Tag Archives: general education

Susan Phillip: Teaching Students about Urban Tourism On The Waterfront

Posted on by
Reply
Students in Professor Susan Phillip’s Urban Tourism class at the Highline

Students in Professor Susan Phillip’s Urban Tourism class at the Highline

The knotty issue of gentrification is one of many issues that students address in Professor Susan Phillip’s upper level Urban Tourism course (HMGT 4987) in the Department of Hospitality Management. Field trips around New York City are incorporated into the course that investigates tourism as an engine of urban renewal and economic regeneration. Class lectures, discussion, and research projects let students examine the roles of government, business, and community along with issues of development, environmental concerns, and social equity.

Following lectures on historical Brooklyn, students observe first hand the contrast of two neighborhoods in guided tours of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Heights. Students broaden their place-based experience with research projects that identify tourism resources and media perception of Brooklyn neighborhoods, in which they evaluate the roles of public and private sectors in urban tourism and in the revitalization of less affluent neighborhoods. Professor Phillip’s emphasis on helping students connect to the history of social change of local neighborhoods aligns with many General Education objectives that highlight ethics in learning and civic engagement. During field trips, residents have been known to interact with her class, pointing out local spots, recounting local lore, and even inviting the group into their residence. One group assignment is the development of a walking tour. You can see an example of a student walking tour of Downtown Brooklyn here: HMGT 4987 Student Downtown Brooklyn Walking Tour

Call for Fourth Year Fellows—Final Opportunity

Posted on by
Reply

A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology

GENERAL EDUCATION SEMINAR — Spring 2014

Call for Faculty Fellows                 Join us in the Living Lab

To apply, please complete the application form: http://tinyurl.com/genedseminar

Application Deadline: 1:00pm, Thursday, November 7, 2013

DOWNLOAD Information on the Living Lab Faculty Fellowship Application here

“A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology” is a five-year initiative (2010-2015) funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Strengthening Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Title V) program. Its mission is to re-envision General Education at City Tech as a “living laboratory,” using City Tech’s signature strengths: hands-on experiential models of learning and our vibrant Brooklyn Waterfront location.

We are seeking faculty members to join the General Education Seminar, one of the central activities of the Living Lab, in Spring 2014 and become part of a growing interdisciplinary community of Fellows who are enthusiastically engaged in this transformational effort.

The Gen Ed Seminar

Each year, 18 Faculty Fellows participate in an intensive seminar during the Spring semester, exploring innovative pedagogical approaches that they then incorporate into their courses in the Fall. In the second year of their participation, Fellows recruit and mentor colleagues, attend a series of workshop and events, and collaborate to produce a final report.

Three cohorts of Fellows have taken part in the Seminar to date – the first explored General Education concepts through the lens of the first-year student experience, the second examined collaborative field-based research and the third engaged in academic service learning.

The fourth, and final, cohort will address culminating experiences – capstone courses, internships, global learning (travel experiences), and other courses that focus on the last requirements for degree programs.

Among the questions seminar participants will consider are these:

– What changes can we make to culminating courses that will not just prepare our students to transfer their success at City Tech into careers and further studies but also support creative, original, and critical thinking through the use of high-impact educational practices?

– How can we use one of City Tech’s greatest assets — its location within the “living laboratory” of the downtown Brooklyn waterfront— to create hands-on, place-based learning opportunities with our students?

– How can we use the City Tech OpenLab, an open-source digital platform, to customize learning experiences for our students that will engage them in the intellectual fabric of our College and make their achievements visible to our own community and to the wider public?

The Living Lab Grant

“A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology” has four interrelated activities:

1) The General Education Seminar: brings together diverse groups of Faculty Fellows to revitalize General Education through place-based learning and high-impact educational practices;

2) The OpenLab (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu): creates an innovative digital platform to support open teaching and learning at City Tech, and enhance the intellectual and social fabric of the college community;

3) A Culture of Assessment: integrates comprehensive outcomes assessment into the Gen Ed curriculum;

4) The Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center: builds an endowment to support student and faculty research at this newly-created City Tech institution.

The Schedule

Spring 2014
Fellows will participate in weekly activities, attend public college-wide events, and plan capstone courses, internships or other culminating experiences of the associate or baccalaureate level programs they will teach in the Fall of 2014. Fellows will also commit to using the OpenLab actively for all seminar-related work and teaching. Participating faculty will receive a 3-credit course release during this semester.

Fall 2014
Fellows will implement what they have learned in their classrooms and on the OpenLab. Fellows will participate in four meetings or workshops.

Spring 2015
Fellows will mentor colleagues with the intent of applying seminar findings to additional courses and sections.

Fall 2015
After a thorough examination of both theory and implementation, the seminar cohort will write a final report with recommendations for specific courses and the broader vision of general education at City Tech.

Eligibility

To take part in the seminar, faculty must be:
– full time;
– able to make a two-year commitment (January 2014 through December 2015)
– available on Fridays in Spring 2014 to participate in grant activities; availability will also be required on several Fridays through Fall 2015;
– teaching a capstone course, internship or other culminating experience in Fall 2014; – willing to work in a highly collaborative environment;
– willing to use the OpenLab (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu) for all seminar-related activities and teaching (training and support will be provided);
– approved by their department chair.

Compensation

Faculty Fellows will receive 3-credits of release time during the Spring 2014 semester. Work done as part of this project is vital service to the College.

Application Process

Fellows will be chosen based on the strength of their statements of interest and their commitment to participate fully in all activities. We seek to convene a heterogeneous group of faculty members who bring intellectual vitality and a passion for teaching to City Tech.

To apply, please complete the application form: http://tinyurl.com/genedseminar

Application Deadline: 1:00pm, Thursday, November 7, 2013

Further Information
Please contact Karen Goodlad, Living Lab General Education Seminar Co-Director, at kgoodlad@citytech.cuny.edu or Alexander Aptekar, Living Lab General Education Seminar Co-Director at aaptekar@citytech.cuny.edu if you have questions or need additional information.

Collaborative Meeting, Collaborative Strategies

Posted on by
2

On Friday February 22 we held our third annual combined meeting of the City Tech General Education Committee and our Living Lab Seminar Fellows. Once again it was an exciting and productive opportunity for collaboration. We focused on small group discussions of questions that face both initiatives right now, centering on the topic of dissemination. How do we promote, share, and collaborate with faculty in our own departments and across the college to disseminate the work of the Gen Ed Committee and the Living Lab project? How can we institutionalize our lessons learned, and continue to learn with and from each other as we strive to improve our students’ educational experiences?

As part of the ongoing conversation about these important issues we thought it would be useful to all to post the notes taken during the meeting here. Please feel free to peruse them, and to use them as a jumping off point for your own conversations with colleagues!

During the first part of the meeting, faculty groups discussed the attributes of 1st and 3rd year students at City Tech and relevant General Education Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs). This year the Living Lab Seminar Fellows are working on strategies for their 1st and 3rd year courses.
Discussion 1 notes from all groups

During the second half of the meeting, the same faculty groups answered and discussed questions about the work of the collegewide General Education and Assessment Committees and the Living Lab Project, with a focus on strategies to further disseminate and implement these initiatives.
Discussion 2 notes from all groups

Mary Sue Donsky: Sketching for the Study of Estates, Wills, and Trusts

Posted on by
Reply
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Skull and Writing Quill, 1628

Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Skull and Writing Quill, 1628

Professor Mary Sue Donsky schedules field trips to art museums for students in her LAW 2301 Estates, Wills, and Trusts course.  On one recent trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she gave students a tour “Honoring Decedents in Art Across Time and Cultures” that used artifacts from the museum’s collection to highlight funerary-related traditions through history.  What’s a decedent?  For those unfamiliar with legal lingo, a decedent is a deceased person, a term used mainly in law.  During the field trip students were asked to sketch art that honors decedents such as grave markers or ancestor figures, or other examples of related artifacts, including sarcophagi, urns, and reliquaries.  Following the trip, students visited museum websites all over the world to “collect” objects for a class blog.  Professor Donsky effectively uses the skill of drawing to communicate the historical dimensions of the course.  Giving students the opportunity to sketch is a unique way to reinforce and broaden lessons learned in the class room, and suggests that perhaps we should consider drawing to be a Gen Ed skill.

Click here to see Professor Donsky’s class blog for photos from the field trip and examples of student sketches. 

Daniel Alter: Aesthetics and Dentistry

Posted on by
1
Student study of a tooth

Student study of a tooth

How do you directly address General Education objectives in a course on Tooth Morphology for a program in Restorative Dentistry? Professor Daniel Alter came up with creative means to overcome this conundrum by using the OpenLab to increase student participation and by assigning an interesting paper assignment.

Professor Alter’s class website is filled with handouts, videos, links to his powerpoint lectures, as well as instructions. In his paper assignment, students were asked to consider the perceptions of beauty in dental practice across diverse cultures. Students uploaded abstracts of their paper to the class site. Their introductions reflect the diverse level of cultural engagement with dental practice from Bali to Japan and South Africa. You can read examples of his students’ research here.

 

Matthew Gold: Is Drawing a Gen Ed Skill?

Posted on by
Reply
Michael Graves, sketch of Denver Central Library

Michael Graves, sketch of Denver Central Library

Some would argue that drawing is as important a skill as reading, writing, speaking, and thinking. In Professor Matthew Gold’s English Composition class Composing Abstractions, students discussed the status of drawing in an assignment. After reading Michael Graves’ “Architecture and the Lost Art of Drawing,” students were asked to summarize the key points and reflect on their reading.

Example of a Student Response

In assignments that took place in the classroom or at home , students were asked to think about architecture in a variety of ways, from “unphotographable moments” or through the lens of an adjective, i.e., “smooth” or “slimy.” Working in groups, students re-imagined and re-invented the Brooklyn skyline. See an example of “futuristic dreams” here.

Call for Third Year Fellows

Posted on by
Reply

A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology

GENERAL EDUCATION SEMINAR — Spring 2013

Join us in the Living Lab

DOWNLOAD the Living Lab Faculty Fellowship Application here

“A Living Laboratory: Revitalizing General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology” is a five-year initiative (2010-2015) funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Strengthening Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Title V) program. Its mission is to re-envision General Education at City Tech as a “living laboratory,” using City Tech’s signature strengths: hands-on experiential models of learning and our vibrant Brooklyn Waterfront location.

The grant has four interrelated activities:

1) The General Education Seminar: brings together diverse groups of Faculty Fellows to revitalize General Education through place-based learning and high-impact educational practices;

2) The OpenLab (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu): creates an innovative digital platform to support open teaching and learning at City Tech, and enhance the intellectual and social fabric of the college community;

3) A Culture of Assessment: integrates comprehensive outcomes assessment into the Gen Ed curriculum;

4) The Brooklyn Waterfront Research Center: builds an endowment to support student and faculty research at this newly-created City Tech institution.

We are seeking faculty members to join the General Education Seminar in Spring 2013 and become part of a growing interdisciplinary community of Fellows who are enthusiastically engaged in this transformational effort.

The Gen Ed Seminar

Each year, 18 Faculty Fellows participate in an intensive seminar during the Spring semester, exploring innovative pedagogical approaches that they then incorporate into their courses in the Fall. In the second year of their participation, Fellows recruit and mentor colleagues through a series of public workshops, events, and reports, and reflect on what they have learned.

Two cohorts have taken part in the Seminar to date – the first explored General Education concepts through the lens of the first-year student experience, the second examined collaborative field-based research.

The third cohort will address the first and third years of the student experience at City Tech, focusing on real-world problem-solving and community-based learning.

Among the questions seminar participants will consider are these:

– What changes can we make to the first- and third-year experience that will not just prepare our students to succeed at City Tech, but also support creative, original, and critical thinking through the use of high-impact educational practices?

– How can we use one of City Tech’s greatest assets — its location within the “living laboratory” of the downtown Brooklyn waterfront — to create hands-on, place-based learning opportunities with our students?

– How can we use the City Tech OpenLab, an open-source digital platform, to customize learning experiences for our students that will engage them in the intellectual fabric of our College and make their achievements visible to our own community and to the wider public?

The Schedule

Spring 2013
Fellows will participate in weekly activities, attend public college-wide events, and plan the first or third-year courses they will teach in Fall 2013. Fellows will also commit to using the OpenLab actively for all seminar-related work and teaching. Participating faculty will receive a 3-credit course release during this semester.

Fall 2013
Fellows will implement what they have learned in their classrooms and on the OpenLab.

Spring 2014
Fellows will mentor colleagues in their departments to apply seminar findings to additional courses and sections.

Fall 2014
After a thorough examination of both theory and implementation, the seminar cohort will write a final report with recommendations for specific courses and the broader vision of general education at City Tech.

Eligibility
To take part in the seminar, faculty must be:
– full time;
– able to make a two-year commitment (January 2013 through December 2014);
– available on Fridays in Spring 2013 to participate in grant activities; availability will also be required on several Fridays through Fall 2014;
– teaching a first- or third-year course in Fall 2013;
– willing to work in a highly collaborative environment;
– willing to use the OpenLab (https://openlab.citytech.cuny.edu) for seminar-related activities and teaching (training and support will be provided);
– approved by their department chair.

Compensation
Faculty Fellows will receive 3-credits of release time during the Spring 2013 semester.
Work done as part of this project is vital service to the College.

Application Process

Fellows will be chosen based on the strength of their statements of interest and their commitment to participate fully in all activities. We seek to convene a heterogeneous group of faculty members who bring intellectual vitality and a passion for teaching to this work.

To apply, please complete the application form: http://tinyurl.com/genedseminar

Application Deadline: 12pm, October 11, 2012

Further Information
Please contact Karen Goodlad, Living Lab General Education Seminar Co-Director, at kgoodlad@citytech.cuny.edu or x5638 if you have questions or need additional information.

Call for Second-Year Faculty Fellows

Posted on by
Reply

UPDATE: Our call for second-year faculty fellows is closed for this year. Please watch for news about their work, and consider applying to join us as a third-year fellow in Fall 2012.

New York City College of Technology of the City University of New York

A Living Laboratory: Redesigning General Education for a 21st-Century College of Technology
Title V Grant supported by the United States Department of Education

GENERAL EDUCATION SEMINARS — Spring 2012

Second-Year Seminar Description
Faculty Fellows will participate in an intensive seminar during the Spring 2012 semester aimed at exploring innovative pedagogical approaches and incorporating them into courses to be offered during the Fall 2012 semester. During the second year of the seminar, Fellows will be expected to share their work with colleagues throughout the college through a series of public workshops, events, and reports.

This seminar will concentrate particularly on the second year of the student experience at our College, a critical year for our students that focuses on collaborative assignments and projects, and associate degree capstones.

Among the questions seminar participants will consider are these:

  • What changes can we make to the second-year experience that will not just prepare our students to succeed at City Tech, but also support creative, original, and critical thinking?
  • How can we use one of City Tech’s greatest assets — its location within the “living laboratory” of the downtown Brooklyn waterfront — to create hands-on learning opportunities with our students?
  • How can we use social media and open-source digital platforms to customize learning experiences for our students that will make them more engaged with, and contribute to, the intellectual fabric of our College?
  • And how can we find ways to make that intellectual fabric more visible to our own community and to the wider public?

As seminar participants consider these and other questions, they will explore a variety of possible ways in which the second-year experience at City Tech might become a culminating moment of transformation for students and for the professors who teach and learn alongside them.

Compensation
Faculty Fellows will receive 3-credits of release time during the Spring 2012 semester. Work done as part of this project is vital service to the College as it reshapes its curriculum.

Eligibility
To take part in the seminar, faculty must be:
– full time.
– teaching a second-year course in fall 2012.
– available on Fridays to participate in grant activities.
– willing to work in a highly collaborative environment.
– willing to participate fully on an open digital platform (OpenLab).*
-willing to attend an OpenLab training workshop prior to the Spring semester (choice of dates TBD).
– able to make a two year commitment (December 2011 through January 2014).
– approved by their department chair.

Application
To apply, please complete the application form.

Application Deadline: 12pm, October 3, 2011

Further Information
Please contact Julia Jordan, Acting Director of the Faculty Commons, at jjordan@citytech.cuny.edu or x5637 if you have questions or need additional information.