a particular attraction on the Brooklyn waterfront.
View assignment description

Karen Goodlad, Hospitality Management 1101

Image description
This assignment asks students to write a blog post describing an image they found or took themselves that captures their “passion or philosophy or vision of their future in five to ten years.”
View assignment description

Jody Rosen, English 1101 (Telling Brooklyn Stories)

Final Report and Website
Students are asked to choose an issue within their community or profession, research and write up a formal report about the issue.  In this scaffolded assignment students first post initial work, such as proposals on the course site, and the final product, including writing and multimedia components, is presented on students’ own OpenLab sites they have created.
View assignment description: https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/brundage3773fa12/?p=386

Lisa Brundage, English 3773 (Advanced Technical Writing)


Writing equations with LaTeX (using a WordPress plugin)
In this assignment, students are asked to write a problem that might be used on the exam.  The second part was to solve someone else’s as extra credit.
View assignment description

Jonas Reitz, Math 1275

Mathematics Treasure Hunt
In this assignments students took a walk around their neighborhood and took pictures of objects that represented mathematical concepts.  Then, they wrote a blog post including the pictures, describing their neighborhood and the images they captured.
View assignment description

Jonas Reitz, Math 1275

Collaborative course glossary
This assignment asks students to each contribute to a course glossary, using Docs, the collaborative writing tool on the course profile.
View Docs for 1101 and 2003

Jody Rosen, English 2003 & 1101 (Intro to Poetry & Telling Brooklyn Stories)

Explore and participate in another OpenLab course
This assignment asked students to explore the OpenLab, participate in another course, and write a reflective post about their experience.
View assignment description

Matt Gold, English 2003 (Intro to Poetry)

Web Evaluation 3Cs: This assignment asked students to find a website related to their research topic and write a post evaluating it according to the 3Cs–contents, currency, and credibility.
View assignment description

Peter Catapano, History 1110 (History of the US to 1877)

Final research paper abstracts
This assignment asked students to post and comment on their final research paper abstracts.  Since the course site was public, he also invited colleagues from a professional association to view and comment on the student’s work.
View assignment description

Daniel Alter, Tooth Morphology