Community/Civic Engagement – L4: Living Lab Learning Library

May 26, 2022

Group Communication Summative Assignment

Misti Wills

Humanities/New York City College of Technology

COM1330 Public Speaking

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Students will be put into small groups to identify and solve a problem on campus utilizing Dewey’s Reflective -Thinking Method of 5 Steps to Solving a Problem. They will conduct research, cite evidence, and brainstorm possible solutions. They will turn in a written paper and then present their work as a persuasive speech to the class demonstrating why their preferred solution should be taken.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

HIEP of Collaborative Projects and Assignments and SLO of Oral and Written Communication Skills. This is an on site learning activity.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

This activity is the final one of the semester after they have studied persuasive speaking and presented persuasive speeches. I review the assignment and assign groups approximately one month before it is due. Some class time is utilized in the beginning and it is expected that students may need to get together outside of class for one or two meetings to prepare and practive final presentation.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Students must know how to write an outline and know how to write a persuasive speech in order to succeed in this assignment. I begin the assignment by introducing the positive and negative roles people play in groups and by asking them how they feel when they have group project assignments and why. I ask them to strategize how best to deal with the negative roles when they encounter them and stress the importance of group work in future careers.

POSITIVE ROLES
Encourager
Harmonizer
Compromiser
Gatekeeper
Standard setter
Group Observer
Follower

NEGATIVE ROLES
Dominator
Blocker
Self-Confessor
Recognition Seeker
Special-interest pleader
Joker

I give out the grading rubric and instructions showing a separate grade for the paper from the oral presentation. I require that students brainstorm what problem they'd like to see solved on campus and state that it must be a problem they are all familiar with. I review that all students must participate in the oral presentation and deliver a part of the final speech and that they need two sources of information for research and a minimum of two visual aids. I encourage them to obtain videos and photos showing the problem whenever possible and to interview other students and faculty who may have experienced it as well to collect their evidence.
This is a low stakes activity worth 15% of the final grade.

Assessment: How do you assess this activity? What assessment measures do you use? Do you use a VALUE rubric? If not, how did you develop your rubric? Is your course part of the college-wide general education assessment initiative?

I use the VALUE Rubrics from Oral and Written Communication which include the following;
ORGANIZATION-Cohesive Presentation
LANGUAGE-Compelling/Persuasive
DELIVERY-Effective Techniques
SUPPORTING MATERIALS-Establish Credibility and Authority
CENTRAL MESSAGE –Compelling and Memorable

The paper and oral speech are assessed separately for the total final grade for the project. Both require identifying and explaining the five steps they used to solve the problem and presenting evidence and persuading the audience to take their recommended solution.
My course is a general education requirement called Public Speaking.

Reflection: How well did this activity work in your classroom? Would you repeat it? Why or why not? What challenges did you encounter, and how did you address them? What, if anything, would you change? What did students seem to enjoy about the activity?

This activity was recieved with some trepidation because of the nature of group work which requires relying on each other. Once the students discovered they were empowered to choose to make a change to something on campus, their imaginations took off. They identified problems such as difficulty to find car parking, long lines at elevators, lack of enough outlets to plug in devices, etc. They also came up with wonderful solutions and ideas! Their video and photographic evidence of the problems, along with video interviews with other students in them, brought much delight during the presentations and bonded the students. It felt more personal than their other speeches had been in some ways and after two years without much in-person interaction, really seemed to delight them with just being together.
I would absolutely repeat this activity and plan to do so. It would be enjoyable to invite some administrators in to see their ideas!

Additional Information: Please share any additional comments and further documentation of the activity – e.g. assignment instructions, rubrics, examples of student work, etc. These can be links to pages or posts on the OpenLab.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

March 28, 2022

Ethical Design: Evaluating Digital and IRL Experiences (and how one might support or hinder the other)

Noreen Whysel

Communication Design/City Tech

UX and UI Design

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

In a Data for Good lecture at Columbia's Data Science Institute, dana boyd of Data+Society told the audience that her proudest achievements are often when she convinces a client not to create something that can potentially do harm.

When does it make sense to NOT make a digital version of something that would be better designed IRL? Are there activities that are more suited to online than IRL? Or are there cases where a combination of both appropriate?

In this exercise, I shared a few articles about online activities that have had an impact on real life. We discussed both positive an negative reviews of online activities, including Pokemon Go, which is often discussed in terms of it's getting gamers to be more social and active to Instagram, which has been shown to have a negative effect on the self-esteem of teenaged girls. A third example was on how social media use is contributing to the political polarization of America by removing the public commons from public space to largely anonymous forums.

After discussing these articles, students formed breakout groups to find a news article about an online activity and discuss the pros and cons of that activity online. And to also discuss how that activity could be replaced by or combined with an IRL activity to improve the experience. Finally, they posted a reflection on the exercise to the class Slack group.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

This activity focuses on three learning outcomes: Reading, Information Literacy and Ethical Thinking. Students are asked to read an assigned text describing Digital vs IRL spaces and then in select an example from the reading of a digital experience that might be better In Real Life or paired with an IRL experience. After discussing in groups, they then share back to the class what they discussed and finally post a reflection on course discussion board about their understanding of the pros and cons of digital vs IRL for the chosen scenario.

To address Information Literacy, students must find one additional example of digital applications where the IRL experience takes precedence over digital. What might someone gain from a physical experience that they can't get from digital? When might a digital application enhance the IRL experience?

And to expand their understanding of who is impacted by their design decisions, they then work in groups to make a stakeholder map showing who is affected by the designed experience of your example. Who is participating in the experience? Who else might be affected by the experience? Or harmed? Who might be left out?

In addition to the reading, information literacy and ethical Thinking student learning outcomes, students gain gain from two High Impact Education Practices: Place Based Learning and Collaborative Assignments.

Place-Based Learning
Students consider the physical and embodied experiences of IRL versus digital experiences

Collaborative Assignments
Students participate in Discussion of the pros and cons of selected digital experiences

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

This activity was part of the Ethics and Accessibility lecture in Week 7 of the Spring 2022 semester. It took a little over a half hour to complete. There was no out-of-class time except if a student wishes to post their reflection after class. If we had more time (and were not otherwise online this week) we might have been able to go outside and play Pokemon Go or survey people about their online and offline political activity on campus grounds. We may still try to create an online/IRL activity during a later session and follow up with a stakeholder map, which we did not have time to do.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

The activity was low stakes and ungraded. The only preparation was to find three articles to discuss as examples of Online activities that either replace or compromise IRL experiences.

Because this assignment is ungraded, I plan to use it as part of the participation grade. I do not believe my course is part of the college-wide general educaiton assessment initiative. It is an elective.

Students enjoyed discussing online versus "In Real Life" very much. They are very aware of online activities that are creating unrealistic expectations for their real-life relationships and are concerned about exacerbating these experiences through their design careers. I would like to refine the activity and possibly replace a duller accessibility study that they do for credit and that could be done in class in groups or as a demonstration. Not being able to go outside or actually be IRL was an issue with this activity, though some students mentioned that it made it easier for everyone in their group to search for articles since they were all sitting at a computer anyway.

The activity presentation for the Living Lab course is openly available at : https://cuny907-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/noreen_whysel27_login_cuny_edu/EeDP7sDKTAROh1Nle8uKlagB5bMXEem7EM4k6Lvh7nagBA?e=FgnQIx

You can also read about the activity on the course blog at https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/-whysel-comd-3562-he93-sp2022/2022/03/28/ethical-design-evaluating-digital-and-irl-experiences-and-how-one-might-support-or-hinder-the-other/

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January 20, 2022

ECHOES

Rob Rothblatt

CUNY CityTech Architecture

Arch3551 Sustainability Theory + Practice

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Oral Communication Exercise, building on a Research Powerpoint which is already part of the established curriculum of this course. Activity builds Oratory and Rhetoric by appointing respondents to the Presentations who will "Echo" the presentation, building and challenging. This assignment will be Written, but then read as a speech.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

SLO – Student Learn Outcomes include:
Foster Critical Analysis
Improve Oratory skills
Explore Rhetoric
Promote Multiple Viewpoints
Keep the Conversation Going

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

This assignment will be coincident with the 18 Student presentations, which happen in groups of 2 over 9 weeks, beginning in Week 4 and continuing through Week 13.
The Initial Presentations are 30 minutes – with 30 minutes devoted for the response and discussions for a total of 1 hour each.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

The assignment combining both the original presentation and the response (each student will do one of each) is high stakes in that together they comprise 30% of the grade of the semester.

Students will need to work on research, and have their initial drafts reviewed by the professor. They must address at least one point of the presentation to which they are responding which they feel is Enlightening and one which they find Disquieting and in need of either more support, or which they directly oppose

Assessments from the AACU Rubrics could include:
Organization
Language
Delivery
Supporting Materials
Central Message

However, we are likely to concentrate on just one or 2 in order to keep the assignment focused and reasonable/

Assignment is planned for Spring Semester 2022, finishing at the End of May. At that time, I will post the results.

Note I am taking on a class which I have never taught and which has not been put on OpenLab – however, in the future, perhaps the Course Coordinator will consider migrating it to an open platform.

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January 20, 2022

Reading, Diversity & Global Learning Student Project for English 1101 & 1121

Prof. Nadine (Weinstein) Lavi

English Department at NYCCT

English 1101 & 1121

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Students will examine an historical text, Alfred Schenker’s Secret War Diary, 1941-43 for:

A. 1. Analysis: Understanding of the context, content, spirit, and message
2. Place-based learning: Discovery & research of the names and places mentioned in the diary

B. 1. COMPARISON of a comparable, current event in terms of ethics, ethnicities, discriminatory issues, cultural understanding.
2. Place-based learning: Discovery of places related to the comparable event

C. HIEP: Diversity & Global Learning
Students will explore the cultural sensitivities/insensitivities of the primary text (diary) and the comparable historical or current event in a place-based context or otherwise (analytical – report/research paper, visual – PowerPoint presentation)

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

Students will a. engage with the primary text for discovery and analysis of its themes, names, places, and events to learn about it from a firsthand account and to challenge their own assumptions and perceptions, b. research and analyze a second historical or current event with similar themes (oppression, cultural prejudices, racism, genocide, etc.) to question and examine their assumptions and perceptions about it, c. determine how it affects them and their lives.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

A mid-semester initial research gathering could qualify as a low-stakes assignment. Students can then do a Part 2 of a PowerPoint presentation with visuals about names and places in the diary and the comparable event. Students may then elect to add to the PowerPoint and/or write a report or research paper as an end of the semester high stakes assignment in lieu of a Final Exam (or use another text for that instead).

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Students will follow a guided modeling of research by me, their professor, of either a similar event or something from the diary, and then have to do their own research about the diary and their comparable event.

A place-based component could involve locating places that were mentioned in the diary based on a theme, e.g. a. all of the bars where the Jewish Militia invited the Gestapo to get them drunk before they did the "actions"- rounding up and killing Jews, b. cross referencing various names of people and places that are mentioned in the diary to find out as much information as possible about specific figures or places, and c. doing the same for a local (NYC-based) place-based event, e.g. all of the bars where Mafia met to plan hits, or slave-based locations (slave auctions, cemeteries, etc.)

The Reading Rubric from CityTech would be handed out to the students to use as a guide.

They would have to incorporate the answers to four questions assessing their experience in the PowerPoint presentation or report or research paper:
Students will incorporate 4 KEY QUESTIONS into the REPORT or POWERPOINT to show how the analysis, research, and discovery about Alfred Schenker’s Secret War Diary, 1941-43 and the COMPARABLE HISTORICAL/CURRENT EVENT impacted them:
1. What assumptions did I originally have about a. the Holocaust and b. the Comparable Historical/Current Event I have researched and analyzed?
2. What did I learn about each one?
3. How have my ideas/perspectives about each one changed?
4. How does this affect/impact me personally in terms of relating, values, my life, my vision?

Having used this text as a primary source for several semesters, I have found that the students respond to it, but by adding a new dimension of 1. a comparable event for them to research that is either historical or current, that is 2. also place-based (e.g. in NYC), it would make it more immediate and have a greater impact, but I will have to wait and see how it goes.

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June 12, 2020

Understanding Animations and Films Through a Deeper Cultural Understanding

Crystal Kim

Entertainment Department

Sound for Multimedia

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Students are to choose the following:

1. An animation scene that has the original language used with English subtitles and with a version with English language recorded or dubbed over. Compare and contrast the mood, emotions, and character's thoughts between the languages used.

2. Choose a film where a different language other then English is spoken. Interpret the mood, emotions, and character's thoughts. Research of cultural values of language used will be needed to compare and contrast the cultural mood and emotions and evaluate how much of it is universal

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

I like for budding video and audio engineers to understand the making of animations or filmmaker's intentions further which includes understanding the culture and language that an animator and filmmaker uses. As animations, particularly ones used in Japanese, and foreign films are becoming universally popular, the foundation of how these videos or films are made are important to understand for anyone looking to take on any role in the film industry. This allows the students to be more culturally aware of people outside of customs they are used to, and to see the comparisons and contrasts. For production purposes, a deeper understanding of the foundation can aid with audio production for recording and film directing.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

I will be introducing it before they do their midterm projects so they have an understanding of the basic foundation before they produce their midterm projects.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Doing some research of the culture and the cultural values in a language will be necessary to do the assignment. The students are to find what is idiosyncratic to a culture and common cultural themes used in animations and/or films for a particular culture and language. The activity is somewhat high stakes since I see students resonate with this sort of activity as most students tend to be very observant in analyzing a group with an identity and how it relates to their own.

I used the knowledge and skills area from the intercultural rubric. Within the knowledge section, the activity is to fulfill the cultural worldview frameworks and under skills, the activity is to fulfill the empathy and verbal & non-verbal communication section. Therefore, I use a value rubric. And my course is not part of the college-wide general education assessment initiative.

I was not able to use the assignment in my classrooms as I was not given any classes to teach for the semester. I think this assignment will go very well for every semester I teach the class. The challenge I see are students not doing enough cultural research before doing the assignment, particularly if one were to choose a foreign film scene since it takes of course so many years to really understand a culture. Unfortunately, I am not able to assess if students have enjoyed the assignment yet as I have not had the opportunity to give the assignment.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

Understanding Animations and Films Through a Deeper Cultural Understanding

May 29, 2020

Design Your Own Culture

George Larkins

Communication Design

Motion Design

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

It is for students to become aware of people of diverse cultures who are doing design work that students hope to do themselves. And to invite them to question why the creative work of people of color is not recognized for their contributions to the design world.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

This will also give students insight into the possibility of a place to start when looking for a career.
Current research shows very few people of color are represented in the design field at all levels. And too often, their work has been obscured or taken credit for or they were asked to remove the attribution.
This assignment addresses cultural self-awareness
And knowledge of cultural worldview frameworks on the rubric.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

This will be an introduction to the class in the first two weeks. A minimum of two weeks will be devoted to this project. Students should be prepared to spend two to three hours of research out of the classroom.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

In order for students to be successful. They must be prepared to spend at least two hours of research time before any production can be they will be able to move forward.

Discover at least five people from an underrepresented cultural group in the design world and be prepared to share their work with the class. Students will be asked to choose one of the five and analyze influences on that person’s design. Students will create a design campaign in the style of that designer celebrating an aspect of their culture. The campaign will include a combination of print, web, and video spots.

n/a

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June 10, 2019

The Spanish Flu

Stephanie Boyle

Social Science/ Arts and Sciences

History 1103

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Three part assignment that includes the HIEPs: Writing Intensive, Place Based learning and Collaborative work. This will be used for History 1103 online which is a zero cost textbook course with an OER.
1- read and complete a written assignment and provide feedback
2-go the Brooklyn Historical Museum and explore the exhibit
3-write response to the experience at the museum on Flipgrid (explore flipgrid at www.flipgrid.com)

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

The General Education Outcomes that the assignment will address are: Intercultural Knowledge and Competence

Demonstrate expanded cultural and global awareness and sensitivity. (part one)
Discern multiple perspectives. (part two)
Use awareness of cultural differences to bridge cultural and linguistic barriers. (part three)

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

This assignment will be due at midterm. They will go on a visit to the Brooklyn Historical Society after watching a video on the Spanish flu and then participate in a discuss on flipgrid about the project.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

The instructions for part one are found below:
The Spanish Flu
A world-wide epidemic caused by influenza viruses led to between 50 and 100 million deaths in 1918 and 1919 (as much as 1 of every 18 people). Because neutral Spain was not censoring news it became associated with Spain but its origins are more likely to be the USA or France. It came in three waves (Spring 1918, Autumn 1918, and Winter 1919) and the second wave was unusually deadly. And unlike typical flu pandemics it disproportionately killed young healthy adults. Many researchers have suggested that the conditions of the war significantly aided the spread of the disease. And others have argued that the course of the war (and subsequent peace treaty) was influenced by the pandemic. To help understand questions about the worst disaster in history we have built a computer model of the pandemic.

Brief documentary about the Spanish flu pandemic :

We have also prepared videos of the execution of the Spanish Flu model. There is a lively debate about where the flu started. Below you will find simulators for two of the supposed epicenters of the flu. The first video for both Camp Funston and Etaples are the historic video and are based on the available historical sources that tracked the disease. The second simulator tracks the disease as if there was no war and the last tracks the disease had the war ended in 1920. Since the No War and War ends in 1920 are not historical- what can we learn by comparing them to the Historic videos? What can we learn about disease, war and its movement.

First case Historic No war War ends 1920
Camp Funston 2:01 video 2:02 video 2:20 video
Etaples 2:19 video 2:20 video 2:21 video
Please answer each of the following cluster of questions and use the information that you gathered from the simulators to answer the following questions:

The differences between war and no war are dramatic. What might account for this? Conditions in army camps? Celebrations and troop movements due to the armistice? How could we attempt to answer this?

Army camps during the war were both very crowded and had a heavy flow of troops in and out. How might this affect the epidemic's dynamics?

The no war scenario outcomes are very different depending upon whether the first cases were in Camp Funston, Kansas or Etaples, France. Why would that be?

The computer simulation generates dynamics for counter-factual scenarios based on many factors and assumptions. How good is this? Are there alternative ways of answering such questions?

This is the rubric that students will follow to complete all three parts of the assignment.

Rubric for Long Writing Assignments

This is used for an online class. It will give students a chance to go on a site visit and engage with their fellow colleagues on Flipgrid for a group discussion.

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June 7, 2019

Walking Tour in Paris

Thalia Pericles

Hospitality Management, SPS

Thomas Ahrens Int’l Work/Study Program

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Students are placed in groups and given a specific site in Paris, which will become the focal point for their walking tour while in Paris. They will be the tour guides for the rest of the cohort and Professors during the study abroad experience. The focus is the history, tourism, food and culture.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

After conducting research on the history, food, culture and tourism components of their site, they will be able to conduct an informative walking tour of the area in Paris.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

This assignment is given about 1.5-2 months before the program begins so that students have ample time to prepare.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

This is a high stakes project. Students conduct their research and then are asked to create a visual aid to share with the group during the tour. This can be in the form of a post card, map, brochure etc.

The grading criteria is as follows:
GRADING CRITERIA

Content (History, Culture, Food, Tourism) 30%
Depth of research 20%
Cohesiveness, Flow and Organization 20%
Equal Participation of Group Members 20%
Visual Aid 10%

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June 4, 2019June 6, 2019

The Peopling of New York City: Neighborhood Explorations

Monica Berger

Library

LIB/ ARCH2205: Learning Places

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

How do we understand a neighborhood in terms of who lives there? Specifically, we will look at the different immigrant and ethnic groups that people a neighborhood. This four-class unit is designed for LIB/ARCH2205, Learning Places, but could be used as a module for other courses. The timing of this module in LIB/ARCH2205 would depend on whether the course focuses entirely on the intercultural theme or if the module infuses or adds intercultural learning as a secondary or tertiary aspect of neighborhood exploration. For the full intercultural focus, I envision this module in weeks 4 and 5 after students have learned about New York City and United States immigrant and ethnic history and as well as ethnic studies as it relates to identity and intersectionality. I hope to bring in faculty with expertise in sociology, anthropology and/or history to either co-teach or guest lecture.

We will focus on the Sunset Park, Brooklyn neighborhood: it has a varied and rich ethnic and immigrant history and sociology and is easy to travel to from campus. Class one is an information literacy-oriented workshop that foregrounds student understanding of the neighborhood preparing them for intercultural and place-based learning and meaningful analysis and reflection. Next, in class two, students observe the neighborhood through the intercultural lens. They will be guided in their observations with a series of prompts. Chiefly using photography and audio recordings, they will record their observations. In class three, the students will work together in teams to create a short (5 minute) presentation. They will be supplied with a PowerPoint template that guides how their incorporate their documentation. In the final class of unit, class four, the teams will share out their presentations. The unit will culminate with an in-class reflection and a related homework reflection. For homework, students will also select a signature artifact from a cultural group in their home neighborhood. In the following class, the class will play a game to deduce the artifact and, in the process, may become more aware of individual presumptions. For courses with a semester-long focus on place-based learning, this unit prepares students to continue the iterative work of synthesizing close observation and research. Students would return to the neighborhood to develop and deepen the observation and research connection, moving towards and into a substantial research question.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

Class 1: In the Wikipedia exercise, the students will be introduced to domain knowledge about the neighborhood. The structure of the article will help students begin to see how a topic is structured and give them a frame for future research. The exercise will also incorporate many facets of information literacy including documentation, attribution and bibliographic references to published/library resources. Students will learn how to find books and other materials including newspaper articles. There will be a brief activity where they find the call number of location of the books in our library. Time will also be given to reading the Encyclopedia of New York City article on Sunset Park. The class will end with a group think-pair-share activity where students compare and contrast Wikipedia to library resources. Homework will require students to find an article in a local newspaper or magazine related to Sunset Park and write a 75-word blog post on OpenLab summarizing the article. Every article must be unique.

Class 2: The exploration: students will learn how to observe visually and aurally and record key facets of a neighborhood and its people through a series of prompts related to the intercultural knowledge and place-based learning. Students will practice utilizing non-text documentation to capture their observations.

Class 3: Preparing the presentation: Students will practice group work and learn how to incorporate their findings into a template that makes the observation coherent. Students reflect on what they observed about ethnic and immigrant culture(s) in a specific neighborhood. Did they see relationships between the culture of a specific group and the culture of their neighborhood-as-place? They will be guided by the affective aspects of the experience.

Class 4: Sharing the presentation. Students will practice oral presentation skills and reflect in class on the unit’s overall learning goal. They will journal to this prompt: How did this activity help you see relationships between a specific cultural group and place (how ethnic groups situate themselves in a neighborhood)? The homework will generate an explicit learning experience where students relate the unit back to their own neighborhood (and self). The homework incorporates metacognition since the students will be “teaching” (explaining to another person) what they learned in a new context. Homework will also involve selection of an artifact for a game for the next class. This little game will also help students to become more self-aware of their own intercultural knowledge.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

Between weeks 4 and 8. Provided this unit will be used in LIB/ARCH2205 which has longer class sessions, the entire class time will be used for all four sessions although the first class could be compressed into a shorter session of about 60-75 minutes. The other three classes will require the full two hours normally scheduled for this class. Time for assignments: Out of class time for class one: about 30 minutes; class four: about 30-60 minutes.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

Class one: no preparation. Tablets are needed for student work. For the two activities the instructions will be given on the worksheet and orally (see activity as attachment). For the homework, the instructions will be on OpenLab. Low stakes.

Class two: Observation prompt instructions will be given onsite to the students as a handout that will also have instructions for the production in class three. All instructions will also be added to the course site on OpenLab. Students need to shoot at least three photos but sketches are also permissible as a substitute. Students should record an audio note about why they shot the photograph and how it addresses the supplied prompts. They will also record at least two signature sounds of the neighborhood. We probably will lead the students all together initially for the first 30-60 minutes and then break them up into teams of three to explore on their own. Whether or not we’ll subdivide the neighborhood into discrete physical units for exploration will be determined.

Students should use their phones to record their observations as much as possible since written note taking is difficult in the field. Students are also reminded to be sensitive to anyone they are photographing or recording and to avoid any situation that might be construed as invasive. The activity is the high-stakes activity for the unit. Homework incorporates parts of the Learning Places site visit template and will be emailed to the instructor to avoid plagiarism. See Class Two details for instructions.

Class three: Instructions will be given in class on the white board. Students will break into teams of three where one student each is responsible for photos, audio, and artifacts. Students will copy their images and recordings to their laptops or tablets to integrate them into the PowerPoint template supplied by the instructors. Homework requires the students to work together to finalize their presentations.

Class four: Student teams will each have five minutes to present. After the presentation, each table of students not presenting will be prompted to ask the team who presented a good question. This will take at least 1 hour. [whether or not to have students use a rubric to grade each other is a big question]. The instructor will then discuss the student homework from the fieldtrip for 10 minutes followed by 5 minutes to discuss the upcoming homework. Next, students will spend 10 minutes on a journal reflection (see class description for details). Remaining class time can be spent in lecture preparing students for the next unit of the course.

Parts of the INTERCULTURAL KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCE VALUE rubric will be used for student work in classes 2-4, particularly the student presentations. Additionally, for the student presentations, elements of the VALUE rubric for INQUIRY AND ANALYSIS and ORAL COMMUNICATION will be selected, modified and simplified. Class one’s homework is too simple to apply the VALUE rubric for information literacy. It will relate to other assignments and products in LIB/ARCH2205.

No, this course is not part of the college-wide general education assessment initiative.

I can only speak to the Wikipedia module I teach to English 1101 and 1121. Students enjoy it but I haven’t yet turned it into an active-learning experience since 50 minutes is very brief. I will move this forward over the summer as I flesh out the teaching material for class one of this unit. The site observation, using a very different theme and template, was challenging for logistical reasons because students often were late and got lost. Students generally enjoy any place-based learning but ideally it needs foregrounding, repetition, and scaffolding to be truly robust.

Teaching outlines and materials for classes one and two are attached.

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

Class One: Wikipedia for Learning Places (70-90 minutes)
https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/mberger-portfolio/files/2019/06/wikipedia-for-learning-places-for-L4-deposit.pdf

CLASS 2 INTERCULTURAL PLACE-BASED LEARNING investigation / observation https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu/mberger-portfolio/files/2019/06/CLASS-2-INTERCULTURAL-PLACE.pdf

May 31, 2019

Designing the banks along the Newtown Creek

Marius Constantin

CET

Electromechanical Systems Lab

Activity Description: Provide a brief description of the activity

Each group of students will design and test their concepts of river banks along the Newtown Creek in Brooklyn.
This activity, which will be concluded as a final project at the end of the semester, is a partnership with Newtown Creek Alliance (NCA), a community-based organization dedicated to restoring, revealing and revitalizing this area in Brooklyn.

Learning Goals: What do you aim to achieve with this activity?

To increase the student engagement and learning I shall use the high-impact educational practice called “Collaborative Assignments and Projects” to facilitate learning and solving problems in the company of others and to encourage students with different cultural backgrounds and life experiences find a common outcome.
Students will become aware of the high potential this area can offer to the community and in the same time accomplishing the implementation of their engineering skills into a real and meaningful application.
The activity application is finding an engineering solution to prevent further erosion of the creek’s banks.

Timing: At what point in the lesson or semester do you use this activity? How much classroom time do you devote to it? How much out-of-class time is expected?

The activity will start on the third week, when a field trip to Newtown Creek is planned to take place. Starting the fourth week, students have to come up with a concept that will culminate with a real and tested design of the river banks in the last week of the semester.

Logistics: What preparation is needed for this activity? What instructions do you give students? Is the activity low-stakes, high-stakes, or something else?

This field trip is considered a low-stakes activity, where students will be introduced to the culture, vision and challenges NCA is facing.
During the first class meeting, among the usual routine, I will introduce to students the activity rollout:
– third week – field trip
– fourth week – defining the river banks structural form and determining the structural materials to be used
– in the following weeks the groups work on analyzing and testing their chosen design concept by computer simulating the forces at work, such as: gravity, river inertial load, torsional and shear stress, elasticity, strength and strain
– last week – final presentation

To assess students’ learning outcome I am going to use AACU’s rubric called “Intercultural Knowledge and Competence” to determine how effective they were in a variety of cultural contexts.
Students will be exposed to diverse cultural rules, differences and biases with the hope that they can exploit and utilize past experiences to make a better sense of the world around them. use
I will assess the students’ work posted on OpenLab throughout the semester to determine the extent they achieved the learning outcomes set for this course.
The types of assessment are:
– reflections; ask students to write reflections for each phase of the development posted on OpenLab
– formative; assess groups’ performances and against each other
– discussions; the groups will ask each other questions related to their design

This activity is planned to be implemented next semester.

Front

Please share a helpful link to a pages or post on the OpenLab

Category: Community/Civic Engagement

Group Communication Summative Assignment

Ethical Design: Evaluating Digital and IRL Experiences (and how one might support or hinder the other)

ECHOES

Reading, Diversity & Global Learning Student Project for English 1101 & 1121

Understanding Animations and Films Through a Deeper Cultural Understanding

Design Your Own Culture

Designing the banks along the Newtown Creek

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